ChartTrader – Biotech Stock, Weekly Breakout, Classic Retracement – Parts 1 & 2 (Premium)

2024 marks a new year with the same leaders. Large-caps are still stronger than mid-caps and small-caps. The Technology and Communication Services sectors are still the leading sectors. There is, however, a new leading sector this year: Healthcare.

The broad market environment remains bullish, which means we are in a bull market. There can still be corrections and pullbacks along the way. Corrections and pullbacks, however, create opportunities when the weight of the evidence remains bullish. One pullback or correction

Chartists looking to increase their odds should consider two timeframes for their analysis. The longer timeframe sets the strategic tone, while the shorter timeframe defines the trading tactics. Strategically, I am interested in stocks with long-term uptrends.

There is no change with broad market conditions, which were covered in detail on Tuesday. Today starts with a table showing the leading ETFs. These are the strong areas in the stock market right now. I am using proximity to a 52-week high and the volatility-adjusted Rate-of-Change

The broad market environment remains bullish. It all started with the Zweig Breadth Thrust and channel breakout in SPY in early November. The advance broadened in December

Tech stocks were hit with selling pressure to start the year, but many are still in long-term trends and some are nearing support-reversal zones. In particular, Apple (AAPL) fell to a support-reversal zone and I am on alert for a bounce. Let’s investigate.

Stocks are starting 2024 a bit different than the last two months of 2023. After big advances into yearend, stocks fell the first three days of the year. High-beta stocks and ETFs led the way lower with some falling more than 9% (MDB, AMD, ARKK, ARKF). These sharp three day declines

Let’s first recap the broad market environment. The most recent bull run started with an S&P 1500 Zweig Breadth Thrust on November 3rd. This initial surge extended throughout November

Even though the market advance broadened over the last few weeks, most ETFs are still well below their 2021 highs. In other words, they have yet to fully recover from January to October in 2022. Stocks and ETFs that exceeded their

There is no change in the broad market environment: bullish and short-term overbought (strong). We saw a parade of bullish signals in November starting with the Zweig Breadth Thrust on the 3rd. SPY then continued higher and broke above the upper Bollinger Band (125,1) and the upper line of the

For the third time in seven months, RSI(14) moved above 75, which suggests that SPY is short-term overbought. Once again, SPY is overbought and remaining overbought. The red arrows on the

The weight of the evidence is bullish for stocks. It all started with a Zweig Breadth Thrust on November 3rd and the broad advance extended into early December. The 5-day SMA for the Composite Breadth Model (CBM) hit +1 on December 7th. The CBM is a trend-following

SPY and QQQ are in long-term uptrends as both recorded 52-week highs over the last few weeks. Small-caps are in long-term trading ranges, but short-term uptrends as IWM and IJR surged the last six weeks. Overall, stocks are short-term

making big gains (11-15%). Almost all stock-based ETFs are up over this five week period with many up more than 10%. Energy-related ETFs are down, as are ETFs related to some commodities

There is no change in the broad market situation. QQQ is leading because it recorded a 52-week high in November. SPY is not far behind, but it has yet to exceed its July highs. Both are short-term overbought after sharp advances from late October to late November.

The broader market remains mixed. The S&P 500 SPDR (SPY) is performing well because it is weighted by market cap and Nasdaq 100 stocks account for a third of the ETF. The Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ) is performing well because tech stocks are leading the market and the tech sector

Stocks surged the last three weeks and participation broadened, to some degree. Analysts are pointing out the Zweig Breadth Thrust and the massively lopsided Advance-Decline Ratio this week. While there is no denying the powerful upside move since late October, keep in mind that only half of the stocks in the S&P 1500

The weight of the evidence for stocks is mixed. Large-caps and large-cap techs are holding up well, but small-caps and mid-caps remain under pressure. Large-caps account for the majority of the stock market when measuring by market cap.

Stocks surged from October 30 to November 3rd (last week) and then diverged the last three days. SPY and QQQ edged higher, while mid-caps (MDY) and small-caps (IWM) fell. Over the last three days, SPY is up .59% and QQQ is up 1.42%. In contrast, MDY is down 1.71% and IWM is down 2.65%. This is the story of 2023

Stocks surged last week, but we have yet to see breakouts in SPY and QQQ. These two surged within their falling channel patterns. Last week’s bounces were expected because stocks were oversold, the turn of the month shows a bullish bias and November is seasonally strong. These arguments were laid out last