Something peculiar is going on in the final 30 minutes of trading, and it's not good

Following some ups and downs, the S&P 500 is now up by 1% since the beginning of the year.

However, something peculiar has been going on just before the US markets close at 4 p.m. ET each day.

"We looked at the final 30 minutes of trading year to date and found the market has lost -2% over that time frame," FBN Securities' JC O'Hara said in a note to clients. "Large institutions use the closing liquidity to help facilitate their trades, and with the bias being to sell we mark this as a red flag."

Who knows what's going on? We're not going to try and speculate.

"While we are still bullish as overall trends are favorable, we find it troubling to see money outflows continue from SPY but more importantly see continued end of day selling in stocks."

FBN Securities