'Death cross' portends more near-term losses for U.S. stocks, then rebound

A chart pattern tracked by technical analysts and other market mavens, a death cross forms when an index's near-term moving average of daily closing prices falls below its long-term moving average as both averages are declining.On Friday, the S&P 500 Index, the U.S. benchmark for large stocks, joined the main gauge of small companies' share performance, the Russell 2000, in forming a death cross.It occurred as the S&P tumbled another 2.3 percent for its third straight daily decline.