Bullish Relationship Between S&P and Nasdaq 100 Relative Performance

The study presented yesterday that argued for a lower close based on the relative performance between the BXK and the S&P was successfully fulfilled today. Interestingly, today we have a similar study that argues for a higher close based on the relative performance between the Nasdaq 100 and the S&P. Both The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 finished lower today, however the S&P underperformed by more than 0.5%. Over the past decade, there have been 74 similar occurrences. In 61 cases (or 82.4% of the time) , the S&P 500 was trading higher within 3 days. In 57 cases (or 77%), the S&P was trading higher within two days. That is still notably better than the 65% random odds of a higher close within 2 days. The table below shows all occurrences since 2007.

(Note: column '3Day+' displays the number of days it took the S&P to close higher within the next 3 days. a value of 0 indicates the market did not close higher within 3 days)

Ticker	Date/Time	Close	S&P %Chg	NDX %Chg	3Day+	%Chg N1	%Chg N2	%Chg N3
SP500	10/20/2009	1,091.06	-0.62	-0.03	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
SP500	7/2/2009	896.42	-2.91	-2.37	1.00	0.26	-1.72	-1.88
SP500	6/3/2009	931.76	-1.37	-0.33	1.00	1.15	0.89	0.79
SP500	5/27/2009	893.06	-1.90	-0.76	1.00	1.54	2.92	5.58
SP500	5/15/2009	882.88	-1.14	-0.34	1.00	3.04	2.86	2.33
SP500	4/27/2009	857.51	-1.01	-0.24	2.00	-0.27	1.88	1.78
SP500	4/20/2009	832.39	-4.28	-3.29	1.00	2.13	1.34	2.35
SP500	4/14/2009	841.50	-2.01	-1.07	1.00	1.25	2.83	3.34
SP500	4/6/2009	835.48	-0.83	-0.23	3.00	-2.39	-1.24	2.52
SP500	3/30/2009	787.53	-3.48	-2.45	1.00	1.31	2.99	5.95
SP500	3/20/2009	768.54	-1.98	-1.41	1.00	7.08	4.89	5.90
SP500	3/19/2009	784.04	-1.30	-0.23	2.00	-1.98	4.96	2.82
SP500	3/5/2009	682.55	-4.25	-3.22	1.00	0.12	-0.88	5.43
SP500	3/2/2009	700.82	-4.66	-3.61	2.00	-0.64	1.72	-2.61
SP500	2/27/2009	735.09	-2.36	-0.90	0.00	-4.66	-5.27	-3.02
SP500	2/17/2009	789.17	-4.56	-4.03	0.00	-0.10	-1.30	-2.42
SP500	2/13/2009	826.84	-1.00	-0.48	0.00	-4.56	-4.65	-5.79
SP500	2/10/2009	827.16	-4.91	-4.09	1.00	0.80	0.97	-0.04
SP500	2/4/2009	832.23	-0.75	-0.02	1.00	1.64	4.37	4.53
SP500	1/29/2009	845.14	-3.31	-2.59	0.00	-2.28	-2.33	-0.78
SP500	12/9/2008	888.67	-2.31	-1.03	1.00	1.19	-1.70	-1.01
SP500	12/1/2008	816.21	-8.93	-7.98	1.00	3.99	6.68	3.55
SP500	11/20/2008	752.44	-6.71	-4.70	1.00	6.32	13.21	13.95
SP500	11/6/2008	904.88	-5.03	-4.46	1.00	2.89	1.58	-0.66
SP500	10/22/2008	896.78	-6.10	-3.61	1.00	1.26	-2.23	-5.34
SP500	10/17/2008	940.55	-0.62	-0.10	1.00	4.77	1.54	-4.65
SP500	10/10/2008	899.22	-1.18	-0.42	1.00	11.58	10.99	0.96
SP500	10/9/2008	909.92	-7.62	-4.17	2.00	-1.18	10.27	9.68
SP500	9/23/2008	1,188.22	-1.56	-1.05	2.00	-0.20	1.76	2.11
SP500	9/15/2008	1,192.70	-4.71	-3.49	1.00	1.75	-3.04	1.16
SP500	9/9/2008	1,224.51	-3.41	-2.35	1.00	0.61	2.00	2.22
SP500	8/12/2008	1,289.59	-1.21	-0.01	2.00	-0.29	0.26	0.67
SP500	8/7/2008	1,266.07	-1.79	-0.80	1.00	2.39	3.10	1.86
SP500	7/31/2008	1,267.38	-1.31	-0.20	3.00	-0.56	-1.45	1.38
SP500	7/24/2008	1,252.54	-2.31	-1.55	1.00	0.42	-1.45	0.85
SP500	5/23/2008	1,375.93	-1.32	-0.30	1.00	0.68	1.08	1.62
SP500	3/12/2008	1,308.77	-0.90	-0.33	1.00	0.51	-1.58	-2.46
SP500	3/7/2008	1,293.37	-0.84	-0.29	2.00	-1.55	2.11	1.19
SP500	2/28/2008	1,367.68	-0.89	-0.30	0.00	-2.71	-2.66	-2.99
SP500	1/17/2008	1,333.25	-2.91	-1.61	3.00	-0.60	-1.71	0.40
SP500	11/15/2007	1,451.15	-1.32	-0.69	1.00	0.52	-1.23	-0.79
SP500	11/1/2007	1,508.44	-2.64	-1.87	1.00	0.08	-0.42	0.78
SP500	7/26/2007	1,482.66	-2.33	-1.22	0.00	-1.60	-0.59	-1.85
SP500	7/10/2007	1,510.12	-1.42	-0.87	1.00	0.57	2.49	2.81

What's interesting about this is even when both the S&P and NDX are significantly lower (more than -2%), the under performance of the S&P by just .5% still provides a positive edge.