By Jared Blikre

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) just reclaimed its 200-day moving average again, tilting the stock market back toward the bulls. See label (5) on the chart below.

The S&P 500 punches back above its 200-day moving average.

It's never quite that simple, but it doesn't need to be much more complicated.

The last time the index broke below the 200-day moving average — in March 2025, near label (4) — it lost the line, then bounced back to test it from underneath before selling off hard after "Liberation Day" on April 2. When the S&P later reclaimed that average, it tested it from above. Then it took off.

Those two retests — first from below, then from above — were textbook.

This bull market, which began off the October 2022 low, failed its first test of the 200-day moving average — just to the left of label (2) in December 2022. But after a brief dip, the index climbed back above the average — to the right of (2) — and soon began using it as rough support.

Sometimes the market will briefly overshoot the average before the trend resumes, as we saw in late 2024, near label (3). The S&P briefly probed below the 200-day, then quickly popped back over it.

And when a major trend change is taking shape, price action around the average can get messy, as it did at the start of the 2022 bear market, near label (1).

That kind of chop is still possible here. But with the S&P back above its 200-day, the burden shifts back to the bears unless this breakout fails.

Pro tip

To add the 200-day moving average to a Yahoo Finance chart on desktop or in the mobile app:

• In an Advanced Chart, choose "Moving average" from the "Indicators" menu.

• Set the "Period" box to 200.

• Make sure "Interval" is set to "1 day," not "1 week" or "1 month."

Jared Blikre is the global markets and data editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X at @SPYJared or email him at jaredblikre@yahooinc.com.