Do not be fooled by the headlines or talking heads on TV. I am a great believer in Technical Analysis but I'm not a day trader. I look at trends in technical data from as short as 14 days to as long as 1 year plus a whole lot of technical trends with time frames in between.
You can never predict the market but you can surely analyze which way it is trending and plan your portfolio management to contain trending stocks. For me I like to see trends in the Market as measured by the Russell 3000 Index and the Value Line Arithmetic Index. My earliest trend is which way their 14 day turtle channels are trending.
At the present time although 54.37% of the stocks are trading above their 20 day moving averages 62.68% are still trading below their 50 day moving averages.
The Russell 3000 Index is an index containing the 3000 of the largest stocks in capitalization. These are the stocks that the majority of institutional investors, mutual funds and Wall Street analysts follow and where most of you have your money. It is a cap weighted index. I analyze and chart the Index the way I do stocks. As you can see below the 14 day turtle channel is not hitting higher highs and higher lows so I don't think the Market has rallied:
Barchart technical indicators:
- 48% Barchart technical sell signals
- 1.81 Minus Weighted Alpha
- Trend Spotter sell signal
- Although above its 20 day moving averages it is still below its 50 and 100 day moving averages
- 9.14% off its 52 week high
- Relative Strength Index 47.87%
- Barchart computes a technical support level at 1123.27
- Recently traded at 1177.61 which is below its 50 day moving average of 1194.11
The
Value Line Arithmetic Index is the other Market index I follow. It contains the 1700 largest stocks that are also included in the Russell 3000 Index but it is not capital weighted so each stock has an equal weighting and you get a slightly different view of the market. You can see that this index is still trading below its 20 day moving average but it also is not hitting higher highs and higher lows yet.
Barchart technical indicators:
- 80% Barchart technical sell signals
- 4.14 minus Weighted Alpha
- Trend Spotter sell signal
- Trading below its 20, 50 and 100 day moving averages
- 13.21% off its 52 week high
- Relative Strength Index 44.73%
- Barchart computes a technical support level at 4,117.77
- Recently traded at 4,286.22 which is below its 50 day moving average of 4,458.13
Conclusion: If you trade the larger market cap ETFs or mutual funds you should be sitting on the sidelines in cash keeping your powder dry to move back in after a true rally has established itself.
If you are a stock picker and hold individual stocks by now you should have trimmed your portfolio of any stocks that are showing more downside than upside momentum. I'd look each of your holdings up on the Barchart site and look for the following indicators:
- Barchart technical opinion of Buy
- Not trading more than 10% below its 52 week high
- Barchart Buy signal of is 50-100 Day MACD Oscillator
If all three of these indicators are fine there is not reason to sell that stock and you might still consider holding on to it.
I'll try to keep you posted for when I'm ready to say there has been a market reversal.
