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A common question regarding MarketSmith: what is the difference between the RS Line and RS Rating?

I originally wrote a short post describing the differences (see below). The video tutorial that follows provides some additional insight as well as highlights several examples on how to use both indicators when scanning for growth stocks.

Investor’s Business Daily recently hosted a webinar How to Trade Like an Investing Champion. The moderator, Irusha Peiris, was joined by U.S Investing Champions David Ryan (1985, 1986 and 1987) and Mark Minervini (1997). This is an excellent webinar to get insight into how these award winning traders analyze both the market and stock setups.

One sign of a potential true market leader is when there is a divergence of the stock’s price action versus the overall market. In this post I’ll show several examples where the S&P 500 was moving down while a stock was moving up, preceding a large gain over the coming months.

As with any technical or fundamental indicator, divergence is no guarantee of upward price movement. However, as you’ll see, divergence may be foretell a winning stock, one that can make a significant move higher.

One way to help judge supply and demand for a stock is to pay attention to the closing range, which indicates where a stock closed within the price range for the day/week/month. Closing near the high indicates buyer demand for the stock. When near the bottom of the range, there was more selling than buying.

Closing Range Considerations:

• The closing range indicates where in the range (day/week/month) a stock closed.
• Higher in the closing range, buyers were in charge. More sellers than buyers when lower in the range.
• A closing range of 40%+ is supportive action.
• Even if a stock closes down for the day, if the closing range > 40%, that is still considered a sign of strength.

The true range takes into account the previous daily or weekly close. This provides another perspective as it relates to the current action, accumulation or distribution as well as the overall trend. The examples below will provide more specifics.

When there is a market correction, it’s important to wait for a confirmation that an uptrend is underway before scaling back in. A follow-through day is the signal we are looking for.

Below is a short tutorial on how to determine when a follow-through day (FTD) has occurred. This includes the required rally days prior to an FTD as well as early signs a failure may occur. You’ll also find several annotated charts showing an index low, how to track the prerequisite rally and pinpointing where an FTD begins.

Many thanks to Mike Webster for clarifications and updates.

The concept of tightening price action, lower highs and higher lows, along with volume declining, will often lead to a breakout that follows in the direction of the prior trend.

William Jiler in 1962 referred to this as a coil. Mark Minervini, in his book Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard, describes similar price action which he refers to as volatility contraction pattern (VCP). It is also known as a symmetrical triangle.

In this post I’ll show historical examples as well as recent breakouts and current setups. My focus here is on daily and weekly charts. With that said, take some time and look at various intraday charts, the same concepts apply.

On a recent IBD Investing podcast, Irusha Peiris and David Ryan walked through a number of clues that may indicate we are heading into a correction. The chart of QQQ was used as many of recent leaders can be found in the Nasdaq 100.

I annotated a chart of the key points and added some additional notes as it relates to the moving averages and RS Line.

It’s important to note, these same principles apply regardless of the index, so I’d recommend keeping this information handy for future reference.

Given the sharp correction in the Nasdaq over the past two days, this post seems timely…

Based on his own research and market analysis, Chris Gessel noticed something unique about a specific type of market correction. After further study with Justin Nielsen, they found that a significant break of the 50-day and/or 200-day moving averages often lead to a period of under performance, which could include a continued decline, an extended period of volatility and/or failed follow through days.