feb 18  welcome to the home for realtime coverage of markets brought to you by reuters reporters you can share your thoughts with us at marketsresearchthomsonreuterscom amid recent nasdaq weakness one measure of internal strength is on the back foot again that said given that it is not far from its recent lows traders will be watching its behavior closely read more indeed the nasdaq new highnew low nhnl index which topped at 964 in january 2021 and had been diverging for eight months into the nasdaq composites november peak plunged to just 6 on january 28 late januarys 6 trough can be considered historically low and potentially washed out since the great financial crisis sub10 readings have ultimately been closely associated with major ixic lows with the composites subsequent rally off its latejanuary low the measure did improve to 222 on february 11 however amid renewed jitters over the past week or so the nhnl index has turned down again the measure ended thursday at 176 putting it just below its 10day moving average at 186 and since this measure does not have a tendency to flatline for long but instead form vbottoms and abrupt tops traders will be watching to see if it will establish a higherlow vs a nasdaq composite lowerlow as it did in early 2016 and early 2009 or if it will break the recent trough and fall closer to zero as it did in late 2011 and late 2018 in march 2020 the measure simply reversed higher off its 12 trough and did not look back for fridays live markets posts prior to 0900 est1400 gmt  click here read more terence gabriel is a reuters market analyst the views expressed are his own