Trader’s Narrative

Continuing with the series, here is the fourth condition of a new bull market as outlined by Jim Stack of InvesTech:

I’ve hesitated to mention this technical indicator since I started writing this blog because it is almost too good. It is one of the few that have an uncanny ability to find the start of almost all major bull markets. So you can understand why I don’t want to run the risk of ruining it by popularizing it any more than it is. And it is not popular at all.

In fact, compared to say the RSI or MACD, the Coppock Guide is an esoteric and rarely mentioned technical indicator. It was created by Edwin S. Coppock some 50 years ago and although it is followed closely by a very small group of technical analysts, its calculation is not complicated at all.

You can keep track of it yourself. Here’s the recipe: you need historical monthly Dow Jones Industrial data. You add the 14 month ROC to an 11 month ROC, then you take a 10 month (simple linear) weighted moving average of the result. That’s it.

If you’re mathematically astute, you’ve already noticed that it is just another oscillator. Here is the chart of the Coppock Guide for the past few years, courtesy of InvesTech:

How is the Coppock Guide interpreted?
The most traditional interpretation is to recognize a buy signal when the Coppock Guide curls up while it is below the zero line.

It can also provide sell signals, although these are less frequent. If the Coppock curve makes a double top formation without first having come down to the zero line (or below it), the market is in for a seriously brutal bear market. You should be able to find one such occurrence in the chart.

So you can see why I think it is almost too good to share. In its history, only 4 false signals have occurred. That’s an 83% accuracy rate.

What is the Coppock Guide saying now?
The good news is that the Coppock Guide is in negative territory projected to fall into negative territory this month. So now any upturn can potentially give us a buy signal. The bad news is that this may happen next week, next month or next year.

The key factor is an upturn. But that can happen from an incredibly low level, like say in 1974 or 1932 (not shown) or it may happen just under the zero line, as in 1994.

Although no indicator can give a full iron clad guarantee, when the Coppock Guide turns up it would totally skew the probabilities towards a new bull market. As always I’m keeping a close watch and now that “the cat is out of the bag”, you can too.