Anyone who traded through the bear market of the 2000-2003 knows that it was marked with sharp selloffs and sharper reversals. Moves lower were short and violent and moves back up were much the same. Since early May the market has sold off in a way that has rarely been seen since Reagan entered the White House.

The S&P 500 and Dow have both closed below their 10-day moving averages for 19 days in a row. Unless the S&P rises over 2.7% tomorrow and closes above 1295.57, then it will mark 20 days for that one. I looked back to 1960 to see all other times the S&P closed below its 10-day moving average for at least 20 days in a row. Below is the list.

1/29/62
4/17/62
5/22/62
6/14/65
3/15/66
11/8/67
2/13/68
1/10/69
6/16/69
12/11/69
2/6/70
5/1/70
5/27/71
8/9/71
2/9/73
11/27/73
4/15/74
1/31/77
3/14/80
2/9/84
2/12/03

What we seem to be experiencing is a selloff similar to those that occurred in the 60’s and 70’s, but not since.

The selloff in financials has been more than twice as long. KBE and RKH, two bank ETF’s, have now closed below their 10-day moving averages for 40 days in a row. The last day they closed above it was May 6th. Since that time RKH has lost 29.9% and KBE 33.5%. I am unable to find any other ETF that has ever traded below its 10-day moving average for 40 days. EWW (Mexico) came close when it went 39 days in 1998. While the history for many ETF’s is limited, the persistency of this selloff is quite incredible.