It's almost impossible to call market tops and market bottoms using basic technical analysis tools like price and volume. Don't get me wrong, that combination is my favorite during trend-following periods. But trying to spot bearish reversals is difficult when price action keeps riding higher and... READ MORE
Hello to all my StockCharts supporters! First of all, thank you for your readership of my Trading Places blog, which is now in its 8th year. Also, thanks to all of you that watch my Trading Places LIVE shows that air on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 9:00am ET.... READ MORE
I love the seasonality information that StockCharts.com provides. It's important to keep in mind that seasonal tendencies are secondary indicators. I don't buy and sell based on them, because the price/volume combination will always be my primary indicator. But if technical indications point to... READ MORE
It was one month ago that I discussed the serious (short-term) warning signs that the stock market faced. I summed it up pretty well on a Your Daily Five recording that aired on July 19th. Calling weakness after it hits is easy, but discussing objectively the warning signs BEFORE the... READ MORE
In this episode of StockCharts TV'sThe Final Bar, guest host Tom Bowley discusses how, though sector rotation is displaying a slight shift towards bullish sentiments, things have still been rough. Acknowledging the recent rough patch in the market, Tom believes that market manipulation through options expiration might be... READ MORE
I always refer to monthly options expiration week as "Opposite George" week. It's a reference to the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza is, as always, down on his luck. Jerry and Elaine suggest that if everything he does in his life is wrong, then why not... READ MORE
Everyone's a stock picker. And to be quite honest, everyone gets hot and everyone gets cold. Every trader has to find strategies that work for him/her and then hit the "rinse and repeat" button. Personally, I've found three keys that have helped me... READ MORE
Every quarterly earnings season, we hear the same thing on CNBC and other media outlets. "Earnings are going to be rough this quarter." Blah, blah, blah. After decades of technical, fundamental, and historical research, I've concluded that the games on Wall Street are designed to thoroughly... READ MORE
The first thing I always look at are the technical conditions. For me, that's a very simple analysis of price/volume. Here's what that looks like right now on the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100: S&P 500 ($SPX): During any uptrend, I... READ MORE
We're about a week away from the start of Q2 earnings season, so now's the time to start doing your pre-earnings season homework. I'm not sure what that means to everyone else, but for me, it's all about evaluating relative strength. Which... READ MORE
Have you noticed how every roadblock the bears use against the bulls just quietly goes away over time? I just chuckle. There have been SO many bullish signals over the past year, but pessimists/bears don't give in easily and that's actually good for the stock... READ MORE
I've always been impressed by the strong correlation between the U.S. and German stock markets. Sometimes the strength in one of these markets can help to influence the direction of the other. Let me show you a long-term chart of the S&P 500 ($SPX) and... READ MORE
Wow, things have changed. I looked at some charts that I had produced a year ago and looked at those same charts today. You'd never know it was the same stock market. Let's start with the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 (SPY and QQQ,... READ MORE
I remain steadfastly bullish, but I do recognize reasons to be short-term cautious when I see them. I suppose the first question is, "what does it mean to be cautious." Well, I can only tell you what it means to me. While I still believe it makes sense... READ MORE
I wasn't expecting a huge 4% move in small caps on Friday, but I was looking for this group to start flexing its muscles. I've been telling our EarningsBeats.com members that small caps were poised for a big move to the upside. We've... READ MORE
Sentiment was a HUGE problem for the bulls to start 2022 and now it's become a similarly big issue for the bears now. If you haven't noticed, most bulls don't begin to turn bearish until after all or most of the selling is complete.... READ MORE
There are many who have given up on the small cap community, but I'm not one of them. The long-term 15-year chart remains in a solid uptrend. Yes, the group has been underperforming the S&P 500 for quite awhile, but that's been the standard... READ MORE
It was the culmination of many months of accumulation by Wall Street firms. I've discussed this accumulation, or manipulation, over and over and over and indicated that it was the likely precursor to a big stock market advance. I've updated a chart of the QQQ (ETF... READ MORE
Price Action Clearly, the most important aspect of the stock market is price action. That's where it all begins. Currently, I like the daily and weekly charts, but we do still have one very important price resistance level to clear: S&P 500 - Weekly: There are... READ MORE
Growth-oriented stocks tend to have their best relative showing vs. value-oriented stocks beginning in May and running through August. Check out the relative seasonal performance of the XLK (vs. the SPY) over the next four months: If you add the bottom numbers of each calendar month (represents average monthly outperformance... READ MORE
I remain quite bullish the overall market. I call what I see and what I saw in 2022 were stock market participants that turned incredibly bearish. I said at the beginning of 2022 that we needed a bear market brutal enough to send the masses to the sidelines and never... READ MORE
The normal relationship between the Volatility Index ($VIX) and the S&P 500 is an inverse one. The easiest way to illustrate this is to pull up a chart showing both and their correlation coefficient: The red arrows mark bottoms in the S&P 500 and they generally... READ MORE
There are plenty of reversing patterns in technical analysis, but my personal favorite is the combination of a weekly positive divergence and a bottoming head & shoulders pattern. The positive divergence captures the slowing downside momentum and the head & shoulders provides confirmation that prices are indeed turning up. Keep... READ MORE
Cintas Corp (CTAS) is just 1 of 83 companies that have qualified to be on our most powerful ChartList, our Bullish Trifecta ChartList. In order to make it, it must be on our (1) Strong Earnings ChartList (SECL - tracks companies that beat quarterly revenue and EPS estimates), (2) Strong... READ MORE
Okay, first when I say "it's easy", I'm not saying it's easy to call tops and bottoms. Instead, I'm say that answering that rhetorical question is easy. If you can call a top, you can exit equities with your capital... READ MORE
The following was a special educational Daily Market Report that I sent to our EB.com members last week.... I always refer to EarningsBeats.com as a "Research, Guidance, and Education Platform", because that's truly what we strive to be. HERE IS WHAT WE ARE NOT... READ MORE
U.S. equities are wrapping up the first quarter in grand style. The QQQ, which tracks the NASDAQ 100, is zeroing in on a 20% gain for the quarter, as I write this. We saw a huge rally in January 2023 and strong Januarys usually suggest a strong year ahead.... READ MORE
Well, it might be a little early to anoint Intel (INTC) a leader, but there's no denying a significant breakout in the chip stock above key price resistance. On November 15, 2022, INTC opened at 30.72, and the stock hasn't seen an open or close... READ MORE
Ultimately, breaking out above the August 2022 high represents the key level to reverse the downtrend that began in early-January 2022. I like to use longer-term charts to determine whether we're currently trending higher or lower, and right now the downtrend is firmly in place: The numbers on... READ MORE
The end is at hand. Bears, just surrender now. Since the mid-June low (where I called the S&P 500 bottom), we've seen the fed funds rate jump from 1.00% to 4.75%. Of course, all we've heard since then is what? Don'... READ MORE
Semiconductors ($DJUSSC) opened 2023 with a BANG! They spent the entire month of February and the first two weeks of March consolidating in a bullish ascending triangle pattern, but today we're either going to get a confirmed breakout or a false breakout. It simply depends on where we... READ MORE
I remain extremely bullish stocks the balance of 2023 and into 204, but I've been a little short-term cautious the overall market since mid-February, but bullish signals are beginning to emerge once again. The most important sector, in my opinion, is technology (XLK). This sector reeks of aggressiveness... READ MORE
We are provided constant reminders that important company information is reflected in the absolute and relative performance of the company's stock price. That may go against common sense in a few instances, especially when it comes to earnings. After all, the company is supposed to be delivering fresh... READ MORE
Our research at EarningsBeats.com includes extensive seasonal studies, working off the seasonality tool here at StockCharts.com. We've recently ended the best historical period of the year, which runs from the close on October 27, 2022 through the close on January 18, 2023. But the bullishness doesn&... READ MORE
I have been preaching Wall Street manipulation for years. And Wall Street took manipulation to a completely new level in 2022, accumulating shares of panicked retail traders after the distribution period from January through May 2022 ended. Sure, we had two more price lows - one the very next month... READ MORE
Monthly options expiration creates a whole new set of headaches for retail traders. As if trading wasn't already hard enough, throw in the short-term financial incentive for market makers to "manipulate" prices and cash in big time at options expiration, and you have a recipe for... READ MORE
I'm a follower and believer of history when it comes to the stock market. After years of research, I understand that some aspects of U.S. equity performance are rather transparent and resulting technical signals generally can be relied upon. There were plenty of warning signals to open... READ MORE
2022 was a year that required a ton of patience, waiting out the cyclical bear market that unfolded, especially during the first five to six months of the year. But we saw significant strength in many areas during Q4, and growth stocks have powered the market forward in January 2023.... READ MORE
It was one week ago that I wrote about Wayfair's (W) big breakout in the Don't Ignore This Chart blog. It had just broken above key resistance and volume accelerated to its highest level EVER! And EVER is a very long time! 22 million shares traded... READ MORE
Say what you want, but January has proven to be a very reliable predictor of U.S. stock market action from February through December since 1950 and, with just a little more than a week left to go in January 2023, market action is suggesting that we're going... READ MORE