Thursday, 17 March 2016

Breadth market indicator, theory explained

In this blog we have tried to explain our blog readers to educate regarding the breadth of market theory and the breadth indicator used in technical analysis.

Breadth of Market Theory


Breadth of market is a technical analysis theory that forecasts the market strength depending on the number of stocks that advanced or declined on a particular trading day. This indicator is used to get an idea on the number of stocks advancing and declining on a particular day. The market will be rising if the breadth indicator looks strong and vice versa.



Breadth Indicator


It is a mathematical formula which uses advancing and declining parameters to evaluate the amount of contribution in the movement of the stock market. By evaluating the number of stocks that got increased or decreased in price and the number of trades the investors are placing for these stocks, breadth indicators can indicate whether the overall market sentiment is bullish (positive market breadth) or bearish in nature(negative market breadth). Investors can use these breadth indicators to evaluate the performance of a particular industry or sector, or to examine the magnitude of a rally or retreat.

There are different types of technical breadth indicators used by technical analysts, such as the force index, Chaikin oscillator, up/down volume ratio, up/down volume spread, on-balance volume and cumulative volume index. One well-known breadth indicator is the Arms index, which assesses the relationship between the number of advancing and declining stocks and the trading volume of each. This breadth indicator guides the investors determine whether the market is bullish, bearish or neutral. A drawback to this indicator is that it can become inexact when the market behaves unusually.

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