Market breadth is an interesting topic. Breadth stats compare the number of stocks up vs the number of stocks down in some way.
Different filters on breadth can provide useful information about what markets are leading.
Many people use different indicators to determine market breadth. Some use a combination of various indicators such as moving averages, weekly movements, last weeks movement Monday to Friday or week movement from the same day last week to the current day this week (Tuesday to Tuesday), or the past X number of trading days. Some use performance metrics and volume as a filter.
One of the most useful breadth analysis that anyone can do is looking for leadership.
Leadership in markets can take various forms.
If a stock is up more than its peers or a particular group or industry or sector is up more than its peers it signifies leadership.
The presence of leadership is dependent upon the underlying conditions of a market.
For example, if the market has been trending downward and slowly you witness the breadth decline first in one particular area, then in others... A sector that is still showing positive gains that are declining and with declining leadership within that sector represent a sector that actually is trailing the others downwards, not leading or indicative that it will lead the market upwards.
This makes breadth a little bit subject to interpretation at times, so it is most useful when you have clarity.
A clear sign of breadth is when breadth has decayed and the market has declined and THEN you have a sector or group begin to show strong breadth after previously showing decaying breadth.
Herding mentality generally takes placce, and I tend to prefer to be a bit more anticipatory in nature when I trade.
You can use multiple time frames as filters for breadth but you should find a way to track breadth fairly regularly. Simply using a spreadsheet may be one good way to observe breadth.
Often times you are looking for divergences... one group not following the others or leading away from the others.
My favorite breadth signal is comparing 1% movers to 4% movers.
Some of my most successful trading occured during a time when I built a spreadsheet where I could track breadth with a push of the button. I also had a separate tab that would track dozens of variables in individual stocks and rate those variables and that would feed into both an individual rating and then a rating by group. Comparisons of the rating by group would then create a separate multiplier to reward the groups that were doing well.
It wasn't just about chasing as I would also reward volatility contraction as a separate filter.
The spreadsheet made my life easier to find individual trades while the breadth tracking was more about capturing short term moves and fiine tuning while also monitoring transactions and timing more aggressive buying or position reduction and raising cash.
If the market would get oversold according to breadth after a sell off, I would begin considering adding XIV or market index. The moment I saw a positive divergence or even a change in breadth from very negative to less negative from the oversold levels, I would start to show interest if the signs were there.
Since I like to buy out of the money options, I was playing for the lower probability, higher upside moves. Thus, the ideal trading conditions would be one in which big moves occur more often, and when the moves were not as "low probability" as they're supposed to be based upon block scholes pricing mechanism. One filter is only buying options with lower implied volatility that you expect to make a bigger than implied move. Another was looking at the trading environment as a whole through breadth measurement.
While individual breadth was not always clear, the one thing that I liked to see is momentum catching on.
That means of the stocks that moved more than 1%, I wanted a high percentage of stocks that moved 4%. I also ideally would see stocks that moved up by any percentage start to improve to be less negative, stocks that moved by more than 1% be even less negative relative to those that moved 0-1%, and stocks that moved 4% be positive.
I'll give you a hypothetical example so you know what I am saying. Let's say market had been in an uptrend but then a correction occurred. The last couple weeks, breadth up until today had been totally negative. In fact it had gone below 20% of stocks moving upward in every category which you probably should consider "oversold". More stocks down than up, more stocks down big than up big by an even greater magnitude, and few stocks catching on for big moves overall, with a downward trend of things getting worse.
Say that initially you notice the following stats early on in the day.
stocks up 2000
stocks down 4500
stocks up 1% or more:1300
stocks down 1% or more:2000
stocks up 4% or more:200
stocks down 4% or more: 250
I also might filter stocks that pass a liquidity test so I ignore stocks that are super small cap or that I won't trade, or that don't have reasonable average daily volume.
You can break these numbers down in several ways.
standard breadth calculation would look at the percentage of the total sampled.
the percentage of stocks moving up vs the total making that sort of move gives you % bullish.
stocks 30.77% bullish on a purely up vs down measurement.
stocks 39.39% bullish of those moving more than 1%.
stocks 44.44% bullish of those moving more than 4%.
Even though breadth is still negative, this is a pretty positive sign in the context of a correction as it signifies within the minority of stocks that do well, there at least is less leadership to the downside in terms of the major movers. It also means when stocks move, they actually seem to catch on. If it were a totally bearish environment even positive news wouldn't stick and capital would rotate out of stocks entirely, rather than into the cream of the crop but out of everything else.
It means there is at least some buying conviction somewhere and it also represents a move out of "oversold" territory. Short sellers could be covering and buyers could begin having some moderate interest again. The market has probably found a bid after seeking a fair market price by moving downward up until now. (see market auction theory)
The next thing I like to do is look at OF those that moved up, what percentage moved at least 1%? What percentage moved at least 4% Of those that moved up 1%, what moved at least 4%?
65% of stocks that moved up in this example moved 1% or more. This is very good. It means if you found a stock that moved up, it had a good chance of moving up with conviction. Only 10% moved 4% or more, this is fairly good since 4% in a day is a big move, but not great. Of those that moved up more than 1%, 15.4% continued up 4% or more. That's a little better than 10% moving 4% or more of all stocks that moved upwards, signalling there is a reasonable "chase effect" in those that catch on, but it could easily be better as well.
This isn't necessarily a total buy signal just yet, but it's enough for me to shift to a less bearish, less cautious stance and begin adding some long exposure. I'm usually at least taking some positions and doing something, so perhaps I take profits on puts and consider taking a small position or some in the money or close to the money call options, or some out of the money calls in some market ETFs or out of the money puts in the VXX if the VIX index is currently high as it often is after a correction.
What I am looking for is those moving more than 4% to turn positive and the numbers to improve.
Say it improves to
40% bullish
45% bullish of those moving 1%+
55% bullish of those moving 4%. Now I am going to start buying aggressively especially if the up 4% crosses the 60% threshold. I am usually looking to shift to bullish or shift to significantly more bullish than I was.
If the secondary numbers improve to where of the stocks that are being bought, a higher percentage of them are being bought up 1% or 4%, I am looking forward to buying options and willing to take more aggressive out of the money options. Although the risk cycle still applies and the market will generally buy quality first, then begin to look for what hasn't moved, I am at least ready to take a more aggressive position.
If the rally sticks as I expect it to, I can rotate from quality stocks up while adding positions at a faster rate than I subtract. After I have the exposure I want, then I'm looking to add positions at the same rate I take those positions off. If breadth gets TOO good in the 75+% territory, I begin reducing position at a faster rate than I add and gradually decreasing exposure.
Aside from an overbought signal, I will also look to reduce exposure if I notice the up 4% stocks are less bullish than the up 1% or if the secondary breadth numbers (percentage of movers going up 1% or 4%) show decline. The context of a rally getting stale or no longer catching on is a sign that things probably aren't as good as people think and at a minimum that the environment is becoming more difficult for option buyers.
You have to be a little bit anticipatory with the ebb and flow of the market and look to move so that you don't get caught too aggressively on one side of the market.
I'm also looking at the inverse of these numbers just to see if anything stands out. In other words, I am looking at the percentage bearish and the percentage of bearish stocks catching on. I don't care too much if stocks are trending in both directions, as long as there's positive trades with the potential for big upside and the market has favorable conditions. In fact, I want a market that isn't too one sided. If trades are catching on to the upside, but not to the downside, this may suggest the market is too correlated, and if it's correlated to the upside, there's greater risk that a downward move will effect all stocks. Being diversified becomes a risk in this environment.
Additionally, if stocks are trending in both directions, it's probably good to find a bearish trade or two as sort of a moderate hedge and to reduce your portfolio's correlation to risk.
ON the other hand, if the market becomes too correlated and most stocks that move downward aren't catching on for very long as well as say overbought conditions or other signs of market correlation, I tend to prefer to hedge in the form of puts in index ETFs.
It's probably a good idea to regularly follow this procedure as well as have a more fixed methodology for exactly how much you buy and how many positions you may hold at once or how much allocation you have in given circumstances so that you aren't susceptible to emotional trading or over exposure without cause.
When I was using the spreadsheet, I would use a separate methodology to try to find hedges, and would tend to have pretty good timing at either buying an individual trade that would profit, or a market hedge that I would put on and take of when conditions improve.
It's possible to grab individual trades, notice the market get overheated and overcorrelated, put on a hedge, see a breakdown or correction and take profits on your hedge only to see the market recover and have enough gains in the same week to profit on both sides. Or conversely take an individual trade on the downside as well as a lot of trades on the upside.
This involves separate skills of stock picking and market directional trading, and the skills of money mangement and position sizing and allocation... but it's useful to develop these skills.
Much of the post has been discussing general market direction, but you can also spot breadth by industry for signs of rotation out of a particular industry and into another. It's just that market breadth has more data points.
When you deal with sectors, you have fewer data points so you may want to just compare up up 0% vs those stocks up only 1%, or 1% vs 2% or 3% instead of 4% so that you have more data points, but the ideas are mostly the same. You might also compare the degree of bullishness or bearishness in one industry or sector relative to another. For example if the basic material stocks are improving and they begin outperforming another industry it is a sign investors and traders are favoring basic materials.
Breadth usually ignores the overall dollar amount moved in and out of trades. For that you'd need to weight each stock by market cap but industry market weighted averages usually will tell you if money is moving into them. However, breadth can be captured specific to large cap, small cap, micro cap as a whole or within a sector as well for an additional filter of information that may be useful.
Also, you want an environment that is productive for how you trade. If you buy covered calls or sell options, you probably don't want big moves so you would probably look for different criteria. I look to have my winners run, so I want to trade when stocks are capable of a big move. The past and current information is not always indicative of the future, but combined with an understanding of psychology and how markets operate and other information it is a very useful tool to sort of get a litmus test of the markets.
Disclaimer: I claim no liability for any trade made or avoided as a result of information published. For my legal protection: All the information on this site is for my own value. It is intended for personal educational purposes only and is not a recommendation of how to use or not use your money. It's not a recommendation to buy or sell a particular stock and you should consult with experts before making a trade.
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