Historical Data Flashes 'Extremely Rare' Sign Suggesting Stocks Are Headed Higher

by Adam Eckert Benzinga Staff Writer

Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist for Carson Group, is calling a bottom in equity markets.

What Happened: Tuesday on CNBC’s “Worldwide Exchange,” Detrick presented data that suggests the market may have bottomed last week.

In a post-election year, markets tend to be weak throughout the first quarter. It actually ends up being one of the worst quarters throughout the entire four-year election cycle, Detrick said. Markets are always choppy in the early part of the year coming off a 20% gain, he added.

Over the last 20 years, the S&P 500 has bottomed on March 12 on average, he said.

“We just bottomed on March 13,” Detrick said. “No, you never blindly invest on just seasonality, but it made sense to us.”

Detrick highlighted a strong data point that he believed shows the S&P 500 likely bottomed last week and could be poised to rally. Over the past two days, more than 90% of all the stocks in the S&P 500 traded higher, which is “extremely rare,” he said.

Detrick noted this has only happened 11 times since 1972. Every other time the S&P 500 saw bullish momentum across 90% of stocks for two days in a row, the index was higher six months later. When looking out a year later, the index was significantly higher every time, he added.

“It is what it is. What we’ve just seen the last two days very well could be saying we’re trying to make a pretty significant low and we might rally,” Detrick said.

The S&P 500 officially closed in correction territory last week, marking the fastest market correction decline since March 2020. Detrick noted expectations are very low and even “decent” news could kickstart an upswing. The one thing the market doesn’t like is uncertainty, he said.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY was down 1.11% at $560.79 at the time of publication Tuesday, according to Benzinga Pro.

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