Thursday, July 23, 2009

Tracking an Upside Breakout in the Stock Market


The recent post looked at how we were trading in a compressed range; above we see how the upside breakout materialized early in the day. (Here's a post on identifying upside breakout moves that was relevant to today's trade).

One thing to look at in breakout moves is the time of day in which they occur. Institutional participants tend to be most active early and late in the trading day; that's when we see volume and volatility highest. If institutions are going to establish value significantly higher or lower, they'll tend to do that when trade is best facilitated.

Today's buying represented significant new demand from institutional participants, as relative volume expanded, and we registered a new peak in the number of stocks making fresh 20- and 65-day highs. This supports the earlier noted new highs that we've been seeing in the advance-decline lines for the major averages.
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