How To Guide For: A Look At The S&P 500 -- What's Going On

The Standard & Poor's 500 (S&P 500) is an American stock market index based on the market capitalizations of 500 large companies having common stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ. The S&P 500 index components and their weightings are determined by S&P Dow Jones Indices. So whats going on with the S&P 500. It has been falling. It has now fallen nine consecutive days. Over the nine days the S&P 500 decline is at 3.1%. The last time that this happened was December 1980. According to The Wall Street Journal "Tightening polls in the presidential election have dragged down stocks and pushed Wall Street’s “fear gauge” to its longest-ever stretch of gains. Investors also are grappling with a possible rise in U.S. interest rates next month and a renewed fall in oil prices". According to several reports every single time the losing streak ended after the ninth day, the market was up during the three and six months that followed. To get more in depth information on whats going on with the S&P 500 click the pictures below to read the articles.