Trader’s Narrative

At the beginning of the year we looked at the long term trend of IPOs and how they track the speculative impulses that run through the stock market. If you missed it, check out the historical chart of IPOs.
Last year’s bear market completely shut down the initial public offerings and took the number of companies […]

This is a guest post by Wayne Whaley (CTA):
It was recently pointed out by a reader of this blog that we have had several days this year where no stocks made new lows and the reader theorized that this is a very rare and potentially bearish event. Databases vary, but my database has 73 such […]

Last week we looked at the levels of cash and free credits being held in institutional and retail trading accounts in the US: Mutual Fund Cash Levels & NYSE Free Credits. I briefly touched on a research report on mutual fund cash levels by Jason Goepfert, who by the way, runs a great service at […]

The semiconductor index (SOX) is a high beta sector which can be a leading indicator of the health of the market. It found a floor in late November of last year, much earlier than the S&P 500 index. From there it continued to power ahead with consistently better relative strength:

But in August, while the general […]

After six trading days wound tight into a narrow trading range, the stock market finally cracked decisively and fell lower. The range, as measured by average daily true range was extremely slim at 16 points (for the S&P 500 index). The range became a razor thin 5 points when we look at the highest and […]