From the desk of Steven Strazza @Sstrazza and Grant Hawkridge @granthawkridge
While breadth has improved in recent weeks and months, the bulls still have their work cut out for them.
When we consider all our breadth indicators in aggregate, the evidence remains mixed. What else is new!? It’s been that way for the majority of this year.
Many of the major indexes made new all-time highs this week. Meanwhile, some advance-decline lines are moving higher, but others are moving lower. Some are at the top of their range, but others are at the bottom of theirs.
The advance-decline line measures stock market breadth based on cumulative net advances. In other words, it takes the number of advancing stocks on a given day and subtracts the number of declining stocks. That number is then added to the previous day’s value, creating a cumulative advance-decline line.
A/D line divergences occur when price is making new highs and the A/D line is NOT.
Just because there’s no divergence in the A/D line doesn’t mean the market can’t correct. We see this happen all the time. But when there is a divergence in the A/D line, we want to pay extra-close attention because there is a heightened possibility that price weakness will follow.
Let’s take a look at advance-decline lines for some of the major averages and indexes in the US equity market.