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Comparing the 1995 Rally with Today

SP:SPX   S&P 500 Index
The late 1990s saw one of the most famous bull markets of all time. Are there comparisons between that historic moment and today?

Today’s idea attempts to answer that question with three indicators.

First is Wilder’s Relative Strength Index (RSI), which remained above 50 throughout almost the entire calendar year of 1995. Similar moments in history marked the beginning of longer-term rallies. Examples include May 1942-July 1943, July 1949-June 1950, October 1953-June 1954, April 1958-November 1958 and August 1982-June 1983.

Notice how the index’s RSI is now potentially behaving similarly.

Second is the 9-day Rate of Change oscillator, which has been mostly positive since early November. (That essentially means that investors buying a close on the index were mostly profitable two weeks later.) Notice how ROC stayed above 0 for almost all of 1995.


Third, SPX found support at its 21-day exponential moving average (EMA) in late 1994. It stayed above that EMA almost without interruption until the following August. This pattern, which may reflect a short-term uptrend, is reappearing today.

Apart from these technical considerations, some investors may find thematic similarities between 1995 and the present. For example, both have growth from new technology: Internet in 1995 and AI today. Both followed periods of gloom and interest-rates hikes.

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