despite worries about inflation and an impending recession there is at least one sign that some bullish market technical analysts might latch onto an upbeat golden cross appears to be forming in the dow jones industrial average  more than nine months after a bearish death cross formed back in march as the hawkish agenda of the federal reserve shattered bullishness on wall street a golden cross occurs when the 50day moving average for an asset price trades above the 200day ma while a death cross comparatively is when the 50day falls below the longterm average the 50day moving average for the dow stands at 3220032 at last check friday afternoon while the 200day sits at 3246071 a roughly 260point difference that could be traversed in the coming week or two based on its current trajectory a golden cross would mark the first for the dow industrials since 2020 of august according to dow jones market data the bullish chart formation also would appear at an odd time for investors with an apparent uptrend materializing in the stock market even as the threat of a recession in 2023 grows read financial markets are flashing a warning that a recession is imminent heres what it means for stocks see goldman sachs ceo says recession is likely with 35 chance of a soft landing blackrock the worlds largest asset manager is anticipating a unique recession unlike others that weve seen in us history the new macro regime is playing out we think that requires a new dynamic playbook based on views of market risk appetite and pricing of macro damage wrote blackrocks investment institute team led by jean boivin the blackrock team said markets arent necessarily pricing in the recession that is being predicted central banks appear set on doing whatever it takes to fight inflation making recession foretold in our view the team at blackrock wrote check out marketwatchs live blog of the market on top of that marketwatch columnist mark hulbert concludes that the us stock market on average has performed no better in the wake of a golden crosses as it did at other times in many cases a golden cross can help put an assets move into perspective however they tend to be well telegraphed interestingly the recession is also being widely predicted and some dont think investors are getting the memo as blackrock notes investors arent reflecting the damage that is to come particularly as earnings expectations from american companies are rightsized so it might be worth it for investors to take any golden crosses in assets with a grain of salt so far the dow industrials have outperformed over the past three months up about 5 compared with a decline of 25 for the sp 500 and an 82 drop for the nasdaq composite  over the past three months the dow industrials have recent in aggregate on the back of gains in shares of caterpillar cat boeing co ba merck  co mrk ibm ibm and travelers cos trv for the year so far the dow is down 7 while the sp 500 is off 17 and the nasdaq is down nearly 30