Gap Up In A Long Term Trending Market

The S&P today gapped up and although it finished off it's highs, printed an unfulfilled gap on the daily chart. Looking back for times where the S&P has done this in a long term trending market (defined by the S&P trading above it's 200 MA), we find 26 previous occurrences since 1980. In 21 cases, or 81% of the time, the S&P was trading higher within two days.

Ticker	Date/Time	Close	2Day+	%Chg N1	%Chg N2
SP500	11/5/1980	131.33	0.00	-1.84	-1.64
SP500	9/14/1982	123.10	1.00	0.97	0.54
SP500	10/7/1982	128.80	1.00	1.75	4.40
SP500	11/26/1982	134.88	2.00	-0.50	2.71
SP500	12/7/1982	142.72	0.00	-0.63	-1.91
SP500	2/24/1983	149.60	1.00	0.09	-1.03
SP500	3/2/1983	152.30	1.00	0.77	0.90
SP500	4/11/1983	155.14	1.00	0.44	1.05
SP500	5/4/1983	163.31	1.00	0.59	1.71
SP500	6/14/1983	165.53	1.00	0.96	2.18
SP500	6/30/1983	167.64	1.00	0.60	-0.62
SP500	7/1/1983	168.64	0.00	-1.21	-0.09
SP500	10/6/1983	170.28	1.00	0.31	1.39
SP500	10/7/1983	170.80	1.00	1.08	-0.27
SP500	10/25/1983	166.47	0.00	-0.65	-0.98
SP500	8/3/1984	162.35	1.00	0.15	0.23
SP500	6/13/1986	245.73	1.00	0.16	-0.56
SP500	6/12/1992	409.76	1.00	0.13	-0.35
SP500	12/18/1992	441.28	0.00	-0.13	-0.22
SP500	10/17/1996	706.99	1.00	0.54	0.40
SP500	9/26/2007	1,525.42	1.00	0.39	0.09
SP500	10/29/2007	1,540.98	2.00	-0.65	0.55
SP500	6/1/2009	942.87	1.00	0.20	-1.18
SP500	7/15/2009	932.68	1.00	0.86	0.83
SP500	8/21/2009	1,026.13	2.00	-0.05	0.18
SP500	9/8/2009	1,025.39	1.00	0.78	1.83
SP500	10/8/2009	1,065.48	0.00	0.00	0.00

Of course, should this occur tomorrow, it may set us up for an ST sell based on the study discussed here (Higher Close after Clean Gap Up - Short term negative)