Monday’s action was somewhat unusual in that the market rose by such a large amount while volume came in so low. I’ve looked a low-volume rises a number of ways. One set of studies that is popping up again is the 10/14/2008 blog post. There I looked at strong Nasdaq moves that were accompanied by the lowest volume in 5 days. I have updated those studies below:
Indications are for weakness in the days following such an occurrence. I also looked at 3% moves.
The larger % gains showed even worse performance.
Of course Monday wasn’t just a 5-day low in Nasdaq volume, it was the lowest level in over a month. This has only happened 4 other times. Below I list all the occurrences of a 20-day low in volume accompanying a 3% Nasdaq index rise. The exits shown below are simply a 5-day exit.