Here's What Stocks Do After Hitting Brand New Highs - Often It's Not Very Good

With the Dow hitting brand new all-time highs yesterday, there's a lot of discussion about what's next.

We've already seen a long-term take from Jeremy Siegel, who argues that Dow 18,000 is reasonably likely by the end of next year.

For a more short-term, trading-oriented look, here's some analysis from BTIG's Dan Greenhaus, writing in his "Bedtime With BTIG" note last night.

What matters for our clients though is not some numerical level (ignoring that the real price is ~10% below current levels) or an analysis of realized/unrealized gains but solely whether further gains lay ahead. On that front, the table below is a bit interesting. We took a look at previous instances in which new highs were made and what kind of performance immediately ensued. As you can see, it’s not always good and in fact, nearly two months later, equities are, on average, only barely higher, taken nearly nowhere. History doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme and after rallying 15% from November’s low, is a flat-to-down two months really so bad? We don’t think so.