SPY and Omen cluster history
Red lines mark daily triggers; pale red bands mark periods with at least two triggers in the rolling 30-session window.
Breadth risk · updated after every close
Today's signal, McClellan Oscillator and cluster history
Free Hindenburg Omen tracker — a breadth-based crash-risk indicator that fires when both new 52-week highs AND new 52-week lows are elevated simultaneously, with McClellan Oscillator confirmation. This is a broad-universe variant computed daily from roughly 4,750 eligible US common stocks in a typical session with SPY as the trend filter, not the classic NYSE-only specification — see the methodology comparison for the differences.
3 of 4 daily conditions are met; there is no confirmed cluster.
As of market close on September 4, 2026, the Hindenburg Omen is INACTIVE. 75 stocks made new 52-week highs (1.58% of 4,735 issues) and 74 made new 52-week lows (1.56%). The McClellan Oscillator closed at -7.61 (bearish breadth). SPY closed at $770.19, above its 50-day moving average of $756.89. There have been no triggers in the last 30 trading days.
Red lines mark daily triggers; pale red bands mark periods with at least two triggers in the rolling 30-session window.
The defining breadth fracture: both series must be at least 2.2% of the eligible universe on the same day.
Breadth momentum must be below zero for a trigger; green readings fail that condition.
We measured SPY from the first day each rolling window reached two triggers—one observation per distinct cluster period. Across 25 cluster starts from 2010 through 2026-09-04, downside was more common than on an average day, but the median forward return remained positive.
At any point inside each forward window.
Median return
+0.2%
vs +1.6%
Finished positive
52%
vs 67%
Traded 10% lower
4%
vs 3%
Median return
+3.5%
vs +3.8%
Finished positive
60%
vs 75%
Traded 10% lower
20%
vs 12%
Median return
+5.2%
vs +6.9%
Finished positive
63%
vs 80%
Traded 10% lower
38%
vs 22%
“vs” shows the all-day baseline.
Close-price returns; dividends excluded. “Traded 10% lower” means SPY touched a close at least 10% below the cluster-start close during the window. Baseline uses every eligible trading day, so its forward windows overlap. Recent clusters without a complete horizon are excluded. Descriptive history, not a forecast.
We implement a variant of the Hindenburg Omen that departs from the literal classic specification. The differences are explicit and material. If you compare trigger dates between this page and another tracker that uses the NYSE-only methodology (e.g., the StockCharts implementation), you should expect them to differ — sometimes by weeks. This table documents every choice we make.
| Condition | Classic NYSE Omen | The Trading Tools implementation | Practical effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Universe | NYSE-listed issues only (~3,000 stocks; the original 1995 specification) | Eligible US common stocks across exchanges (roughly 4,750 in a typical session; exact count varies by date) | Different universes produce different daily highs/lows and different trigger dates. |
| New highs / new lows threshold | ≥ 2.2% of total NYSE issues (some modern variants use 2.8%) | ≥ 2.2% of valid issues in our universe | Same percentage, different denominator. |
| Minimum-issue floor | The smaller of new highs / new lows must be ≥ 75 issues | Not enforced | A few historical triggers in our data had a smaller side below 75. Classic Omen would not have flagged them. |
| Trend filter | NYSE Composite 10-week MA rising (or NYSE Composite > level 50 trading days ago) | SPY closing price > SPY 50-day SMA | A meaningful difference. SPY can be above its 50d while a rising-NYSE-Composite-MA test would fail, and vice versa. |
| McClellan Oscillator | Negative McClellan Oscillator (some variants use ratio-adjusted) | Negative raw McClellan = EMA19(net advances) − EMA39(net advances), unadjusted | Raw oscillator can be unstable when the underlying universe is changing in size. |
| ≤ ratio constraint | New highs ≤ 2× new lows | New highs ≤ 2× new lows | Implemented identically. The asymmetry (lows can exceed 2× highs but not the reverse) is intentional in the classic spec. |
| Cluster window | ~36 days (originally 36 calendar days; some modern variants use 30 trading days) | 30 trading days (matches one of the modern variants) | Pick a window — both definitions exist in the literature. Our chart shading and "in cluster" status both use this window. |
| Universe stability & survivorship | Not relevant — NYSE issue count is reasonably stable and includes delisted issues as of each date | Our history contains today’s listings only: roughly 2,000 eligible issues traded in 2010, growing to roughly 4,750 now. Signals are suppressed when valid issues < 2,000. | Survivorship caveat: delisted names are absent from early years, which skews historical breadth toward survivors — our variant likely under-counts new lows (and therefore under-triggers) in the early window. |
Classic-spec sources: Jim Miekka's 1995 work as documented and refined by Robert McHugh; the StockCharts/ChartSchool reference; independent technical-analysis publishers; and the McClellan Financial Publications methodology.
The Hindenburg Omen has triggered 18 times in 2026, most recently on 2026-06-23. No triggers sit in the trailing 30-trading-day window; the cluster count is zero.
2026 trigger dates: 2026-01-29 · 2026-01-30 · 2026-02-02 · 2026-02-03 · 2026-02-04 · 2026-04-29 · 2026-05-11 · 2026-05-13 · 2026-05-14 · 2026-05-18 · 2026-05-20 · 2026-06-03 · 2026-06-05 · 2026-06-08 · 2026-06-09 · 2026-06-17 · 2026-06-22 · 2026-06-23
| Date | SPY | McClellan | NH% | NL% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-23 | $734 | -0.6 | 3.10% | 3.10% |
| 2026-06-22 | $744 | -3.7 | 4.86% | 4.12% |
| 2026-06-17 | $741 | -11.6 | 3.44% | 2.62% |
| 2026-06-09 | $737 | -5.0 | 5.15% | 2.73% |
| 2026-06-08 | $739 | -17.9 | 3.28% | 2.74% |
| 2026-06-05 | $738 | -21.4 | 3.03% | 2.76% |
| 2026-06-03 | $754 | -22.9 | 3.36% | 2.88% |
| 2026-05-20 | $741 | -14.1 | 2.76% | 2.83% |
| 2026-05-18 | $739 | -34.7 | 2.70% | 3.12% |
| 2026-05-14 | $748 | -18.9 | 4.28% | 2.46% |
| Cluster start | Cluster end | Peak 30d count |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-05-11 | 2026-08-04 | 12 |
| 2026-01-29 | 2026-03-18 | 5 |
| 2025-10-13 | 2025-12-29 | 11 |
| 2025-08-11 | 2025-09-12 | 2 |
| 2025-02-11 | 2025-03-27 | 4 |
How the Omen is reported to have behaved across the past four decades — now cross-checked against our own 15-year trigger record where the windows overlap (our data begins Dec 2010). The “Our variant” column shows what we independently computed from raw price data: 6 of the 7 in-window episodes are confirmed by our own triggers, including the Nov 2019 – Jan 2020 cluster ahead of COVID. Some episodes are widely cited as correct calls (1987, 2000, 2007, 2019–20); others as false positives (2010, 2014, 2017, 2021) — and our data reproduces the 2021 false positives too. These named episodes are context, not an accuracy sample; the first-party cluster study above evaluates every completed cluster in our record.
| Period | Trigger pattern | SPY outcome | Read | Our variant | Source | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 1987 (pre-Black Monday) | Reported cluster activity | –22% on Oct 19, 1987 (Black Monday) | Widely cited as a successful call — Omen reportedly flagged the regime weeks before the crash. | Pre-dates our window | McClellan Pubs | Widely cited |
| Oct 1999 – Mar 2000 (dot-com top) | Multiple reported clusters | S&P –49% over the next 2.5 years | Persistent breadth divergence as mega-cap tech pulled the index higher while many stocks made new lows. | Pre-dates our window | StockCharts | Widely cited |
| Jun – Aug 2007 (pre-GFC) | Reported cluster in June, more in August | S&P –56% peak-to-trough by Mar 2009 | Among the most-cited successful calls — reportedly fired well before the credit crisis became visible in equities. | Pre-dates our window | McHugh (reported) | Widely cited |
| Jul – Aug 2010 | Reported cluster | No major drawdown — market resumed uptrend | A widely-discussed false positive. The cluster appeared during a mid-bull-market chop; markets rallied through 2011. | Pre-dates our window (data begins Dec 2010) | StockCharts | Widely cited |
| Aug 2013 | Reported single triggers | Brief –4% pullback then continued uptrend | Apparent false positive during a normal correction. | Confirmed — 2 triggers (Aug 6–7, 2013) | McHugh (reported) | Reported |
| Jul 2014 | Reported cluster | No major drawdown | False positive in an extended bull market. | Not confirmed — zero triggers in our variant (universe/trend-filter divergence) | McHugh (reported) | Reported |
| Aug 2015 | Reported cluster around the China-devaluation drop | S&P –12% (sharp but brief) | Concurrent with rather than clearly leading the move. Coincident signal. | Confirmed — 3 triggers in late July, preceding the Aug 24 crash | StockCharts | Reported |
| Aug 2017 | Reported cluster | No major drawdown | False positive. | Confirmed — 2 triggers (Aug 15–16, 2017) | McHugh (reported) | Reported |
| Sep 2018 – Dec 2018 | Multiple reported clusters | S&P –19% peak-to-trough | Reportedly fired through the Q4 selloff — partial credit (no crash, but a meaningful correction). | Confirmed — 12 triggers Sep–Dec 2018, a sustained cluster through the selloff | StockCharts | Reported |
| Sep 2019 – Feb 2020 (pre-COVID) | Sustained reported cluster activity | S&P –34% in 33 days starting Feb 19, 2020 | The Omen was reportedly active in the months before COVID. Correct call in retrospect, though no one could have known the trigger. | Confirmed — 9 triggers Nov 2019 – Jan 27, 2020, ahead of the Feb 19 top | McClellan Pubs | Widely cited |
| 2021 | Several reported single triggers | Continued bull through year-end 2021 | False positives during melt-up phase. | Confirmed — 10 triggers Jul–Nov 2021 (and no major drawdown followed: false positives in our data too) | McHugh (reported) | Reported |
Episodes from 2013 onward are cross-checked against our own computed trigger record (broad-universe variant, not the literal NYSE spec); pre-2011 episodes remain externally-reported claims that we have not re-computed from raw NYSE data. The Omen has been reportedly most predictive when triggers appear alongside other deteriorating conditions — credit spreads widening, VIX rising, sector rotation accelerating. False positives tend to cluster in the middle of bull markets when other risk indicators are calm.
3 of 4 daily conditions are met; there is no confirmed cluster.
Since 2010, our variant has produced 146 signal days. SPY averaged -0.1% in the quarter after a signal against a +3.1% baseline — a real drag — yet 62% of those windows still finished positive. The first-party study above uses one observation per confirmed cluster; the full owner's guide covers the recipe behind the name, the famous fires and fizzles with charts, and why we demoted the Omen to an alert in our own scoring.
Read The Hindenburg Omen Manual →