ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Advance-decline divergence as an oscillator by Arthur A. Merrill Which indicators signaled the crash last October? One that had been shouting a warning was A-D Divergence. This is one of our most venerable indicators. The Advance-Decline Divergence Osci
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Chi Squared by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. Just how meaningful are statistics? Arthur Merrill explains how to find out. If records show that market behavior exhibited more rises than declines at a certain time in the past, could it have been by chance? Y
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Closing Arms by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. The Arms index has been verified, deified, and even modified, certainly within the pages of STOCKS & COMMODITIES. Now the index is examined again, this time by noted veteran technician Arthur Merrill, to find ou
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Closing Tick by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. Buyers' market or sellers' market? Counting the upticks and downticks can give you a clue, Merrill says. Are buyers reaching for stock? Do they have to bid a price higher than the last price given (an uptick)? O
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Consensus indicators by Arthur A. Merrill There are scores of indicators and, at the same moment, some present an optimistic picture of the future while others are predicting trouble. Which indicator should be watched most carefully? When two indicators
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Customer Option Activity by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. The Options Clearing Corporation issues a weekly report to subscribers that lists the totals of options bought and sold on all exchanges nationwide. The transactions are segregated by customer, marke
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Fitting A Trendline By Least Squares by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. Usually, trendlines are drawn through tops or bottoms. They are also drawn through the center of prices by a lagged moving average or by eye (Figure 1). A straight line through the center
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Fitting a trendline by least squares by Arthur A. Merrill Trendlines usually are drawn through tops or bottoms. They also are drawn through the center of prices by a lagged moving average or by eye (Figure 1). A straight line through the center of a pri
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...How Important Is A Turning Point? by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. So, naturalists observe a flea Hath smaller fleas that on him prey And these have smaller still to bite 'em; And so proceed ad infinitum. --Jonathan Swift So goes the market. Waves withi
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Introductions by Arthur A. Merrill Stocks tend to fly together, rising in bull markets and declining in bear markets. For this reason, analysts have been searching many years for indicators of the future of the overall stock market. It isn't easy to fi
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Logarithmic Point & Figure by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. In the June 1991 STOCKS & COMMODITIES, I described how a turning point could be measured by filtering out minor market moves. The same filtering technique can be used to correct the failings of the
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Member Trading by Arthur A. Merrill Once a week, but two weeks late, the New York and American stock exchanges report some interesting figures. You will find them in Barron's or The Wall Street Journal : Total volume and total short sales; Specialist
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Member and public short selling by Arthur A. Merrill Total short sales figures, published by the New York and American stock exchanges, are a useful set of figures for gauging market moods. Total short sales figures are reported in The Wall Street Journ
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Member/Odd Lot Trading by Arthur A. Merrill, CMT Stock exchange members, the group that makes up the member trading statistics, should be more knowledgeable than the rest of us, the great ""public."" The members should be smart money -- at least, they sh
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Merrill Directional Patterns by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. Can we get clues to price performance from the swings of prices in the last hours of the preceding day? If we ignore volume and the amount of change, the direction of the swings of prices can be
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Merrill MW Waves by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. Suppose prices have been moving in a certain way. What are the probabilities for future prices? You must look to the past for similar situations. How similar must the past situation be? If you ask your comp
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...More trend detection by Arthur A. Merill Last month I described four methods of trend detection: eyeball, filtered waves, zigzags and support/resistance levels. Here are seven more: Moving average This indicator is rather limited when you consider the
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Moving Average Crossovers by Arthur A. Merrill, CMT Are moving average crossovers more effective than other indicators? More specifically, how about moving average crossovers applied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average? S&C contributor Arthur Merrill de
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Negative Volume Divergence Index by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. The Market Technicians Association has selected the late Paul Dysart for their 1990 annual award ""for outstanding contribution to the field for technical analysis."" Analyst Jim Alphier, in
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...New highs/new lows by Arthur A. Merrill, C. M. T. Each day the number of stocks making new highs and the number making new lows are reported in the financial press. Are these statistics useful? To find out whether they were, I constructed an index of ne
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Plurality by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. Plurality: Now there's an indicator that has been around for at least half a century. Analyst James Alphier claims it was invented by technical analyst pioneer Paul Dysart, who published a piece on the subject at l
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Price/Dividends Ratio Revisited by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. In 1988 Merrill showed that the price/dividends ratio was useful in calling the 1987 crash. What's the outlook today? In the October 1988 issue of STOCKS & COMMODITIES, I described the useful
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Price/Earnings Ratios by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. Here's a look at an old fundamental analysis favorite and what it can do for the technical analyst. For many years I have monitored the performance of a group of 30 to 50 stocks that have been exhibiti
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Reading indicator charts by Arthur A. Merrill In the preceding column, I discussed the smoothing of indicator data. When you have tamed the wild fluctuations, how do you translate the result into a forecast? How do you read the chart? There are several
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Resistance by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. Prices, like everything else move along the line of least resistance. They will do whatever comes easiest therefore they will go up if there is less resistance to an advance than to a decline and vice versa. --Edw
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Second Hour Index by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. In 1983 I noted an indicator developed by analyst Stan Weinstein: the last hour indicator. Changes in prices in the last hour seemed to be useful in forecasting the future. Having an hourly data bank extend
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Secondaries by Arthur A. Merrill, CMT If the owner of a large block wants to sell without generating a big price decline, he sometimes enlists the help of an underwriter. This type of sale is called a secondary offering. The underwriter uses his skills
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Short Interest by Arthur A. Merrill Short interest ? the sale of borrowed stock ? is one of the most useful tools of the technician. Short sales are made by pessimists, who expect prices to fall. If prices fall, the short seller can buy shares at a lowe
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Stocks & Commodities V. 22:10 (86): Sidebar: Fitting a trendline by least squares by Arthur A. Merrill Trendlines usually are drawn through tops or bottoms. They also are drawn through the center of prices by a lagged moving average or by eye. A straigh
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Stock Selection by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. How does a veteran technician like Arthur Merrill select stocks for investment? He explains that it's not the simplest of methods and it does require research and work, but the results, he notes, are worth it
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Stocks above moving averages by Arthur A. Merrill, CMT The percentage of stocks above their moving averages has been tracked for a number of years by Investor's Intelligence, a weekly report that includes the number of New York Stock Exchange issues abo
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Swing Expectations by Arthur A. Merrill Market moves are plagued by the ""noise"" of short-term vibrations. I've found it useful to clean up the moves by using a simple 5% filter for the market averages and a 10% filter for individual stocks. All swings
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Taming the indicators by Arthur A. Merrill An indicator is often difficult to read because of its wild fluctuations. It may appear optimistic and then dive into bearish territory. Then it might reverse again and turn bullish. Frustrating! A wild indica
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Testing Indicators by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. Analysts consult scores of indicators to get clues for the future. At any given instant, however, some of the indicators are bullish and some are bearish. They are never unanimous. Which should we believe?
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...The 28% Rule by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. A bear market is interrupted by rallies, which cheer the spirits but are then followed by a resumption of the bear market. Finally, one of the rallies turns out to be the first upswing of a new bull market, and
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...The Elapsed Time Calculator by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. Veteran technician Arthur Merrill explains how to derive the number of days, actual or calendar, between two dates using a simple table and some elementary steps. Do you need to know the number o
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...The Presidential Election Cycle by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. It's an election year again. What does history say about them ? This famous technician tells you that what you've heard about Presidential election years may very well be true. An election ye
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...The Summer Rally: Fact Or Fiction? by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. The ""summer rally"" appears in some years and is completely absent in others. Does it deserve its name? I've consulted the record back to 1885 and find that there is a good case for a bull
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...The Wall Street Week index by Arthur A. Merrill Every six months I have been checking the accuracy of more than 40 indicators over a span of several years. On the last test, the indicator that came out on top was the Wall Street Week Technical Market In
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Time Of Daily High And Low by Arthur A. Merill, C.M.T. Does the time of the high for the day and the time of the low give a clue to the performance of the market on the next day? For example, suppose that the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) high po
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Volatility by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. Does the degree of volatility in the stock market give us any clue to the future of the market? I tested day-to-day volatility and found that it does have a good forecasting record. I took the percent change of t
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Volume indicators by Arthur A. Merrill, C.M.T. The activity of the market, its volume, has long been of interest to investors and traders. I have a copy of the first book on stock market technique, ABC of Stock Speculation, written by S. A. Nelson in 19
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Watch the Fed! by Arthur A. Merrill The actions of the Federal Reserve are vitally important to investors and speculators. When the Fed tightens the money supply, interest rates rise, bonds and stocks fall. The reverse occurs when the Fed eases the supp
ARTICLE SYNOPSIS...Weekly McClellan Oscillator by Arthur A. Merrill, CMT In the September 1989 issue of Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities, Richard Mogey described and interpreted the McClellan Oscillator. It's based on daily data. My data bank has been developed