Springing Higher

Equity markets around the world are kicking off the new quarter right where they left off in Q1. In Asia, stocks are once again back to “Monday Rally Mode” as stronger than expected PMI data in China has provided a boost. Meanwhile, in Europe equities are higher following weaker than expected PMI data. Finally, in the US futures are up over 0.5% and holding onto those gains even after weaker than expected Retail Sales data for February.

With just under an hour to go before the second quarter kicks off, we wanted to highlight one last aspect of Q1 that warrants mentioning. Throughout the quarter, we frequently highlighted the market’s strong breadth here in the US (and many other places around the world). With that breadth holding up throughout the first three months of the year, the S&P 500’s cumulative A/D line for the entire quarter went down as the strongest going back to at least 1990 when our records begin.

The chart below shows the S&P 500’s cumulative A/D readings for each quarter going back to 1990. Not only was this quarter the strongest, but besides the first quarter of 2013, it wasn’t even really close as no other quarters even had a cumulative A/D line greater than 3,500!