Here are some mind-blowing figures for you. In the 15 trading days since the start of October, the S&P 500 is on pace to close at a record high for the 10th time. Further, if the S&P 500 finishes up on the day Friday, it will be the 19th time that the index has closed at a record high since the start of September; a period covering 35 trading days. Keep in mind when reading these figures that all of these record highs have come at a time of year when stocks are typically at their weakest.
With all of these new highs piling up, 2017 is making a run for the record books in terms of the most record closing highs for a given year. Already, 2017 is tied for the fifth most closing highs on record (dating back to 1929), and provided we don’t see any major pullbacks, with two months left in the year, there’s the potential for more. For example, if the rest of the year goes along at the same pace as the first ten months (a big if given that new highs tend to come in bunches), 2017 is on pace to see 61 record closing highs for the S&P 500. That would rank as the third most for any given year behind only 1995 (77) and 1964 (65). Not only were both of those years good for bulls, but the years that followed them were also positive with a gain of 9.1% in 1965 and 20.3% in 1996. With 47 trading days left in 2017, surpassing the record of 77 back in 1995 would be an extremely tall task, but a move into the third spot is certainly possible.
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