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President Bill Clinton (L) gets saluted by basketball star Shaquille O'Neal during his visit to a youth center in Santa Ana, California, September 22. Clinton and O'Neal presented a $1 million check to the Boys and Girls Club of America for its "Youth of the Year Winner
Tuesday marked the 105th consecutive day that the S&P 500 did not close down by 1% or more. That's 105 straight days of either closing up, or seeing a drop of less than 1%.
The last time this happened was in 1995, according to Ryan Detrick, Senior Market Strategist at LPL Financial.
Stocks rallied following the November election of President Donald Trump as investors considered the possibility of deregulation, fiscal stimulus, and tax cuts.
At the beginning of 2017, several market strategists, including Raymond James' Jeff Saut, argued that the bull market had transitioned from being interest rate-driven to being earnings driven. Whatever the causes, stocks have continued climbing, with the Dow blowing through 21,000 after a more measured tone in Trump's speech to Congress on February 28.
Some investors have started pointing to potential warning signs. Michael Paulenoff, president of Pattern Analytics, previously told Business Insider's Frank Chaparro that there are some indications that a correction is on the horizon such as the declining volume in the stock market. Andy Kiersz/Business Insider
However, others don't think that the unvolatile index is in it of itself a scary sign.
"The lack of volatility is historic in its own right, but is it bearish? History would say we can expect more volatility eventually, but this doesn't mean to be on the lookout for a major correction either," Detrick said in commentary on Tuesday.
"In fact, after a streak of 100 or more days without a 1% drop has ended, the S&P 500 has been up a very impressive median return of 14.4% a year later and higher 75% of the time. In other words, a lack of big down days or a lack of volatility by itself isn't a warning sign."
In any case, as always, we must emphasize that the past does not predict the future. So, the fact that something has happened in the past does not mean that it will happen today, nor does it mean that it won't happen.
That is, where the market is going in the next days, weeks, and months is impossible to predict with any certainty.