Pull the trigger with confidence.

When we talk about the McClellan Summation Index, we are usually referring to the version of it calculated on NYSE Advance-Decline (A-D) data.  But it can be calculated on any type of breadth data.  Whether such an alternative is useful is a separate question.

This week's chart looks at the Ratio-Adjusted McClellan A-D Summation Index for the Nasdaq.  It is noteworthy right now because it has gotten down to a very low level, below -1000, and turned up.  That can be a pretty nice bullish... Read More

President Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is attempting to find wasteful spending and other problems throughout the federal government.  We are not yet 3 full months into the current presidential term, so it is hard to know exactly what successes they may be having.  But there are already some signs of lowered spending.

Every month, the Treasury Department publishes its Monthly Treasury Statement (MTS), detailing broad monthly numbers on tax receipts and federal... Read More

The latest data from Investors Intelligence on their bull-bear spread show a dead heat.  Both numbers are at 28.8%, meaning that the numbers of investment advisors and newsletter writers in their survey are exactly equal.  But interestingly, both numbers are also very small, which has importance for this week's chart.

The advisors in their survey which Investors Intelligence cannot categorize as either bullish or bearish get put into a 3rd category which they call "correction".  And it... Read More

The "non-commercial" category of Bitcoin futures traders in the COT Report data have moved to a sizable net long position. That is a bottoming sign for Bitcoin prices.

The Commitment of Traders (COT) Report is published every Friday by the CFTC, reflecting traders' positions held as of the preceding Tuesday.  That report breaks down traders into 3 categories:

• Commercial traders are ones who produce a commodity, or use it in their trade or business.  So for wheat futures, think of a... Read More

Starting right after the November 2024 elections, the SP500 was doing better than average.  I wrote here back on Dec. 5, 2024 about the differences in stock market behavior between having an incumbent party president (or replacement) winning versus a new challenger.  Usually the victory of a new challenger candidate means he gets to serve in what is counted as his first term.  President Trump's victory is unusual in that he was the challenger to the incumbent party candidate (VP Harrris), but... Read More

Lots of people who trade or invest in the stock market like to look at the VIX Index, and there are hundreds of ways to analyze it with Bollinger Bands, moving averages, standard deviation, and other methods of slicing and dicing its messages.  This week's chart shows a way to compare the spot VIX Index to the pricing of the VIX futures contracts.

The VIX Index is based on the pricing of SP500 Index options.  When risks go up, the price premiums on those options goes up, much like the way... Read More

The total numbers of issues traded on both the NYSE and Nasdaq peaked with the stock market's peak at the end of 2021, and these numbers fell all during the bear market of 2022.  But then even though stock prices started turning up again in late 2022, the total numbers of stocks traded have continued to fall.  There are interesting reasons for that, which I will get to below.  But I should also note that in late 2024 we started seeing a brief swoop upward in Nasdaq issues traded.  That swoop... Read More