Market Indicators

A smart trader needs to know what other traders are thinking and doing. Professional traders and investors use a wide range of indicators—some well-known, some not so well-known—to gauge the state of the market. Market Indicators introduces the many key indicators used by professional traders and investors every day. Having stood the test of time, these indicators will alert the trader to market situations that offer the best chance to trade profitably. Richard Sipley is a portfolio manager for Boston Private Bank and Trust Company, responsible for trading millions of dollars of assets. Sipley uses these indicators every day in his trading and investing, and he draws on that experience to explain what they are, how they work, and how to use them.

Market breadth indicators, i.e. advance/decline, new high/new low, or up/down volume, allow technical analysts and traders to look beneath the surface of a market to quantify the underlying strength or direction associated with a market move. Increasingly popular in all types of markets, they give traders the ability to accurately forecast a number of possible outcomes and the likelihood of each. Bottom line? For gauging the near-term direction and strength of a market, breadth indicators are among the single most valuable tools a trader can use. The Complete Guide to Market Breadth Indicators is the most comprehensive and vivid collection available of market breadth indicator information and features ideas and insights from market veterans including John Murphy, Don Beasley, Jim Miekka, Tom and Sherman McClellan, and numerous others. Chapters are first categorized based upon the mathematical relationship between the breadth pairs. Each indicator is then analyzed to provide information including: Also known as--other names by which the indicator is recognized Author/creator--when available Data components required--components of breadth data required to calculate the indicator Description--brief description of the indicator Interpretation--generally accepted industry interpretation of the indicator, with techniques of different analysts also discussed Chart--Chart or charts that best display the indicator Author comments--Greg Morris's personal interpretation, opinion, and use of the indicator, along with suggested modifications, complementary indicators, and more Formula--An algebraic formula for the indicator or, for formulae that are too complex for this section, a descriptive narrative on the formula References--An indicator-specific bibliography for additional information on the indicator or its creator, with notes about a particular book or magazine article Breadth analysis is one of the purest measures of market liquidity. Applicable to virtually any exchange or index of securities for which breadth data is available, it represents the best available footprint of the health and near-term direction of the overall market examined. The Complete Guide to Market Breadth Indicators is the first book to delve into the use, mathematics, and interpretation of the most popular and proven of these tools, and is an invaluable reference for technical traders and investors of all types, and in every market.

The use of technical market indicators has long been a controversial subject, highly regarded by some and treated with great skepticism by others. Yet, the number of indicators-and the number of individual investors and finance professionals using them-continues to grow. Now, more than ever, there is an urgent need for objective testing to determine the validity of these indicators. Technical Market Indicators is a unique study of the performance of many of the most widely used technical analysis indicators. The authors explore in an unbiased, rigorous manner whether these indicators consistently perform well or fail to do the job. They explain which indicators work best and why, providing a clear picture of what the investor is likely to experience when using technical analysis. Unlike other books on the subject, Technical Market Indicators provides a comprehensive testing of indicators that uses a large sample of stocks over a twelve-year time period, encompassing varying market conditions. Instead of using the traditional technical analysis charts, this detailed analysis takes a different approach, calculating numbers based on various relationships and letting the numbers dictate the decisions. This allows the investor to use technical methods without ever consulting a chart. From an objective standpoint, the authors address both the pro and con arguments of using technical analysis and attempt to shed additional light onto the controversy through their systematic testing. They also alert the investor to the many different issues that must be addressed when using technical indicators, including performance measurement criteria, consistency of results, combining indicators, portfolio considerations, and leveraging. This indispensable resource features: * Comprehensive testing of sixty different technical indicators, fully described, including Trading Band Crossover, Relative Strength Peaks, Random Walk Breakout, Candle Belt Hold, and Volume Trend * An explanation of the underlying concepts behind the indicators and their methods of calculation * In-depth results of tests on each individual indicator, with over 250 pages of detailed tables * An examination of trading rules that combine two or more indicators and a report of a sampling of the best combinations * An annotated bibliography. For those new to technical analysis or for the experienced analyst looking for some fresh angles on the subject, this one-of-a-kind resource is the only one you'll need to navigate the increasingly complex maze of technical market indicators. Can technical analysis be used as an effective tool to enhance investment performance? This question is currently on the minds of many investors and traders. The answer can be found in this invaluable, comprehensive resource, which provides a detailed analysis of the most commonly used indicators, explaining in detail which indicators seem to work best, why, under what conditions, and with which kinds of financial instruments. "Do technical market indicators provide useful information to the stock trader or is it impossible to beat a buy and hold strategy? Bauer and Dahlquist tackle this controversy by rigorously testing 60 indicators on 878 stocks over a 12-year period. Their explanations of the indicators, the testing process, and the results are clear and concise. The 12 major conclusions based on this extensive research will provide the reader with plenty of opportunities to follow Bauer and Dahlquist's final advice: 'Keep learning and keep thinking. '" - Tom Bierovic Manager, System Trading & Development Education Omega Research, Inc. "Who says a technician has to use charts? Here is a book that sidesteps traditional technical analysis and describes how tabular data can be more informative." - Ralph Acampora Managing Director Prudential Securities.

All signals are GO! Read the "mind of the market"--and make more money! All About Market Indicators explains how to forecast the direction the market is taking so you know precisely when to get in and when to get out. This accessible but highly detailed guide introduces many of the key indicators that suggest what other investors are up to. You'll learn how to access these indicators--often using free or low-cost sources--and interpret and implement them to raise your odds of success. Make the right decisions at the right time using market indicators, including: • VIX • Stochastics • Volume • Moving Averages • MACD • New High–New Low • Arms Index • Advance-Decline Line • RSI • Bollinger Bands • Put/Call Ratios • Breadth • Momentum • Sentiment Surveys • Prices • Trends • Economics Plus, professional traders reveal how they apply their favorite indicators! Gerald Appel Richard Arms Bernard Baumohl John Bollinger Thomas DeMark Dr. Alexander Elder Ken Fisher Fred Hickey William J. O'Neil Linda Raschke Brett Steenbarger Dr. Van Tharp Larry Williams And others...

Today's most all-inclusive reference of technical indicators--what they are and how to use them to add value to any trading program Technical analysis has become an incredibly popular investors' tool for gauging market strength and forecasting short-term direction for both markets and individual stocks. But as markets have changed dramatically, so too have technical indicators and elements. The Encyclopedia of Technical Market Indicators provides an alphabetical and up-to-date listing of hundreds of today's most important indicators. It defines what each indicator is, explains the philosophy behind the indicator, and of the greatest importance provides easy-to-understand guidelines for using it in day-to-day trading. Broad in both scope and appeal, this one-of-a-kind reference painstakingly updates information from the previous edition plus defines and discusses nearly 100 new indicators.

Technical indicators can inform you about different aspects of the market, such as trend, volatility, momentum, market strength, cycle, and so on. They are mathematical calculations that can be applied to a stock's price, volume, or, even, to another technical indicator. The result is a value that is used to anticipate future changes in prices. Indicators serve three broad functions-to alert, to confirm and to predict. When choosing an indicator to use for analysis, try to choose indicators that complement each other, instead of those that generate the same signals such as Stochastics and RSI, which are good for showing overbought and oversold levels. For analyzing trends, use trend following indicators like moving averages. For trading ranges, use oscillators like RSI. There are 42 technical indicators in this ebook with brief description and mathematical formula of each. Finding potential stocks are easy using these indicators especially if you have charting software which allows you to create your own filters. As always in technical analysis, learning how to read indicators is more of an art than a science.

This is the eBook version of the printed book. This Element is an excerpt from Technical Analysis Plain and Simple: Charting the Markets in Your Language (9780137042012), by Michael N. Kahn, CMT. Available in print and digital formats. Interpreting the non-price indicators that can uncover emerging trading opportunities When the market goes one way and the supporting indicator goes the other, then something is happening beneath the surface. An early trading opportunity may be in the works. Listen to these indicators–every indicator tells a story.