The Count of the Market

The Trend of the Market

S. & P. 500 Loses 0.6 Per Cent on the Week—Cumulative Advance-Decline Line 22,196 Issues Below August Peak—New Lows Exceed New Highs Ninth Week—The Week’s Count All but Even

By the Editor

The S. & P. 500 finished the week at 7,580.07, down 0.6 per cent, 3.0 per cent below its high for the year of 7,811.54, set Oct. 9. The cumulative advance-decline line made its peak on August 14 at 13,282. In the eleven weeks since, it has given back 22,196 issues, and it now stands at −8,914, below its starting point.

The week’s own count was nearly even: 5,658 issues advanced and 5,440 declined. Breadth did not confirm the week’s decline.

The Nasdaq Composite fared worse, falling 2.0 per cent to 25,437.00, more than three times the loss in the S. & P. Even on the Nasdaq’s own list, declines led advances only modestly. The selling fell heaviest on the largest issues, which weigh most in the averages but count for no more than one apiece in the tally.

New
Lows

New lows have outnumbered new highs in each of the last nine weeks. This week the exchanges recorded 690 new highs against 1,634 new lows. The ten-week average of issues advancing is 41.0 per cent, up from 39.8 a week ago.

Market Charts

The Price of the Market Against the Count of the Market

— Weekly, January 2, 2026 – October 30, 2026 —

Fig. 1.—S. & P. 500 weekly close, drawn as an open ribbon (above), and the cumulative advance-decline line for all U.S. exchanges (below), with readings under zero on the stippled ground, January 2, 2026 to October 30, 2026. Since August 14 the index has lost 2.6 per cent while the line has fallen 22,196 issues.

Per Cent of Issues Advancing

Fig. 2.—Weekly share of issues that advanced, measured from 50 per cent. Hatched bars mark up weeks for the average stock, open bars on the stippled ground mark down weeks. The heavy line is the ten-week average.

New Highs Less New Lows

Fig. 3.—Weekly new 52-week highs minus new lows, all exchanges. Below the line every week since September 4. The heavy line is the four-week average.

MARKET STATISTICS

	S. & P. 500		Advances & Declines			New
	Close	Change	Net	Cumulative	Pct. Adv.	Highs	Lows	Tone

The last eight weeks. Tone compares the week’s breadth with the week’s price move. Back numbers for all 44 weeks since January 2, 2026 are on file.

From the Editor

Why We Call It the Count of the Market

A Note on Col. Leonard P. Ayres, 1879–1946, and the Daily Tally He Began

Leonard Ayres served as chief statistician of the Army in the First World War. He later became vice president and economist of the Cleveland Trust Company, where he wrote its monthly Business Bulletin. With his assistant, James F. Hughes, he kept a daily tally of how many stocks rose and how many fell. He called it the count of the market.

“I think this will make an interesting stock market statistic.”AYRES TO HUGHES, AS HUGHES RECALLED IT IN 1951

The average tells you how far the market moved. The count tells you how many stocks went along. This publication keeps that count every week, in the manner Ayres began it.