The S&P 500 was struggling in intraday trading to break a streak of negative readings across the index for all of Thursday. On the past nine Thursdays, the index has ended in the red. This is the longest record dating back to the 1980s. If the benchmark falls and ends the session on a low note, a total of 10 negative streaks would be the longest on record for a weekday. The market has traded in a fairly consistent pattern since the Iran war began. Prices rallied at the beginning of the week on hopes of an end to the war, but that positive outlook faded and selling resumed over the weekend. “We were optimistic at the beginning of the week, but later in the week we were struck by the reality that we were not as close to ending the conflict as we thought,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group. Markets initially fell on Thursday after President Donald Trump failed to offer a clear path to ending the Iran war Wednesday night. At the low of the session, the S&P 500 was down 1.5%. However, stocks were able to offset much of the decline following reports that Iran and Oman were developing ways to “monitor” traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. Weekly trading patterns are backed by data. Bespoke Investment Group noted in a post on X that the S&P 500 index has lost an average of 0.28% on Thursdays this year. Friday is also on average negative, but Monday through Wednesday it is positive on average. “It’s certainly an incredible streak,” Bespoke co-founder Paul Hickey said of Thursday’s trend in an email to CNBC. He added that Friday’s relative weakness also shows that investors are unwilling to take on too much risk heading into the weekend amid geopolitical uncertainty. “As long as the U.S. military has a large and building presence in the Middle East and Iran says, ‘Go for it,’ I expect this pattern to continue in the short term,” Hickey said.
