S&P 500 Close to a Record Stretch Without a Stock Hitting a High

(Bloomberg) -- The S&P 500 Index is up almost 10 percent in the two weeks since the Christmas Eve massacre. What it hasn’t seen in that time span is a breakout star.

Illustrating just how deep, widespread and painful the end of 2018 was for U.S. equity investors, no stock in the index has reached a new 52-week high in 14 trading days, tied for the longest stretch on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg going back to 1990.

The benchmark gauge remains 12 percent below the all-time high it reached Sept. 20 after suffering from the worst December since the Great Depression. Investors have been somewhat soothed by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s remarks Jan. 4 that policy makers would be sensitive to the message that markets were sending about downside risks.

CenterPoint Energy Inc. was the last index member to set a new high when it traded at $29.63 on Dec. 17. The previous longest star-less streak ended on May 28, 2009, two months after the S&P 500 Index bottomed following the 2008 market crash.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brandon Kochkodin in New York at bkochkodin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Weisenthal at jweisenthal@bloomberg.net, Brendan Walsh, Julia Leite

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