An Amazing String of Market Events

How often does today's market touch yesterday's average price? Since March, 2003, we've hit the prior day's average price 65% of the time in SPY. Since February, 2006, however, we've touched the prior day's average price 76% of the time. That shows we've been much more rangebound day to day.

Now for the amazing string: We've hit the prior day's average price 13 days running. Every day during that period, all you've needed to do near the open is see if the market is above or below its previous day's average price and fade the strength or weakness.

My numbers tell me that, while the string of 13 is unusual, the tendency of such occasions to cluster is not unusual. Rangebound markets tend to stay that way for a while, thanks to persistence of (low) volatility. Lots of good trade ideas just from that concept.