Arms Index suggests there's no panic at all in the stock market's selloff

Despite the broad, sharp selloffs in the Big 3 stock market indexes, market internals suggest there is no panic in the selling, and there may even be signs that investors are looking to buy on the dip. The NYSE Arms Index, a volume-weighted breadth measure that tends to rise above 1.000 during market selloffs and fall below 1.000 during rallies, is actually down to 0.843, while the Nasdaq Arms is down to 0.715. Many Wall Street technicians suggest Arms readings of 2.000 and above indicate panic-like selling behavior, while readings below 0.500 indicate panic buying. Currently, number of declining stocks is outnumbering advances by a 5.2-to-1 margin on the NYSE and by a 4.7-to-1 margin on the Nasdaq, while share volume in declining stocks is outnumbering up volume by a smaller 4.4-to-1 on the Big Board and by 3.3-to-1 on the Nasdaq. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is falling 502 points, or 1.4%, the S&P 500 is down 1.7% and the Nasdaq Composite is shedding 2.2%.

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