The Nasdaq is having an unprecedented year, and just set another historic record

FAN Editor

If 2017 already felt like it was shaping up to be a record year for market records themselves, there’s one more statistic to add to the history books.

The Nasdaq composite has hit more all-time closing highs this year than any year on record, according to a new report from LPL Financial. This year has seen 64 all-time record closing highs, topping records set in 1980 and 1999.

“This is just another small way of showing how rare and strong the action has been so far in 2017,” Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL Financial, said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.”

The tech-heavy index has gained nearly 26 percent year to date, on pace for its best year since 2013 and its sixth consecutive year of gains — the longest annual stretch since the run that ended in 1981.

Tech earnings continue to justify the strong moves, Detrick wrote in an email to CNBC, adding that the sector’s third-quarter earnings were up more than 20 percent versus 11 percent expected growth at the beginning of earnings season.

The Nasdaq’s string of record gains this year has come amid a historically calm period for equity markets.

In a sign of low volatility across the broader market, Detrick noted on “Trading Nation” that the S&P 500 as of Tuesday’s market close has gone 45 trading days without a half a percent drop on a closing basis. That would be the longest streak since 1968 without a 0.5 percent decline by the S&P 500.

“We continue to see these streaks of ‘least volatile’ since when? Since the ’60s. That was really the last time we saw a market this nonvolatile. And we continue to see it, again, a slow step higher is what we’ve been seeing all year, and it sure looks like it might continue here,” he said.

At this point, it appears weakness has completely fled the market as stocks grind higher.

“The No. 1 reason we could see weakness is that we haven’t seen any for a while,” he said, adding, “we could simply be due for a normal correction just because it’s been so long since we’ve had one.”

The Nasdaq was modestly positive in Wednesday trading.

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