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Wall Street History
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09/05/2003
Miscellaneous Data
I thought I’d throw out some statistics that may be of interest to
more than a few of you market junkies. Next week I’ll start a
piece on the Wright brothers.
September / October
While September is historically the worst month in terms of
market performance, October is known for its own debacles as
well as the establishment of key market bottoms. Following are
the closing figures for the S&P 500 the past few years,
incorporating both ‘up’ and ‘down’ periods.
1997
8/28 ..899
10/31 914
1998
8/31 ..957
10/30...1098
1999
8/31 .1320
10/29...1366
2000
8/31 .1517
10/31...1429
2001
8/31. 1133
10/31...1059
2002
8/30 ..916
10/31 885
2003
8/29 .1008
10/31 ..?..
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Key Market Dates and Index Figures
Following are the levels for the Dow Jones, Tokyo Nikkei,
London FT-SE, and Frankfurt DAX at various market tops in
2000, as well as the October 2002 lows.
1/14/00 Dow Jones hits its all-time high of 11722.
DJ – 11722 Nikkei – 18956 FT-SE – 6658 DAX – 7173
3/10/00 Nasdaq closes at all-time high of 5048. There was a
huge divergence between the Dow and Nasdaq at this point, with
the Dow down 13.6% year to date, while Nasdaq was up 24.1%.
Historic.
DJ – 9928 Nikkei – 19750 FT-SE – 6568 DAX – 7975
3/24/00 S&P 500 hits its all-time high of 1527.
DJ – 11112 Nikkei – 19958 FT-SE – 6738 DAX – 7932
9/1/00 Folks forget that the markets recovered in a big way
following the spring’s “issues.” In my way of thinking, this is
the real ‘top,’ and we’ve obviously just passed the 3-year
anniversary. Aside from the Dow Jones closing at 11238, the
S&P 500 was at 1520 (just 7 points from its peak) and Nasdaq
had rebounded to 4234.
DJ – 11238 Nikkei – 16739 FT-SE – 6795 DAX – 7344
**Interestingly, all four of the above key market dates were
Fridays.
10/4/02 I only have weekly closing figures on the foreign
indices, but on 10/9 the Dow and S&P bottomed at 7286 and
776, respectively.
DJ – 7528 Nikkei – 9027 FT-SE – 3813 DAX – 2714
8/29/03 the comeback. S&P 1008, Nasdaq 1810.
DJ – 9415 Nikkei – 10343 FT-SE – 4161 DAX – 3484
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Steel
Some of you know I have been keeping the production figures
for steel (as found weekly in Barron’s) since March 1990.
They’re literally handwritten on spreadsheets (along with other
market minutiae).
While steel is but one of many key indicators of economic
strength, at worst it can help confirm trends. And so it is that I
am struck by the numbers for the recent period, which are
trending down even as the overall economy is improving.
Forget the gross #’s (000’s tons), because they are subject to
many different factors, such as trade issues. It’s the trend that is
sometimes important.
July / August 1997
2043 2080 2056 2046 1983 1922 2029 2027 2171
July / August 1998
1888 1968 2010 1962 2013 2066 2061 2120 2127
July / August 1999
1971 1986 1900 1948 1982 1885 2014 2009 1995
July / August 2000
2243 2242 2125 2097 2168 2149 2015 2068 2067
July / August 2001
1853 1853 1784 1917 1851 1885 1833 1871 1817
July / August 2002
1922 1920 1918 1928 2126 1988 2014 1944 2010
July / August 2003
1899 1880 1998 1948 1903 1887 1823 1786 1723
So, again, I don’t know if the above data for 2003 truly means
anything, and the recent and projected numbers for GDP would
certainly argue that it doesn’t, but it’s been filed away in the
brain, along with bull / bear sentiment readings, P/E ratios and
interest rates.
Wall Street History returns September 12.
Brian Trumbore
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