{"id":1807,"date":"2012-08-17T12:44:17","date_gmt":"2012-08-17T16:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.morpheustrading.com\/blog\/?p=1807"},"modified":"2022-04-06T15:05:09","modified_gmt":"2022-04-06T19:05:09","slug":"our-market-timing-system-shifts-to-buy-mode-as-market-breadth-improves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morpheustrading.com\/blog\/our-market-timing-system-shifts-to-buy-mode-as-market-breadth-improves\/","title":{"rendered":"Our market timing system shifts to &#8220;buy&#8221; mode as market breadth improves"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday (August 16), the main stock market indexes rallied to break out above the confines of their week-long consolidation patterns. Most importantly, the bullish breakout was confirmed by increasing volume in the broad market. Total volume in the Nasdaq surged 27% above the previous day&#8217;s level, while turnover in the NYSE rose 17%. Since yesterday&#8217;s substantial gains were backed by increasing volume, both the NYSE \u00a0and Nasdaq registered a bullish &#8220;accumulation day&#8221; that was indicative of institutional buying activity. Furthermore, \u00a0it was positive and important that the rally was led by small-cap (Russell 2000) and mid-cap (S&amp;P Midcap 400) growth stocks. <strong>These factors, along with a few proprietary technical signals, caused our <a title=\"Overview of our market timing system\" href=\"https:\/\/www.morpheustrading.com\/blog\/market-timing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rule-based market timing system<\/a> to shift from &#8220;neutral&#8221; to &#8220;buy.&#8221;<\/strong> Nevertheless,\u00a0until the timing model shifts from &#8220;buy&#8221; to &#8220;confirmed buy&#8221; mode, we will continue to operate conservatively and avoid using margin in our model trading portfolio.\u00a0<a title=\"5 modes of our stock market timing system\" href=\"https:\/\/www.morpheustrading.com\/blog\/market-timing-system\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here<\/a>\u00a0to learn about the 5 different modes of our market timing model.<\/p>\n<p>With stocks and ETFs pushing higher, <strong>we are now looking for <a title=\"What is market breadth?\" href=\"https:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/terms\/m\/market_breadth.asp#axzz23otnsCjp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">market breadth<\/a> to expand, which would confirm this market advance.<\/strong> So far, we are beginning to see improving breadth with small-cap growth stocks waking up. Another tool we use to monitor breadth is a simple chart showing the number of stocks making new 52-week highs <em>minus<\/em> the number of stocks making new 52-week lows. When the difference is firmly positive, and stays that way, it is a confirming signal of improving market breadth. The chart below shows the number of new 52-week highs on the Nasdaq, new 52-week lows on the Nasdaq, and the difference on the bottom:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Improving breadth of Nasdaq 52-week highs vs 52-week lows\" src=\"https:\/\/www.morpheustrading.com\/~rick\/charts\/2012\/120817nhnlnaz.png\" alt=\"New highs vs New lows chart pattern\" \/><\/p>\n<p>On the chart above, note that the lines are going in the right direction to indicate an improving bullish trading environment. For the past three weeks, New 52-Week Highs (the blue line) has formed several &#8220;higher lows,&#8221; and is now poised to breakout above resistance of its prior &#8220;swing high.&#8221; In non-technical terms, this would simply equate to a surge in the number of stocks jumping to new 52-week highs. Since stocks and ETFs trading at new 52-week highs have no overhead supply and price resistance of prior highs to hold them down, <strong>our most profitable swing trades are frequently in stocks and ETFs trading at 52-week highs<\/strong>\u00a0(like<a title=\"Cambrex Corp ($CBM) breaking out to new multi-year high (short-term buy setup)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.morpheustrading.com\/blog\/cambrex-corp-cbm-breaking-out-to-new-multi-year-high-buy-setup\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a0this $CBM trade<\/a>\u00a0we closed on August 15 for an\u00a0<strong>11% gain on a 4-day hold<\/strong>). Conversely, the New 52-week Lows (burgundy line in the middle) has been setting &#8220;lower highs,&#8221; and is now poised to break down beneath the summer lows.\u00a0Overall, we are pleased with current market conditions, but would like to start seeing <strong>more powerful breakouts emerging in mass quantities<\/strong> in order to give us the confidence to start <em>aggressively<\/em> buying leading stocks and ETFs again.<\/p>\n<p><em>The commentary above is derived from the August 17 issue of The Wagner Daily, our<strong> <a title=\"Learn about our swing trading services\" href=\"https:\/\/www.morpheustrading.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nightly stock and ETF swing trading newsletter<\/a>.<\/strong> Subscriptions equate to less than $2 per day (with annual discount) and you can test-drive our<strong> <a title=\"Receive our top daily ETF and stock picks\" href=\"https:\/\/www.morpheustrading.com\/services\/swing-trade-alerts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ETF and stock picking service<\/a> <\/strong>risk-free for the first 30 days.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday (August 16), the main stock market indexes rallied to break out above the confines of their week-long consolidation patterns. Most importantly, the bullish breakout was confirmed by increasing volume in the broad market. Total volume in the Nasdaq surged 27% above the previous day&#8217;s level, while turnover in the NYSE rose 17%. Since yesterday&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stock-trading-strategy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morpheustrading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morpheustrading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morpheustrading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morpheustrading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morpheustrading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1807"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/morpheustrading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11466,"href":"https:\/\/morpheustrading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1807\/revisions\/11466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morpheustrading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morpheustrading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morpheustrading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}