With stock markets in rapid decline this week, mindful investors should be looking around for opportunities. What asset classes are thriving while others are struggling? A quick survey of the asset allocation will indicate that, while oil has been in freefall and stocks are now testing and failing at support,... READ MORE
With stock markets in rapid decline this week, mindful investors should be looking around for opportunities. What asset classes are thriving while others are struggling? A quick survey of the asset allocation will indicate that, while oil has been in freefall and stocks are now testing and failing at support,... READ MORE
I keep reminding viewers of my daily show, The Final Bar(new episodes every weekday at 4pm ET!), that extended bull markets can actually be a little frustrating. While a consistent uptrend in prices tends to be a good thing for long-term investors, two things present quite a challenge. The... READ MORE
While sectors like Technology of received much of the praise for leading the recent market upswing, the Health Care sector is comprised of a group of five industries that all have fairly attractive chart setups. (Earlier this week, on my daily closing bell show The Final Bar, I conducted a... READ MORE
The final chart that I shared in my portion of the StockCharts 2020 Market Outlook (coming soon to our YouTube channel!) was a two-year chart of gold. After a pullback in the fall to Fibonacci support, gold appeared to be resuming its long-term uptrend.Later, gold reached an extreme overbought... READ MORE
The final chart that I shared in my portion of the StockCharts 2020 Market Outlook (coming soon to our YouTube channel!) was a two-year chart of gold. After a pullback in the fall to Fibonacci support, gold appeared to be resuming its long-term uptrend. Now, gold has reached the extreme... READ MORE
You pour yourself a cup and coffee, fire up the computer and begin your daily investment process. What do you look at first? What's the last thing you review before moving on to other things? Most importantly, is your daily process consistent from one day to the next?... READ MORE
You pour yourself a cup and coffee, fire up the computer and begin your daily investment process. What do you look at first? What's the last thing you review before moving on to other things? Most importantly, is your daily process consistent from one day to the next?... READ MORE
I've written before about the importance of a good morning coffee routine. These are the charts you review first thing in the morning as a way of enhancing your market awareness. The first chart on your list, given that you're a long-term investor, should be a... READ MORE
During an interview I took part in for a podcast this week, I was asked to define technical analysis. I immediately provided John Murphy's summary that technical analysis is the study of "market action" and is based on a visual analysis of price and sentiment. After... READ MORE
During an interview I took part in for a podcast this week, I was asked to define technical analysis. I immediately provided John Murphy's summary that technical analysis is the study of "market action" and is based on a visual analysis of price and sentiment. After... READ MORE
When I worked for a large asset management firm, we had a number of fantastic digital displays that allowed us to view stock charts on a massive scale. The size of the screens made the work of identifying trends and inflection points much easier - and also way more fun.... READ MORE
As of this article's writing, I have just passed the two-month mark after joining StockCharts.com as Chief Market Strategist. Let me tell you, it's been an absolute pleasure getting to know all of the developers that are building and maintaining the powerful set of features... READ MORE
I wrote a while back about Home Bias, which describes how investors tend to stay "close to home" when making their investment decisions. Not only do US-based investors often invest exclusively in American companies, they also overweight companies that are closer to them geographically within the U.S.... READ MORE
We just completed our second week of The Final Bar, the new closing bell show on StockCharts TV. During our Friday mailbag segment, I was asked about how institutional investors think about relative strength. To be honest, relative strength is of vital importance to institutions because, well, that is how... READ MORE
Recently, a reader responded to one of my articles on the S&P 500 and asked about the value of support and resistance levels on a broad market index. He explained that support and resistance seems to make sense for individual stocks, as they're based on people&... READ MORE
I've been using technical analysis professionally for almost twenty years now. Though I have learned a great deal from putting the technical toolkit into action, some of my favorite learning experiences have come from attending industry conferences. Not only do you get to hear presentations from knowledgeable experts,... READ MORE
I've written before about RSI and the difference between "good" overbought and "bad" overbought. In the future, we may see the bond prices of these past few weeks used as examples of how to interpret extreme overbought conditions. A review of the stock-to-bond ratio... READ MORE
I'm often asked about how technical indicators work across different time frames. The short answer is "Yes, they work." The longer answer, which explains how you need to use the toolkit differently depending on your time frame, follows. Many investors have a tendency to lock themselves... READ MORE
I recently tweeted about the percent of stocks above their 200-day moving averages, pointing out that there is a key line in the sand for this important breadth indicator. This resulted in a fantastic question about looking at market breadth in cap-weighted terms vs. equal-weighted terms.In this article, we&... READ MORE
Any time I have a chance to interview other market strategists, I like to ask them about their One Chart. That is, "What's the one chart that you think is the best tell on the markets right now." To rephrase, if you could only have one... READ MORE
"Never confuse brains with a bull market." When the market is going higher and the average stock is appreciating, we often attribute the gains to our skill as investors. Due to our incredible investing prowess, we have managed to own stocks that are doing well! However, when the... READ MORE
What was the first chart you looked at today? Was it for a stock that you read about in a blog or the newspaper? Was it for a company that was mentioned in that e-mail newsletter you saw? Was it for one of your holdings that you're concerned... READ MORE
I’m currently on a cruise ship docked in Naples, Italy, on a two-week vacation with my family, along with a good friend from college and his family. Today, we toured the ruins of Pompeii, which meant very high temperatures but fascinating history lessons. Source: Pixabay In preparing to write... READ MORE
When you're a student pilot, your first couple of solo flights remain very close to your home airport. Basically, you get up in the air and do a couple laps around the landing pattern. This is meant to get you comfortable being in the plane by yourself, as... READ MORE
Has the slow and grinding uptrend in the US Dollar finally reached its exhaustion point? A quick review of the charts suggests this may be the case. The $USD chart has certainly been a frustrating one for Dollar bulls, as the trend, while steadily positive, has not provided the upside... READ MORE
Years ago, I was looking to hire a junior analyst to focus on database management and creating new data visualizations. We received quite a large pile of resumes; I'll never forget spending an afternoon flipping through papers until one of the them jumped out at me. What stood... READ MORE
Yesterday, I had a great roundtable with Tom Bowley and Erin Swenlin on MarketWatchers Live, where Erin and I discussed comparisons between gold and Bitcoin. Now, at first glance, that might seem like a bit of a spurious comparison. Gold has been around forever, while Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are... READ MORE
About a month ago, I wrote an article for ChartWatchers titled “Five Trendlines You Should Be Watching.” The general idea was that, as long as those five trend lines held, then the market was still most likely in a very constructive phase. Revisiting those trend lines here will show that... READ MORE
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” - Saint Augustine I recently returned home after a 10-day trip to Scotland with my family for Spring Break. We rented a car in Glasgow, made our way up into the Highlands and took a... READ MORE
“The market will pull back about 5% before continuing higher.” “Banks always do well with a steeper yield curve.” “If the market moves higher, then gold will definitely pull back.” “I’m sure we’ll see a correction in the next two weeks.” When I was in college, one of... READ MORE
My process is built around simplicity. I am of the firm belief that investors, as well as the financial industry as a whole, tend to unnecessarily complicate things. As a result, we are led to believe that we need to track an endless number of data points to have a... READ MORE
Have you ever played devil’s advocate in a group discussion? That's the situation where everyone comes to one conclusion, so you take the opposite side just to provide an alternative hypothesis and argue its merits. We often avoid this sort of “outside the box” thinking because of... READ MORE
I was once asked the classic “trapped on a desert island” question, with a technical analysis twist: If you could only have one technical indicator (except price), which would it be? For me, that’s an easy one. RSI. As part of my training experience at Bloomberg, I was introduced... READ MORE
I’ll never forget the first time I did a simulated engine cutout at altitude. I was up in the air with my instructor, preparing to do some maneuvers, when he unexpectedly reached over and pulled out the throttle. The plane lurched forward, rapidly losing altitude, while my instructor turned... READ MORE
Humans are emotional beings, generally making decisions based on their emotional state. Consequently, when the market moves against your positions, you will most likely have a visceral reaction to that event. The fear of losing and/or the fear of missing out are often the causes of bad investment decisions.... READ MORE
Question: When can “overbought” be a good thing? Answer: When something becomes really overbought. Allow me to explain. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is one of the most common ways to measure price momentum, ranging from 0 to 100. When the RSI becomes overbought, the price has risen too high... READ MORE
I’ve written several articles regarding seasonal trends in the markets, including the four-year Presidential Cycle, the “Sell in May” phenomenon, and even general thoughts on cyclical patterns in price. This time of year, we’re faced with a very interesting anomaly known as the January Barometer. This is different... READ MORE
Anchoring is a behavioral phenomenon wherein we, as people, lock in to a specific reference point that then affects our subsequent decisions. When I taught technical analysis at Brandeis University, I asked one group of students to tell me where the S&P 500 would be at the end... READ MORE
Everyone believed they had a sound approach to investment during the extended bull market of 2009-2018. When everything’s gaining in price, slowly and steadily, it’s easy for confidence in your process to become overconfidence in your process. To quote a phrase, “Never confuse brains with a bull market.... READ MORE