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Closing the Book on 1981 Analog

I have written here twice before about the pretty amazing resemblance of the stock market in late 2024 to that of late 1980. Those earlier stories are linked below.
It was a really fun analog while it lasted, but now it is time to close the book on that story. We are not repeating the stock market of early 1981, just after President Reagan was inaugurated. This breakup of correlation happens to all analogs eventually, and in my personal experience they usually fail right at the moment... Read More
Reverse Repos Waning

Fear not the end of Reverse Repos. The Fed can always go back to doing outright repurchase agreements.
A lot of analysts have noted that the size of the Fed's book in Reverse Repurchase Agreements (RRPs) has gotten really small lately. The NY Fed reports its level daily via the St. Louis Fed's great FRED web site, at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/data/RRPONTSYD. Those data are what I show in the chart above, with a couple of adjustments. The first is that I invert the scaling, so the... Read More
Rising New Lows In The Nasdaq

There are certain relationships which work "normally" most of the time, and when they are working that way it is not very remarkable. But when the normal relationship breaks down and starts acting differently, that gets our attention.
This week's chart shows us that the numbers of Nasdaq stocks making 52-week New Lows has been ramping up higher recently. That is not the normal thing to see while prices are continuing to push to higher highs. The normal relationship is that when prices... Read More
NYSE A-D Line Divergence

The SP500 on Jan. 23, 2025 was able to climb up to a new all-time closing high. But it is not yet dragging along the rest of the market, and this may indicate a problem.
This week's chart shows a bearish divergence evident in the NYSE's cumulative Daily Advance-Decline Line. The divergence is that the SP500 is making a higher high, but the NYSE A-D Line is not yet confirming. The A-D Line is a cumulative running total of the daily difference between advancing and declining issues. If... Read More
Crude Oil Futures Backwardation Spike

Crude oil prices are showing at least a short term topping condition now, based on seeing the near month (February 2025) contract price well above that of January 2026. This produces the big spread that you see in this week's chart., which says that prices have become stretched to the upside.
Any futures contract represents 2 positions simultaneously, one long and one short, each held by different people. The short position holder is obligated to "deliver" the specified amount of the... Read More
Big Spike in Bitcoin Open Interest

Bitcoin is the modern era's #1 speculative trading asset. But the public mood waxes and wanes concerning enthusiasm toward Bitcoin, just like any other type of speculative vehicle. There is nothing like seeing Bitcoin prices zooming up to new all time highs to get everyone excited, and that excitement shows up in traders deciding to play in the Bitcoin futures market. Participation in a particular futures market is measured using data on "open interest", which refers to the total number of... Read More
News - The Origin Story of the McClellan Oscillator
The Market Misbehavior Podcast with David Keller. Tom discusses how his parents, Sherman and Marian McClellan, first developed the McClellan Oscillator and Summation Index back in 1969, and how it is still extremely useful today.
The December Dip That Was A Week Late

Back on Nov. 14, 2024, I noted in a Chart In Focus article that the current market's price path was looking a lot like both 1964 and 1980. It seems appropriate to review the progress since then. This week's chart looks again at that 1980 comparison.
1980 was when President Reagan defeated the incumbent President Jimmy Carter to win election. Reagan's victory was both anticipated and celebrated by Wall Street, as he was seen as a "transformative" candidate with the promise of solving all... Read More
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