Before We Dive In… You invested a lot of money into a bad stock, and you realized it too late. It plunged, and you've taken a huge loss. So, later, you buy a sizable position in a much stronger company. It pulls back, as all stocks do. You... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Whether you trade for the short-term or long-term, the first thing you probably do every morning is check the headlines: CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox Business, or whatever suits you. We all do this, because markets react to information. And we don't want to be caught... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Sectors show the market’s inner rumblings. Money flows in. Money pulls out. Pressure builds beneath the surface. Sectors, and the opportunities they present, are never static. Some opportunities are obvious. Others stay buried in the noise. Following sectors can give you an advantage; if you... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… We’re in the early stages of an era defined by artificial intelligence (AI). And while people on the extreme polar ends might characterize AI as either panacea or doom, what we do know, on a more practical level, is that AI is an extraordinarily effective... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Many traders spend too much time flipping through charts to find the right setup. Sometimes, they’ll find something that looks good, while other times, they get a bunch of duds. But what if that process was backwards? Instead of searching for stocks, what if you... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… You want to achieve brilliance? Answers aren’t the best measure. But generating great questions is, at least according to ancient wisdom. This distinction is especially relevant when you’re working with an AI-driven chatbot. The difference between getting the “same old, same old” and actually... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… We already covered Market Summary basics in a previous article. So, in this installment, we’re going to talk about creating an ecosystem—wiring together all of the parts to make an even more powerful and customizable tool for your workflow. We can also make this... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Many traders who think they have a charting problem actually have more of an attention problem, or even a timing problem. You can have the best chart and indicator setup, but if you still have to check your charts intermittently, you’re operating on a delay.... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… When you buy a home, you don’t just look at the price and the staged pictures. You check everything from the neighborhood down to the foundation. Yet even though you wouldn’t evaluate a house from just one angle, traders often do exactly that with... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… StockCharts has two main chart platforms, each powerful in their own right. But what does one do better than the other? What kind of trader or investor is either designed for? Which one better matches your needs? Though both chart the same markets, comparing the two... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Many traders think “edge” comes from methods and indicators. It doesn’t. Edge comes from structure. Structure aligns your scale of observation with your knowledge, tools, and processes. When those elements work together, dynamically and in combination, that’s where edge emerges. If your workspace is... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… In a previous article, we went over “smart money” positioning in the market. Now, let’s talk about your fellow retail investors. How are they feeling about the market, and what difference would it make if you were able to track their overall sentiment on a... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Many traders pay attention to only two signals when using the Relative Strength Index (RSI): overbought and oversold. The problem is if you do it that way, you’re focusing on minor clues while missing the bigger picture. Here’s something you might not know: you... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… What if you could see how active money managers are actually positioned—not what they’re saying, but what they’re actually doing with real capital? At times, there can be a big gap between the two. There is a way to track that positioning. It... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… You’re looking at two stocks. Both seem promising. Both are starting to move. But which one do you trade? Spend five minutes on social media forums and you’ll see this question pop up everywhere. Many traders choose based on the story, the brand, or... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Last time, I showed how an index can keep climbing even as fewer stocks do the work; rallies that look strong but may already be weakening underneath. The Bullish Percent Index (BPI) measures how many stocks in an index are flashing Point & Figure buy signals.... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Scroll through YouTube or TikTok and you’ll find that trading looks easy. Clean charts, fast profits, flashy lifestyles…it’s everywhere! Even my 12-year-old son, after a few weeks of studying candlestick patterns (without telling me), has become an “expert” who asked if he can... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… When the S&P 500 makes a 1% move up, it feels like the market is exhibiting strength. But is it? Sometimes an index will rise because a handful of mega-caps are doing the heavy lifting. What you don’t see are the other stocks... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… In our last breadth article, we explored how Point & Figure buy signals give a unique angle on index strength or weakness. Today, we’re going to widen our breadth lens across four time horizons, which will give us clues on strength from periods of short-term... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Ichimoku Cloud breakouts can be an incredibly effective way to jump into a trend but only if you follow the right steps when pulling the trigger. You can easily find these breakouts while fine-tuning your criteria using StockCharts’ Updated Scan Filters. However, if you simply focus... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Ichimoku often gets dismissed for a number of reasons. Maybe it looks too complicated. Maybe it’s too slow. Not surprisingly, a lot of traders will fail with it when they go against its design and try to speed it up, "forcing" signals that... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… The Sector Drill-Down is a popular and incredibly useful tool for observing relative sector rankings at a glance. But the data itself doesn’t give you a workflow, let alone a strategy. While many traders glance at the rankings and click a few charts, hoping something... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… The Chikou Span is arguably the most overlooked, most underestimated, and most underutilized part of the Ichimoku Cloud. At first glance, it doesn’t look like much. It simply takes today’s closing price and plots it 26 periods back. If you’re focused on what’... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… The Street says it’s risk-on. Sector charts back that up. But, at the time of writing, the stocks that usually lead real bull runs are only doing… okay. So, where’s all the money going? Which corner of risk is capital flowing into? Here’s... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Markets don’t always trend. They coil, surge, and then launch in one direction or another. The trick is being able to spot each phase and to use that information to act. A lone moving average can hint at direction, but it won’t tell you... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Every strong move begins with tension, a buildup of energy (sometimes hidden) before the next move. While most traders only notice the explosion, those who pay close attention to volatility are generally able to anticipate the big move before it happens. We covered this in part... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Every trader knows that strong breakouts tend to make money as long as you’re on the right side of the move. The tricky part? Knowing when that breakout is likely to happen. What I’m about to give you is a framework for measuring volatility,... READ MORE
Who This Article is For: This article is for the long-term investor who isn’t a full-on expert chartist but wants to know enough to use it to fine-tune their dollar cost averaging strategy. If this is you, read on. Before We Dive In… Not every long-term investor wants to... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Ever watch a stock take off and think, “I wish I had gotten in earlier”? You probably could have. It’s just that early leaders rarely look like leaders at first. The good news is that there are ways to spot and measure emerging strength before... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… The market isn’t one story. It’s a dozen stories fighting for the spotlight. And depending on the day, a different one steals the show. One of the cleanest ways to read those stories is through Market Factors—Value, Growth, Momentum, Quality, and more. Spot... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… After John Murphy’s 10 Laws, a nagging question remains: where do you actually begin once you’ve loaded your chart? Maybe you weren’t expecting it, but the answer isn’t an indicator or setup. Instead, it begins with a sequence of questions. You see,... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… John Murphy’s unofficial Law #11 (“Keep at it”) can easily be misread as a motivational statement or a clichéd “self-help” line. But if you read it closely, it may be the most technical law of them all. How so? It doesn’t explain a tool,... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Price can advance a bullish or bearish argument. But volume reveals the true conviction behind the case. That’s the core of John Murphy’s Law #10. A rally that isn’t attracting buyers? A selloff nobody’s committing to? A breakout nobody cares about? Those... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Is the market trending right now, or is it chopping sideways? More importantly, should you be riding a trend, trading a range, or standing aside altogether? There may be many ways to figure this out, but John Murphy leans on one tool in particular: the Average... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Markets don’t usually flip the other direction in one sure and sudden move. More often than not, they telegraph their intentions first. After that, momentum cools, trends soften, and the signals start blinking before the actual turn hits. John Murphy’s Law #8 is about... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Even when markets trend in a given direction, they still fluctuate. It’s as if price overshoots in one direction, stalls, snaps back, and continues in the same primary direction. These are like mini-cycles within a broad trend. And detecting these mini-cycles is where oscillators shine.... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… If trends are like the market’s storyline, then moving averages are the narrator that keeps the story straight. It smooths out the noise, revealing the market’s direction, and showing whether the trend narrative is strengthening, weakening, or just stuck. Welcome to John Murphy’s... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… Every chart tells some kind of a story. Without structure, however, that story can feel like noise. Trendlines help you sense the rhythm underneath the often volatile surface, showing where buyers and sellers may draw their invisible battle lines and how long those lines can hold.... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… They say “buy the dip.” You hear it everywhere. But let’s be honest—it’s a lot easier said than done. How deep will the dip go before the trend resumes (if it resumes at all)? Where’s the bounce hiding, and why there? A... READ MORE
Before We Dive In… If you could spot where price is likely to bounce, stall, or reverse, you’d probably time entries and exits a lot better. That’s Law #3: find support and resistance—plus the polarity principle, where broken resistance often becomes support, and vice versa. The Core... READ MORE