The market’s relatively boring start to the year could foreshadow a potentially strong finish in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and index-related exchange traded funds.
Year-to-date, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSEArca: DIA), which tracks the Dow Jones Industrial Average, rose 3.6%.
The Dow is trading in its tightest range for the first half of the year ever, CNBC reports.
“If you look at the high-to-low range for the Dow Jones industrial average for the first half of this year, as of now it’s just over 6 percent,” technical analyst Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at MKM Partners, said on CNBC.
The technical analyst argues that the slow start could portend positive performance as other periods of subdued volatility preceded gains in stocks for the rest of the year.
“Since 1896 there’s been 19 times that the Dow has traded in a range of less than 10 percent high to low,” Krinsky said. “Thirteen of those 19 times the Dow went on to gains in the second half of the year, and only three times of those 19, the Dow closed negative.”