In: Finance
In investing, we would like to know the overall trend of the market. Is the market trending up? Or, is it trending down? If the market is trending up, we want to be invested in stocks or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), such as DIA, SPY, QQQ, SSO, DDM, or QLD to name several. If the market is trending down, we really do not want to be in stocks, because we all know too well what happens to stock prices in a down market. In a down market, the best place to be is in a money-market fund or inverse Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), such as DOG, DXD, SDS or QID to name several. Now, how does one determine if the market is trending up or down?
To determine if the market is trending up or down, one needs to look at the long-term technical charts of the broad market. Broad market here is defined as a broad-based index indicator such as S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average etc.
A study of technical charts shows that there are 3 kinds of trends - primary trends, secondary trends and short-term trends.
Primary trends last from several months to several years. They represent whether a market is in a bull or bear phase. A primary trend is assumed to be intact until a definite sign of reversal is seen. A long-term primary uptrend is a bull market whereas a long-term primary uptrend is a bear market
Secondary trends last from a few weeks to a few months. They run counter to the primary trend.
Short-term trends are noise, and last only a few days.
To determine if the market is trending up or down, the primary trend needs to be identified, and the secondary/short-term trends need to be filtered out.