System Design  |  AUG 1997

The Turbo A/D, NH Market System by Dennis Meyers, Ph.D.

The Turbo A/D, NH, NL Market System This Contributing Editor has looked into using the internal market statistics to generate stock market trading signals. Here, he upgrades one of his previously published market timing systems and discusses optimization strategies. In the January 1997 STOCKS & COMMODITIES, I presented a stock market timing system that uses the daily advancing-declining issues, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and the daily new highs and new lows on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as its bases for generating signals. That model developed a relative strength indicator (ADRrs) that compared a Dow Jones strength (DJstr) indicator to an advance-decline issues strength (ADRstr) indicator. ADRrs was simply defined as ADRstr minus DJstr. However, this relative strength formulation had a problem that I refer to as a lockout condition. Both the ADRstr and the DJstr move between the values of -50 and +50. The problem occurs when the DJstr moves before the ADRstr instead of after. In a sustained upmove or downmove, the DJstr locks at its extreme of +50 or -50 first and then the ADRstr catches up and locks at its extreme of +50 or -50, producing an ADRrs locked at zero. Since ADRrs must be equal to or greater than +4 to issue a buy signal or -40 to issue a sell signal, the lockout prevents the model from issuing a timely signal when the DJstr moves strongly before the ADRstr. Although I minimized the lockout problem in subsequent work, we’ll take another approach and develop a new market model using the advancing and declining issues and volume, new highs and new lows.

by Dennis Meyers, Ph.D.