As a lagging indicator, Death Crosses often confirm exhaustion rather than the start of a new decline
Walmart closed Friday with a classic death cross. The 50-day moving average slipped below the 200-day. These signals get a lot of attention because they confirm a shift from intermediate uptrend to intermediate downtrend. In practice they often arrive late.
The previous death cross on WMT occurred on June 13, 2022. The stock closed that day at $39.80. Four sessions later it printed the absolute low of that cycle at $39.43. From the June 13 close the forward path looked like this:
| From the June 13 close | Date | Close | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Death cross | Jun 13, 2022 | $39.80 | — |
| Lowest close of the decline | Jun 17, 2022 | $39.43 | -0.9% |
| One month | Jul 13, 2022 | $41.79 | +5.0% |
| Three months | Sep 12, 2022 | $46.02 | +15.6% |
| Six months | Dec 12, 2022 | $49.34 | +24.0% |
| One year | Jun 13, 2023 | $51.77 | +30.1% |
That sequence is not unusual. Moving-average crosses are lagging by design. By the time the 50-day average finally falls beneath the 200-day, a large portion of the selling that produced the decline has already taken place.
The cross simply records what the price action has already shown.
How late is late? Walmart has completed 37 death crosses since 1974. Measure each one against its own peak-to-trough closing decline, and the median cross printed after 70% of that fall was already behind it. Twenty-eight of the 37 came past the halfway mark. June 2022 was the latest of the lot at 97%, the highest reading in the whole record: the stock had already dropped from $53.29 on April 21 to $39.80, and the eventual low was $39.43.
In many cases the actual low forms within a few days of the signal, and the period that follows is recovery rather than continued pressure.
The 2022 recovery was strong even by the standards of a signal that tends to fire late. Set it against the median of all 37 completed crosses and it clears the typical outcome at every time frame.
Here is every cross since 2010, measured the same way:
| Cross date | Close | 1 month | 3 months | 6 months | 1 year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 16, 2010 | $16.99 | -2.6% | +3.3% | +6.3% | +3.6% |
| Apr 15, 2011 | $17.85 | +4.7% | +0.1% | +3.1% | +13.1% |
| Jul 18, 2011 | $17.77 | -3.3% | +2.7% | +12.2% | +37.1% |
| Jan 25, 2013 | $23.00 | +2.1% | +14.0% | +13.4% | +7.5% |
| Oct 14, 2013 | $24.89 | +5.7% | +3.8% | +3.6% | +4.4% |
| Feb 24, 2014 | $24.45 | +3.9% | +3.1% | +3.2% | +15.3% |
| Jul 14, 2014 | $25.52 | -3.3% | +1.3% | +17.6% | -3.6% |
| May 11, 2015 | $26.03 | -6.6% | -8.5% | -25.1% | -11.9% |
| Nov 28, 2016 | $23.73 | -2.6% | +0.8% | +9.8% | +35.9% |
| Apr 26, 2018 | $29.31 | -6.3% | -0.0% | +11.2% | +15.5% |
| Mar 24, 2020 | $38.34 | +11.7% | +5.8% | +19.2% | +15.7% |
| Mar 26, 2021 | $45.04 | +2.1% | +1.3% | +5.6% | +8.0% |
| Jan 21, 2022 | $46.73 | -2.7% | +14.0% | -6.8% | +1.7% |
| Jun 13, 2022 | $39.80 | +5.0% | +15.6% | +24.0% | +30.1% |
| Jul 24, 2026 | $109.47 | — | — | — | — |
Pooling them gives the base rate a single instance cannot:
| After the cross | Median (all 37) | Higher (all 37) | Median (since 2010) | Higher (since 2010) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One month | +1.9% | 20 of 37 (54%) | -0.3% | 7 of 14 (50%) |
| Three months | +2.7% | 25 of 37 (68%) | +2.9% | 12 of 14 (86%) |
| Six months | +5.6% | 24 of 37 (65%) | +8.1% | 12 of 14 (86%) |
| One year | +9.1% | 28 of 37 (76%) | +10.6% | 12 of 14 (86%) |
The month right after a cross is close to a coin flip. It is the three-month mark and beyond where the stock has usually been higher, which fits a signal that fires once most of the selling is done.
Friday’s cross does not guarantee the same outcome. It does place the current setup in a historical context that is worth watching. The 2022 example remains one of the cleaner instances where the lagging indicator coincided with the exhaustion of downside momentum.
The caveat: one prior instance is one prior instance, and June 2022 sits near the top of Walmart's distribution rather than the middle. Only 10 of the 37 crosses were followed by the six-month closing low arriving within ten sessions of the signal. The other 27 kept falling for longer, and the May 2015 cross gave up another 25% over the following six months.
The Death Cross tool charts every 50-day and 200-day crossover in a stock's record and tells you what happened after each one. Pull up Walmart, or check whichever name you are watching.
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