As the S&P 500 closed 3.5% lower in January, the focus is likely to be on the January Barometer. The phenomenon was first discussed in 1972 by Yale Hirsch, founder of the Stock Trader’s Almanac. It simply states “that as the S&P 500 goes in January, so goes the year.“
According to CNBC (see data), it has been right in 62 of the past 85 years or 73% of the time and over the past 35 years it has been right 71% of the time. Using the S&P 500 data, it has had five misses since 2000. I think these patterns, like the seasonal data, needs to be in agreement with the technical studies like the market internals. Therefore I wondered whether the NYSE Advance/Decline, the most reliable stock market indicator, might have given one advance warning of these past misses.
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