General Comments
A quick look at stock market performance by market cap slices. Simply put, smaller cap stocks (e.g., Russell 2000 (IWM)) tend to outperform larger cap stocks (S&P 500 (SPY) used in the video) during "risk-on" market cycles. This is probably driven by investor psychology and
Relative Strength
Understanding sector strength and weakness is an important part of the investment process. Here is one way to look at short and long term performance relative to current volatility within each sector.
General Comments
One of the reasons we watch and study market leaders is that they can sometimes provide clues to market direction. Yes, they often get harder than the broad market at turns (which is why you must trade them—you cannot "buy and hold" them), but leaders which are
Anti
I tend to believe it's usually counterproductive to do too much in-depth technical analysis on different market cap or sector indexes. Everything is so tightly correlated anyway, so differences often become a matter of analyzing noise. Looking at retracement ratios and trendlines on these instruments and trying to
General Comments
[dc]O[/dc]ne of the main challenges for stock traders is understanding the ebb and flow of the broad market on the shortest timeframes. There is so much noise in price movement at this level, and so many instruments are traded, that it is hard to know what is
Failure Test
A look at the technical position of the S&P Index 10/6/11. Illustrates use of simple technical patterns and relationships to derive an edge.