Pull the trigger with confidence.

At the bottom of the "Liberation Day" Trump Tariff Crash, sentiment was very bearish with a lot of options traders favoring put options versus calls.  That sent the 5-day simple moving average of the daily Put/Call Volume Ratio to its highest reading since August 2024, which was when a rate hike by the Bank of Japan scared everyone by disrupting the "yen carry trade". 

Prices have rebounded nicely since the April 8, 2025 low, and with that price rebound there has also been a rebound in... Read More

The price low on April 8, 2025 was unusual because it coincided with the highest reading for stocks making a new 52-week low on the NYSE.  Usually the number of New Lows peaks before the final price low.

One point that is important to understand about the data for New Highs and New Lows is that the calculations employ intraday extremes.  And so even though the SP500 closed higher on April 9, it only did so after making a lower intraday low, which helped a lot of stocks push down to their... Read More

By now I hope that all of my readers are already familiar with the McClellan A-D Oscillator, the famous indicator that my parents Sherman and Marian McClellan created in 1969.  I want to talk in this article about a derivative indicator related to the Oscillator.  This week's chart shows a plot of the daily value for Advances minus Declines (A-D) that would be needed to take the Oscillator exactly to zero.

That is a nice number to know in case you are watching for a trading signal based on... Read More

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