A rare buy signal that was generated on April 5 by a trend-following indicator with a good long-term record. Prior to the recent buy signal, there had been only 12 of them since 1967.
And two of those 12 prior buy signals occurred in the last 12 months alone. In other words, between 1967 and March 2009, this indicator gave just 10 buy signals -- an average of just one every 4.3 years. Since March 2009, in contrast, they have averaged once every four months or so.
The indicator in question comes from Ned Davis Research, the quantitative research firm. It generates a buy signal whenever the percentage of common stocks trading above their 50-day moving averages rises above 90%. Davis refers to such events as a "breadth thrust."
The recent buy signal, according to this indicator, occurred on April 5. The other buy signals over the last year occurred on May 4 and Sep. 16 of last year.
How has the stock market performed following past buy signals? Quite well, according to Davis' calculations
| Period after buy signal | Average return of S&P 500 | Worst experience | Best experience |
| Next month | 4.6% | 1.1% | 11.1% |
| Next quarter | 8.2% | 0.4% | 13.7% |
| Next 6 months | 13.1% | 4.9% | 24.3% |
| Next year | 19.7% | 11.6% | 33.9% |
It's worth noting, furthermore, that unlike many other trend-following indicators that have been biased upwards in recent years by the increasing number of interest-rate sensitive issues, Davis' calculations are based on a subset of stocks that eliminates closed-end funds, bond funds, exchange-traded funds, and the like.
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