Understanding stock markets can be difficult. Which index should we look at? There are many ways to slice stocks: by market cap, by proprietary index methodology, by geography, by valuation,…
The chart above shows the 12 month return (vertical axis) against the shorter-term momentum (horizontal), for the major sectors of the S&P 1500. We can clearly see that the only…
[dc]R[/dc]elative strength is an important trading concept, and there are a lot of ways to define, monitor, and trade these relationships. Looking at the sector relative strength within the US…
Trader-Socrates asks, in response to this post of relative strength leaders: What kind of RS do you use? What timeframe you mean by "short-term" RS? I am sure, that you…
[dc]O[/dc]ne of the very real problems stock traders face is knowing where to focus their attention. Some traders are restricted to certain sectors or sets of stocks, but, even then,…
[dc]L[/dc]ast week I shared a new data visualization that looked at short and long term performance of sectors in context of volatility. This week, I'd like to share another tool…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjwQuYZtucQ&feature=youtu.be A quick look at stock market performance by market cap slices. Simply put, smaller cap stocks (e.g., Russell 2000 (IWM)) tend to outperform larger cap stocks (S&P 500 (SPY)…
Understanding sector strength and weakness is an important part of the investment process. Here is one way to look at short and long term performance relative to current volatility within each sector.
One of the reasons we watch and study market leaders is that they can sometimes provide clues to market direction. Yes, they often get harder than the broad market at…
I tend to believe it's usually counterproductive to do too much in-depth technical analysis on different market cap or sector indexes. Everything is so tightly correlated anyway, so differences often…
[dc]O[/dc]ne of the main challenges for stock traders is understanding the ebb and flow of the broad market on the shortest timeframes. There is so much noise in price movement…
A look at the technical position of the S&P Index 10/6/11. Illustrates use of simple technical patterns and relationships to derive an edge.