Last-Minute Rally

With one and a half hours left in today's session, the S&P 500 rose from its intraday low of 860 to 908 at the close. That's a 5.6% intraday move to close the session up 1.26%. That's quite an impressive rally, but how was volume and breadth?


The chart above shows NYSE volume was much heavier today than the past couple days. The bottom portion of the chart shows today's volume relative to yesterday.

Cumulative volume compared to yesterday increased steadily all day, as stocks fell, until the last couple hours of trading. This suggests buying was sparse even though the price movement was strong.

Further, breadth was not at all impressive: declining issues outnumbered advances on both the NYSE (2,152/1,291) and NASDAQ (2,032/824).