Global stock market moving averages: Tide lifts some ships more than others

By Prieur du Plessis, on January 12th, 2012 posted in: Investment, Stocks

I often use the 50-day moving average as an indicator of the secondary trend of a stock market, and the 200-day moving average as an indicator of the key primary trend. Specifically, one would like to see a stock market index trading above both these measure, but importantly above the longer-term 200 day line.

I have analyzed the numbers using yesterday’s closing levels, and the following are a few key observations:

The global stock market rally since the third week of December has pushed most benchmark indices above their 50-day moving averages. Among the bigger markets, Japan and China are notable exceptions.
Notwithstanding the rally, most markets are still trading below their 200-day averages.
However, there are a few exceptions. Among mature markets, these include Ireland, U.S., U.K., Switzerland and Denmark.
As far as emerging markets go, the ones trading above the 200-day averages are: the Philippines (that has just made an all-time high), Venezuela, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand and Brazil.
Some of the worst performing mature markets, according to the 200-day lines, are debt-ridden countries such as Greece, Portugal and Spain, but Japan, New Zealand and Austria are also lagging.
The emerging markets lagging the 200-day averages by most include Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, China, the Czech Republic and India.

The tables below show the detail, with stock markets ranked from those trading the furthest below their moving averages to the ones that are the furthest above the averages.

Developed markets: ranked according to 50-day moving average