8/31/2011

Breadth is improving

Market is attempting a rally here after selling stopped.




Breadth is showing improvement.


Overall the market breadth shows signs of attempted stabilization here and signs of accumulation. Any selling here if it is significant can change that picture quickly.

Some buy setups are showing up now in Stockbee Trend Intensity, Stockbee Episodic Pivots, and Stockbee IPO scans. 

8/29/2011

Breadth trends


Stockbee Market Monitor Breadth Trends chart. The chart is developed by Stockbee member. 

Is there a trend change?


A simple tool like 3 moving averages can tell you when trend changes. As of now the MA show a negative trend.

We are experiencing a bounce from oversold level as of now. Can it lead to trend change? Possible but confirmation of that will require time and more buying.

More likely scenario is a range for few weeks which will be volatile and then market will make the real move.

8/26/2011

Why book on market breadth retails for $450

A volatile sideways range is not conducive to momentum swing  trading on both long or short side. 3 days up 2 days down , 2 days up and so on isnot predictable environment.


 Lot of skill in momentum trading is in avoiding such bad periods. Such periods do not last long and are followed by uptrend or down trend. If you trade such period with longer or intermediate term swing trading style you will get whipsawed to death.

Many participants who survive the market for 10 years plus recognize this from real life experience. They avoid such periods. That is why you will see people like Dan Zanger, Mark Minervini and many other vetran traders have been advising.


Mark Minervini made the following post on Stockbee Members Site emphasizing the same point:


You don't need to trade in all market environment to make good money over long term. That is one of the ways to trade and that has been my style for many years. You wait for market to setup and trade when it is favorable to momentum investing.

As against that you can be a day trader and for them trading everyday is their choice strategy. They should be thriving in such environment of high volatility.

For my style of trading the most important thing I look for is breadth trends. Breadth trends tell you when momentum based methods work best.



The Market Monitor is timing tool which tells you when breadth trends change. It is a process where stocks have a breadth thrust and the breadth turns positive. During that period overwhelming number of stocks make long moves. That is the period where obviously momentum works.

Because the the Market Monitor measures the breadth daily you know as a new move starts developing and you can anticipate turns.  So when the market decides to change direction there will be more 4% plus breakout to upside, the 34/13 bull readings will improve and you will have the first indicator of change in breadth trends.

Market breadth based tools are extremely useful if you want to understand the underlying buying or selling dynamics in market. There are many ways to use market breadth . There are very few books on this important topic and the book which I have recommended many times before on this topic retails for $450 on Amazon. It is now out of print due to high demand from many traders.

The Complete Guide to Market Breadth Indicators: How to Analyze and Evaluate market Direction and Strength




If you want to prospect and survive in the market for decades then you must study market breadth. A good understanding of market breadth will help you manage risk better in your trading account and in your 401K accounts. Fortunately there is lot of readily available information on market breadth and how to use it. If you are motivated trader you will find ton of information on this topic on the internet and on this site.





Are you serious about your trading?

If you are serious about your trading and want to build an enduring edge the Stockbee Member site might help you. Members tell me they have tried lot of things before coming to my site and it has offered them the most extensive and detailed methods to swing and position trade.

It is only for those who want to develop their own self sufficient trading method. It is not a stock picking service. It is service for you to build your own scans and trading method to have your own daily pick based on your method.

Be warned it will take you time to learn to trade. Learning to trade is difficult art and unless you are willing to spend months or years to perfect your strategy and also develop your mental edge you are unlikely to succeed in this game. Unless you understand that no site, no service, and no mentoring is going to work.

Why traders come to stockbee?

The member site is one of the most recommended site for learning to trade by other traders and bloggers. You will see no advertising, no hard marketing, no promotions, no free offers, no affiliate marketing, no incentive to other bloggers to promote the site, no constant twits self promoting the site, no free trial  and no tall claims of making you instantly wealthy, and yet the site attracts new  members everyday. Members come from all walks of life and all kinds of trading size and trading styles.

You will see that many trading bloggers have been using my market timing methods, scans , stock ranking lists and chart templates. They have developed their own methods based on my methods. Many paid newsletter site recommend my site to their subscriber for learning about trading and market.

Over the years thousands of traders have been members and those who benefited from the learning talk about the site to others or talk about the methods used and that is how new members learn about the site.





What will I learn in the members site?

The members site will give you in depth understanding to develop your own trading method. The emphasis is on making you self sufficient and confident of your own trading method and style.

As a member you will learn the basics of swing trading, momentum investing, growth investing and risk management.

You will learn about Stockbee Trend Intensity Breakouts method that uses momentum based swing trading to find 3 to 5 day swing trades for 8 to 40% profit.

You will learn about Stockbee Episodic Pivots Breakout method which uses Post Earnings Announcement Drift (PEAD) to find stocks that had a game changing earnings and that are likely to rally for 3 months to 12 months.

You will learn about  Stockbee Dollar Breakout method that uses momentum, range expansion and swing trading approach to find 5 to 40 dollar moves in high priced stocks.

You will learn about  Stockbee Lemonade Strategy for 401k which uses market timing and momentum to invest in 401k. You will get weekly update on how I am using the strategy on our 401k to do allocation decision.

You will learn about Stockbee Market Monitor method for market timing using breadth. It allows you to avoid risky periods in market and allows you to identify market turns. It is used for 401k allocation decisions.

You will learn about Stockbee Double Trouble method to find stock with confirmed upside momentum using anchored momentum and that are likely to continue their up move.

You will learn about Stockbee Night Time is Right Time method to find news catalyst based trade ideas for short term day trade and swing trade.

You will learn about Investor's Business Daily’s IBD 200 list and how it can be used to find swing trading candidates for explosive moves.

You will learn about Telechart 2000 and how to use it effectively to scan for swing and position trade ideas and to set up your 401k strategy.

You will learn about Jesse Livermore Range Breakout, Darvas Box setup, and many other member shared methods.

You will learn how to set up your own scans, select right kind of stocks, how to set up stops, when to enter , when to exit, how much to risk, how to track your trades and all other details about trading. You will learn about developing your own methods and not relying on others for trade ideas.

The site has hundreds of videos and trading methods and variation of methods. Members help each other in developing the methods and share actively their research and finding. A collaborative spirit allows you to get input from others on your trading ideas or problems.

The site gives you opportunity to interact with some of the most successful traders and learn from them about their trading methods. It is a vibrant community with members from different background and experience willing to help each other. The emphasis is on continuous learning and up gradation of market knowledge and setup knowledge. The members range from hedge fund employees, financial advisers, active swing traders, investors and new traders.

If you are looking to develop your own trading strategy the membership site might be for you. You have to be willing to put in the effort to build your own method. There are no silver bullets offered on members site. Every method, every scan, every nuance is detailed and all possible help is offered to design your own method.

Do you have a trial?

If you are just looking for trial you are better off trying thousands of other trading sites that offer free trial or one month trial and offer you promise of riches.

It is for those who are ready beyond the trial phase and ready to put serious months or years  of efforts to learn to trade on their own. It is for those who want to learn to find their own fish.

The free blog has all the details about the methods I trade and if you go through the posts highlighted in the sidebar you will learn about them.



How can I become a member?

To sign up go to www.stockbee.biz and follow the sign up process. The site uses Paypal for payment processing.

8/25/2011

Warren Buffett buys stake in BAC


Not necessarily same thing will happen in BAC. But The market excitement on that news was overkill. And so the gap up in Index faded.

Trade your own setup. If you don't have expertise in buying falling knife, why try it. Setup selection is key to long term survival in trading game.

Buffett has his setup based on his valuation model. He can still hold a stock if it goes down 50% after he buys it. If you don't have that kind of patience why trade that kind of stock.

Range bound action near lows

The market is settling down in to range near recent lows.


This year range bound action has been a common theme. First Six month the market had range bound action near high. Now we are settling in to range near low.

Three days of up action has lead to many beaten down stocks rallying to levels from where shorts will be watching carefully. Most stocks that have rallied for 3 days or more on weak volume after big drop will be on short radar. OTEX is a good example of that kind of setup.



Setup like this are showing up due to bounce. But will require overall market weakness for these to work.

In the meanwhile it is still a day traders and value investors market. No momentum setups showing up as yet but some are in early stages of development. 

8/24/2011

New bull market creates new market leaders


The markets are attempting to form a range here. The buyers stepped in near range low and that range might continue for some time.


The volatility continues to be high. Volatility needs to drop for a sustained bottom. Absent that it is day trader's market.

The breadth trends continue to be bearish. We need to see the big selling days to drop off and daily breadth numbers to drop below 300 for market to consolidate. A 10 to 20 days period like that will create many buyable setups.

Stocks need time to set themselves. As of now not many setups are showing up. If the range breaks down then we will get more short setups.

Big buying opportunities come after market correction. Every time this market has corrected 10% plus since 2009  it has been good buy opportunity.

The momentum based swing trading methods work best when markets rally after such correction. This is the time to run your momentum scans and start looking at possible candidates setting up for next phase.

New bull market creates new market leaders and the new leaders tend to start emerging right at the beginning of new move. The old leaders seldom lead the new move. But most people get fixated on the old leaders and expect them to rally.

The best way to find new leaders is to look at top 300 stocks by relative strength. You can look at stocks using both longer (one year)and shorter (one quarter) term relative strength. Some longer term relative strength leaders undergo orderly correction and they break out at beginning of new move. But many new leaders you will find by using shorter term relative strength at the beginning of new bull moves. A shorter term relative strength based on 40 days or 65 days data can quickly identify a stock that is not showing up on longer term relative strength scans.

Another useful tool to find new leaders is to create a relative strength scan based on recent lows. This kind of scan uses a lowest low of 65 or 90 or 180 days to calculate relative strength (Stockbee Double Trouble scan is based on that concept).

The stocks that IPOed in last 6 month to one year are another source of new leadership and you must have way to monitor IPO daily.

One of the traps many people fall in to is that they become too bearish near bottom and are not mentally ready for start of new bull move. Some continue to short the market when it starts rallying. Some get so convinced of the bearish propaganda that they start believing market is going to go down a lot. That is why you need timing tools which will tell you when the trend has changed.

8/18/2011

Holiday Time

 Washington DC bound for next 4 days. Will be back Tuesday. 

Remain defensive


We are likely to open sharply lower going by futures as I write this post. The overseas markets were down sharply and unless thing change in next few hours we might have another down open. That should not be a surprise. The market is in down trend. What we saw in last few days was reflex bounce. That got lot of people excited.  Sharp bounces are common in bearish phases.

As you can see the market has been going up for last 3 years. It bottomed in March 2009 and since then it went up a lot. This year it was range bound for months. In last week of July the range broke down.


When market suffers this kind of damage , it often takes time for it to recover. Stocks bounced back on low volume after sharp drop but the same stocks are now getting trashed. Many leaders of the rally are breaking their long term trends. When market goes well below its 20 day trend , it usually has sharp rallies of few days which tend to fail. It takes time for market to setup again on long side.

You will see many stocks breaking down after brief bounce:




These kind of breakdowns is not what you see at start of bull markets. At start of bull moves most stocks have put in bottom and building fresh bases.
The volatility needs to come down for market to start building bases from which new advance can start. We have not yet seen signs of that. But from our methodology perspective it is secondary.


The Stockbee Market Monitor will signal buy when the breadth turns and as you can see currently breadth trends are negative.

As discussed in last night long video  , this is the time to be defensive if you are momentum trader. This is the time to study past market cycles and historical bottoms and tops. And at the same time perfect your method for next bull move when it develops. Sitting in cash is also a trading strategy. Which many find difficult to implement or understand.



Disciplined trading with very good risk management strategy will keep you in the market for many decades. If you don't respect the market risk you will be out of market soon. If you survive the market down turns with no damage to your equity you will have lot of opportunities to make up the gains and lost time.

There is currently over eagerness to call the bottom and get back in to market. The sentiments are still bullish. Bottom is a process and it will take some time. Being defensive is good strategy for momentum swing traders currently.


8/17/2011

Higher volume down day


After three days of low volume bounce, the market was down around 1% yesterday on higher volume. 71% of the issues were declining. A V shaped bounce is prone to failure. 

Breadth continues to be negative:


Stockbee Market Monitor currently continues to be in bearish mode. A sustained breadth thrust will be the signal for start of new bull move.

The best Twitter post yesterday was by Dan Zanger: He has been consistently advising caution. But many traders are more interested in action than profits.


Dan Zanger
Some traders here act like it is a badge of honor to trade bad markets. Forget the ego. We are here to make money. That's it.
https://twitter.com/#!/DanZanger



He has been consistently advising caution. But many traders are more interested in action than profits.


If you are a swing trader primarily focused on growth/momentum this market does not as of now has setups that favor that kind of style. Understanding that is key. 

8/16/2011

Snapback rally continues on lower volume


It has been a powerful snapback so far. Today it might experience some selling , but underlying buying so far has been strong. Would not be surprised if strength continues for some time more.

Periods like these lead to churn in leadership and new momentum/growth leaders start emerging from such correction. If you look at momentum scans like the Stockbee Trend Intensity you will see new leadership has slowly started emerging.

Currently the gold stocks are leading the list. But besides gold some recent earnings winner and some  reversal candidates are showing up on the scans. As of now around 30 to 35 stocks are showing early momentum patterns. If market continues to rally the universe of such stocks would increase.



8/15/2011

Dead cat bounce


After three week bearish action the market is attempting a bounce here. The bounce might have more upside before selling resumes or low is retested.

Big drops take some time to reset stocks trends and good trend entries on either side happen after a few weeks of back and forth action.


8/12/2011

Four day shakeout

Lot of drama has happened in last 4 days:

  •  Monday market down 6.66%
  • Tuesday up 4.74%
  • Wednesday down 4.22%
  • Thursday up 4.63%
A move of 1% plus in a day in Index is not very common occurrence. The average daily moves are below .75%. Only during bear market or panics we get 4% plus kind of moves. 2008 had lot of these daily 4% moves.


It Zigs, It Zags: U.S. Market Rises 4% After a Down Day



Never before in the history of the S.& P. index, which goes back to 1928, had there been alternating gains and losses of more than 4 percent on four days. In most years, there were no such days at all.
There were only two previous times since the Great Depression when the S.& P. 500 moved at least 4 percent in four consecutive trading sessions. The first came in October 1987, when the market crashed, and the second occurred in November 2008, as the financial crisis intensified. But neither of those saw alternating gains and losses. In each of those cases, the pattern was two declines, then two gains.

But after 4 days of up and down action , the market seems to have stabilized here and for the time being the fast selling phase seems to be over.


4 day chart of S&P500

Market is now in a transition period where it will build a range and then the new move will emerge. Breadth will tell you clearly in which direction the move would be. Bottoms involve breadth turnover from bearish to bullish. It is a process. If buying days have good breadth then the breadth trend will change. A 17% correction in market from high to recent low is in line with many corrections in bull market. The 3 year bull move is still intact as of now. But the possibility of more downside still exits after a rally attempt. 

Couple of things will help the market:
  • the market news should disappear from front page of the newspaper.
  • volatility should come down
  • bullish sentiments should not quickly increase (which happened this week)
Lot of people are expecting a V bottom. But historically that is low probability event. Most of the time there is a time gap between the first bounce and the start of enduring rally. 

At this stage severely beaten down stocks are bouncing back. Stocks near 52 week low and stocks down 25% in a month are the one attracting bargain hunters. The momentum kind plays are not yet emerging in large numbers.  But that can quickly change in few days once volatility drops. 

If you are looking for volatile stocks that made big moves in last 3 days then the following 62 stocks and ETF fit that criteria:

AAPL
AGQ
AMZN
APC
AVB
AZO
BGZ
BIDU
BLK
BXP
CF
CME
CMG
COG
CRM
CRR
CXO
DRN
EDU
EL
ERX
ESS
EVEP
FAZ
FOSL
FRT
FSLR
FXF
GMCR
GOOG
GS
GWW
HANS
ICE
ISRG
LNKD
MA
MDY
MTD
NFLX
OIH
OTEX
PCLN
PCP
PRGO
PSA
RL
SCO
SINA
SKF
SLG
SODA
SOHU
SPG
TDG
TQQQ
TVIX
TWM
TZA
URTY
VRUS
WYNN

It is also good time to look at the strongest stocks in each of the indices.

Dow Jones 30

MCD: McDonalds is the stock currently with highest relative strength among 30 stocks. BAC : Bank of America is bottom ranked. 


Nasdaq 100

GMCR is the top ranked stock by relative strength. GMCR, AAPL, GOOG are the top three. RIMM is bottom ranked stock. RIMM AKAM FLIR are the bottom 3 ranked. 


S&P 500

MA: Mastercard is the top ranked stock by relative strength followed by LXK, COG, AAPL, and GOOG. The bottom ranked five stocks are PCS, AKS, GNW, S, and JDSU.



8/11/2011

58 volatile movers for short term traders

This market action is like 2008 action where wild swings of 2 to 4% on Index were regular affair. Yesterday we had 4% down day on all indices. Intraday big swings are also common in last few days. This volatile environment is good for day traders.



On a half hourly chart you would see a range is forming.


The range can break in either direction or the range can continue with more volatility.

At this stage the market is not setup for a longer duration swing trades. Short term intra day trading is where the action is for many traders.

The following 58 stocks offer good opportunities for intraday traders. These stocks had 10 dollar plus range in last 3 days.


AAPL
AGQ
AMZN
AVB
AZO
BGU
BIDU
BLK
BXP
CF
CME
CMG
COG
CRR
CXO
DECK
DRN
DTG
ERX
ESS
EVEP
FAZ
FOSL
FRT
FSLR
GMCR
GOOG
GS
GWW
HFC
ICE
IDCC
ISRG
JLL
LNKD
MA
NFLX
PCLN
PCP
PSA
PTR
RL
SINA
SKF
SLG
SPG
TDG
TNA
TQQQ
TSU
TVIX
TWM
TZA
UGL
UPRO
URTY
VRUS
WYNN



These kind of stocks can offer you a dollar plus potential trade on intraday basis. Because there are so many big moves happening on intraday basis scanning for dollar plus movers from open  in Telechart can give you stock ideas for short term trades.

Three of the scans I have been using successfully to find these kind of setups are:


c-o >=1

(c-o)<=(-1)

and

maxh3-minl3 rank 98 plus

The kind of moves I am looking for are best illustrated by an example from yesterday:


This is a continuation breakout setup in a stock with intraday momentum.

Another example of this kind of setup on stocks with big range yesterday was  AGQ:







Are you serious about your trading?

If you are serious about your trading and want to build an enduring edge the Stockbee Member site might help you. Members tell me they have tried lot of things before coming to my site and it has offered them the most extensive and detailed methods to swing and position trade.

It is only for those who want to develop their own self sufficient trading method. It is not a stock picking service. It is service for you to build your own scans and trading method to have your own daily pick based on your method.

Be warned it will take you time to learn to trade. Learning to trade is difficult art and unless you are willing to spend months or years to perfect your strategy and also develop your mental edge you are unlikely to succeed in this game. Unless you understand that no site, no service, and no mentoring is going to work.

Why traders come to stockbee?

The member site is one of the most recommended site for learning to trade by other traders and bloggers. You will see no advertising, no hard marketing, no promotions, no free offers, no affiliate marketing, no incentive to other bloggers to promote the site, no constant twits self promoting the site, no free trial  and no tall claims of making you instantly wealthy, and yet the site attracts new  members everyday. Members come from all walks of life and all kinds of trading size and trading styles.

You will see that many trading bloggers have been using my market timing methods, scans , stock ranking lists and chart templates. They have developed their own methods based on my methods. Many paid newsletter site recommend my site to their subscriber for learning about trading and market.

Over the years thousands of traders have been members and those who benefited from the learning talk about the site to others or talk about the methods used and that is how new members learn about the site.





What will I learn in the members site?

The members site will give you in depth understanding to develop your own trading method. The emphasis is on making you self sufficient and confident of your own trading method and style.

As a member you will learn the basics of swing trading, momentum investing, growth investing and risk management.

You will learn about Stockbee Trend Intensity Breakouts method that uses momentum based swing trading to find 3 to 5 day swing trades for 8 to 40% profit.

You will learn about Stockbee Episodic Pivots Breakout method which uses Post Earnings Announcement Drift (PEAD) to find stocks that had a game changing earnings and that are likely to rally for 3 months to 12 months.

You will learn about  Stockbee Dollar Breakout method that uses momentum, range expansion and swing trading approach to find 5 to 40 dollar moves in high priced stocks.

You will learn about  Stockbee Lemonade Strategy for 401k which uses market timing and momentum to invest in 401k. You will get weekly update on how I am using the strategy on our 401k to do allocation decision.

You will learn about Stockbee Market Monitor method for market timing using breadth. It allows you to avoid risky periods in market and allows you to identify market turns. It is used for 401k allocation decisions.

You will learn about Stockbee Double Trouble method to find stock with confirmed upside momentum using anchored momentum and that are likely to continue their up move.

You will learn about Stockbee Night Time is Right Time method to find news catalyst based trade ideas for short term day trade and swing trade.

You will learn about Investor's Business Daily’s IBD 200 list and how it can be used to find swing trading candidates for explosive moves.

You will learn about Telechart 2000 and how to use it effectively to scan for swing and position trade ideas and to set up your 401k strategy.

You will learn about Jesse Livermore Range Breakout, Darvas Box setup, and many other member shared methods.

You will learn how to set up your own scans, select right kind of stocks, how to set up stops, when to enter , when to exit, how much to risk, how to track your trades and all other details about trading. You will learn about developing your own methods and not relying on others for trade ideas.

The site has hundreds of videos and trading methods and variation of methods. Members help each other in developing the methods and share actively their research and finding. A collaborative spirit allows you to get input from others on your trading ideas or problems.

The site gives you opportunity to interact with some of the most successful traders and learn from them about their trading methods. It is a vibrant community with members from different background and experience willing to help each other. The emphasis is on continuous learning and up gradation of market knowledge and setup knowledge. The members range from hedge fund employees, financial advisers, active swing traders, investors and new traders.

If you are looking to develop your own trading strategy the membership site might be for you. You have to be willing to put in the effort to build your own method. There are no silver bullets offered on members site. Every method, every scan, every nuance is detailed and all possible help is offered to design your own method.

Do you have a trial?

If you are just looking for trial you are better off trying thousands of other trading sites that offer free trial or one month trial and offer you promise of riches.

It is for those who are ready beyond the trial phase and ready to put serious months or years  of efforts to learn to trade on their own. It is for those who want to learn to find their own fish.

The free blog has all the details about the methods I trade and if you go through the posts highlighted in the sidebar you will learn about them.



How can I become a member?

To sign up go to www.stockbee.biz and follow the sign up process. The site uses Paypal for payment processing.

8/10/2011

All the drama you crave for

The day had all the drama you crave for.

Market opened strong and spent first half of the day retaining those gains. After the Fed decision , it gave up those gains, established new low and then in last 1 hour strong buying sent it up.


On the Market Monitor breadth measure it was strong day with 1113 stocks up 4% plus. We will see if the market stabilizes at this level. It will be a process where there will be tests and retests. A V bottom seems unlikely.

At this stage intraday opportunities are a galore as the high volatility is resulting in big range on individual stocks. This is ideal situation for day traders.

Once the volatility settles down good buy setups will show up. For intermediate term swing traders patience is name of the game. If the bounce attempt fails then there will be short setups a galore.




8/09/2011

How focusing on methods help

Reprinted from Stockbee Members site.


Market was stuck in a range for last 5 months. Finally it had a decisive breakdown to the downside.


We are at extremely oversold level . But extreme oversold level by itself is not bullish. Oversold markets can become more oversold.

You will see that many people are expecting a bounce at this level. Which is likely because most bearish moves are punctuated by vicious counter trend moves.

As far as I am concerned based on 50 plus years of market data , a bottom is formed once breadth flips from bearish to bullish. From a breadth number of 96/2146 at this stage , for breadth to flip you would need a virtual buying stampede.

And the real buy signal is when there is breadth thrust where the 10 day breadth ratio goes above 2. Any bounce before that will be a bounce in bearish trend.

If a real bull market starts from such level, it will not be one day phenomenon and you will get several opportunities to get in to it. Because ultimately what we trade is stocks and breakout on stocks. If there is a bull market methods like Stockbee Trend Intensity Breakout will show several good buy setups.

Methods trump markets and opinions. The Market Monitor is a method to determine likely market direction based on underlying breadth trends. It is data driven and logical. Same way we have methods to identify good momentum stocks, methods to identify buy points and sell points on them and method to time entries and exit. All these things are under the traders control. The market is not under our control, but our methods are. If we do a good job of following our methods profit is an outcome.

If we follow our method market risk is taken care of. As you would see those who followed Market Monitor signal have not lost a single dollar in this market turmoil. We got exit signal well ahead of time and were in cash and watching the market implode. That has been the story for years. Look at 2008 the Stockbee members were on right side of trend based on Market Monitor. And we got back in to market on March 10th 2009 once we got buy signal and stayed in the market for the duration of the move. Same way during the flash crash we were out of market in anticipation. And we got back in to the new bull move that started in August end right at beginning.

All of those decisions are methodology driven. They are based on model which works and is logical. You will see several Stockbee members have gone on to build their own models based on same logic as Market Monitor. They have improved upon it. So the underlying logic is robust and is applicable to all markets (members from different countries have created MM for their own country market based on same logic).

Market Breadth is structural data. It is inherent in the structure of the market. Markets are composite of thousands of stock moves. Market Breadth tells you how any stocks are participating in the market move.  That data tells you important thing about likely market direction. This fact is known fact for more than hundred years and people have built breadth based timing tools for hundreds of years. If you do a systematic study of those tools you will find how those tools are used. Once you do that you can build your own timing model. The effort involved is one time. At best it will take you 2 to 3 months to do that. But the payoff would be for rest of your trading career. That is the essence of the core philosophy "Methods Trump Markets.". Your primary focus should be on finding and perfecting methods.

As against that you will see lot of opinions and "secret" methods used by people.  Oh I can not tell you my method because others would copy it. Oh this is our proprietary indicator and so on and so on. If your method is based on logic and underlying market structure, it will work even if you share it with 100 million people. Because unless the underlying market structure changes the method will be valid.

As most of you who are old time members know every single method we trade is based on structural market anomaly. There are no secrets. Momentum is well known phenomenon and has been consistently shown to work. The trick is to build robust methods around it and we have several methods like IBD 200, Double Trouble, Modified Double Trouble,  Top 30 breakouts, Stockbee Trend Intensity Breakout, and so on  based on it. Even the Stockbee Lemonade 401K investing strategy is based on momentum. The other structural phenomenon we trade is PEAD or Post Earnings Announcement Drift. It is extremely well researched and proven structural anomaly in the market. The earnings breakout method is based on it.

One of the advantage of method based focus is , it is step wise process and a new trader can learn it. As trading is about procedural memory a method focus allows a new trader to learn a method by following steps. It allows him to understand the step wise logic involved in complete trading process. It allows you to customize the process for your own constrains like no access to market during working hours for working people or choice of different funds in 401K and so on.

In short if you want to be consistently profitable trader and survive the market for years focus on methods not opinions and "secret" methods. Hunt for transparent methods based on market structure not some "proprietary screener, or proprietary indicator, or proprietary chart pattern, or proprietary trading machine ". Develop your own methods and take control of your own trading.

Methods trump markets. That is the daily underlying philosophy which guides this site. And it is one of the reason the members site attracts so many members and continues to grow, because it allows you to learn a method , internalize it, customize it and develop confidence in your own trading skills. The kind of people who get attracted to the site are method focused. That is why you will see so many methods being shared by successful traders on the site. And many have gone on to start their own sites after developing their own method.

Focus on methods. That will allow you to master the markets.