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Monday’s trading session was a bloodbath for the market as all major indices slid more than 3%, but if history is any indication, Tuesday might prove to be a different story entirely.
According to Bespoke Investment Group, Monday was the 19th time the S&P 500 has shed more than 2% on a Monday, going back to March 2009. In the prior instances, following a hefty slide the index has, on average, returned 1.02% the next day as these drops have “historically been bought with a vengeance in the near term,” the firm said.
Bespoke found that in 17 out of the 18 prior instances the S&P 500 also had a positive return over the subsequent week, with an average gain of 3.16%. Over the next month, there was an average gain of 6.08%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 3.56%, or 1,031 points on Monday, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell 3.35% and 3.71%, respectively.
Slicing the data even further, Bespoke found that when the S&P 500 drops more than 1% on Friday and more than 2% the following Monday — as the index has currently done — Tuesday’s gain is, on average, slightly higher at 1.5%. The following week’s gain stands at 3.98%, on average, with the subsequent month’s gain coming in at 6.47%.
Since the SPY, which tracks the S&P 500, began trading in 1993, it has only fallen more than 1% on a Friday and more than 2% the following Monday 13 other times. The last instance was in December 2018.
Monday’s sell-off was sparked by a surge in reported coronavirus cases outside of China, fueling fears of a prolonged global economic slowdown.
“The fact that the market is down a lot like this today I don’t think is surprising given that people are rightly concerned that it may be spreading,” Bespoke’s Paul Hickey said Monday on CNBC’s “Power Lunch.” “We don’t know where it will go, and that’s the problem … as data comes in, only time will tell.”
He said that data out of China cannot be 100% trusted, meaning that data coming out of other countries is being closely watched, which is why the increase in cases from Italy and South Korea, for example, “rightfully” freaked out many investors.
“If we go tonight and there’s not another big escalation of cases, I think you could just as easily see the market up strongly tomorrow on some relief,” he said.
– CNBC’s Nate Rattner and Jesse Pound contributed reporting.
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