If you click here, you will see that the McCellan Oscillator finished Monday’s session well above 70. Generally speaking, over 50 denotes an overbought broad stock market, while below minus-50 indicates oversold conditions (If you are not familiar with the McClellan, it basically is as simple as that).
The terms “overbought” and “oversold” are highly controversial in the trading community, and rightly so. Too often, traders find themselves in losing trades because they fail to either comprehend or respect the fact that overbought markets can often become much more overbought, and oversold markets can become much more oversold. As we saw earlier this summer, the McClellan stayed dramatically oversold for over two full trading weeks. Thus, you should always remember that price is what matters most, and trading largely off of indicators entails significant risk of trapping yourself on precisely the wrong side of the trade for a much longer period of time than you can imagine. That said, certain indicators, such as The PPT broad market hybrid score, have worked unbelievably well during these summer months.
I would like to lay out a few situations where I think you should distinguish the nature of overbought market condition. Here is my take:
I. WHEN OVERBOUGHT IS BEARISHÂ
- When we are in a bear market, and enjoy a sharp relief rally that quickly flags overbought on a variety of indicators, and then begins to sell-off in a violent way.
- When we are in a bull market, but in the process of a correction, and see a brief rally off of said correction that flags overbought as the rally stalls out.
- When in either a bear or bull market, the underlying participation of stocks making new 20-day highs (as just one example of a metric to watch) is weak and indicates that only a few stocks are seeing sharp moves higher despite the broad market flagging overbought.
- Overbought markets tend to be most bullish when they STAY overbought for an extended period of time–The market fights off a correction with such ferocity that traders start to actually doubt whether we will ever see another correction again. Stocks push higher, and then simply drift sideways for a day or two before continuing higher, as traders try to short the market all the way up because it is “overbought” according to a variety of metrics.
- Overbought markets are most bullish in the early stages of a fresh uptrend (off of a bear market low, or a correction low in a bull market) when the majority of traders acknowledge the power of the move but still largely consider it a bear market rally.
Good timing! This turn, if I am right, is not going to turn face at most said indicators. Of course as my wife tells me plenty, I could be wrong.
the ppt nailed the shit out of un last week
This underscores the importance of context and the problem with trading by indicator alone or not fully appreciating signals.
Takes a long time and a lot of foul balls to put those pieces together. This post is value added.
Well played senor wine.
While in a bear market the likelihood of markets remaining overbought for long is rare and most likely only at the end of said bear market.
Exactly
we just hit overbought today. tomorrows action will determine we will stay overbought for longer or not.
there is going to be a resistance between 1212-1218 which is the left shoulder of 2010 prior ot correction. there is a lot of chatter that we are forming a bigger head and shoulder with the left shoulder at 1212-1218 with the neckline of 1100.
BTW volume was much lighter than firday, gold did not go down much, vxx did not collapse and TLT seems like it is forming a bull flag
This is a very important post. I think we should all make copy of the above points and tape it to the wall!
italy bonds did great. falling to 5.2%. the bull continues. im lookin at corn, soy ,ect prices.how much will this affect consumer spending? maybe no affect?