The last time Dow underperformed S & P 500 with this was a margin a 2009
The stock market enjoys a solid week so far, but investors may not know it by measuring the results of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which by a few measures record its widest divergence with its American peers over a two-day stretch this year .
From Tuesday's close, Dow
DJIA, -0.38%
was up 0.4% over the last two sessions, an otherwise respectable early start of a week, if not for the large size of S & P 500 indices
SPX, + 0.30%
up 1[ads1].8% week to day, and the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP, + 0.44%
enjoying a two-day yield of 2.5%, according to FactSet data.
The two-day award between Dow and S & P 500, a gap of 1.36 percentage points, is the widest since a similar stretch ended on October 21, 2014, when the broadband meter hit the 123-year-old blue chip index with a 1 , 44 percentage point, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
The last time S & P 500 surpassed Dow by 0.65 percentage points or better on subsequent days, the two-day period ended March 18, 2009.
Separately, Nasdaq sees its biggest two-day top , 2.05 percentage points, since the period ended October 20, 2017, when it exceeded Dow by 2.29 percentage points.
Of course, Boeing Co.s
BA, -6.15%
The last 737 Max 8 tragedy is the obvious cause of the current inequality in the indices, which tends to move in locking stages more than they have this week.
Decline in airline shares comes as regulators around the world have taken the unusual step of landing the 737 Max rays on the heels of Sunday's Ethiopian Airlines crash, even after the US Federal Aviation Administration declared the aircraft airworthy.
Read: Boeings 737 Max jet has now been grounded by these countries
The crash in Ethiopia came after a 737 Max 8 in Indonesia, operated by Lion Air, died down in the Javanese Sea back in October and it has rattled the investment community and crumpled through the Dow industrial companies and airlines.
Unlike the other major US indices, Dow is a weighted benchmark instead of market capitalization weighted, which means that Dow components with a larger stock price have a greater ability to knock around the closely followed index.
Even after having had an immediate period of loss, the Boeing's $ 375.41-one share is the highest Dow component, with every $ 1 movement in one of the index's components corresponding to about 6.8- point price increase.
Boeing has cut the $ 47.13, or 11.2%, share price since Friday's proximity.
NYSE Arca airline index
XAL, -0.89%
fell 0.9% on Tuesday. On Monday, the index had achieved 1.2% to obtain a 9-fold tapering
It is likely that the divergence that has arisen between Dow and its peers is likely to resolve itself, but fluctuating questions about how regulators, politicians , airlines and customers respond to the tragedies and the grounding of much of the 737 Max 8 fleet can complicate matters.
"The cause of the Ethiopian [Airlines] crash is not yet known, and we do not expect any firm conclusions until after a comprehensive survey, which may take several weeks," wrote Canaccord Genuity analyst Ken Herbert in a research note.
Read: The airlines fall, even those without 737 Max exposure
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