Ben Carlson, Columnist

Don't Use the 200-Day Moving Average as a Sell Signal

Investors need to be careful about blindly following any rule that gets them out of the market.

April 10, 2018 at 5:00 PM UTC

Corrected

April 11, 2018 at 12:23 AM UTC

Ben Carlson is director of institutional asset management at Ritholtz Wealth Management. He is the author of "Organizational Alpha: How to Add Value in Institutional Asset Management."

Not neccessarily.
Photographer: Ian Waldie/Getty Images

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On April 2, the S&P 500 Index closed below its 200-day moving average for the first time in almost two years, and has been bouncing around that level ever since.

Traders and investors pay close attention to this key technical level as a market timing signal to get out of stocks before the onset of a large downturn. As the legendary hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones said: