While many investors these days are familiar with charts in a general sense, too few pay attention to one key aspect of stock charts—volume. Trading volume represents the total number of stock shares, bonds, or commodities futures contracts traded during a certain period of time.
The simplest use of volume is just to confirm advances and declines. When a stock is making good progress in price terms, it’s good to see that volume is also up. It confirms that lots of buyers want in. Similarly, when a stock is declining, a parallel increase in selling volume lets you know that sellers are in control. Just using these two inputs, you should be able to identify good buy and sell points.
When you see a stock stage either (a) a huge gap up on big volume on meaningful news (often earnings), or (b) many days in a row of heavy buying that takes the stock to new highs, that “volume area” will often provide support during the next few weeks. And that means dips into that area represent low-risk buy points.
Big volume clues that coincide with meaningful moves in a liquid stock are invaluable—they often point to a new uptrend getting underway, or the end of a prior move. These huge moves are caused by institutional investors … and once institutions start buying or selling, they rarely stop in just a couple of weeks.
One word of advice: Stocks with low trading volume (and low prices, as well) can be very volatile, often enticing you with rip-roaring advances that make your mouth water. But beware! If a stock is trading fewer than 300,000 shares a day, you may have difficulty executing a trade in a timely manner, which could mean buying higher (or selling lower) than you meant to.
To learn more, download our FREE report, Technical Analysis of Stocks: How Relative Performance Works, Why Trading Volume is Important, and Other Chart-Reading Lessons.
With rising yields, rate hikes and inflation potentially increasing at the fastest rate in decades, the market struggled to make any headway for the second straight week. The Dow fell 0.9%, the S&P 500 lost 0.3% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq pulled back 0.3%. the...
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As we get towards the end of January, the biggest thing on my mind is the pullback in growth stock. It has been remarkable. According to J.P. Morgan and Bloomberg, the software index is down ~22% from its peak.
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The indexes plummeted on rising rate worries and disappointing Goldman Sachs (GS) earnings. The benchmark 10-year Treasury rate soared to 1.85 on Tuesday. That’s the highest level since the pandemic began and up from 1.34% as recently as last month.
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With growth stocks still under pressure and more conservative stocks holding up better, it makes sense this week to lean toward a lower-risk dividend-payer with minimal downside risk.
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Stock Recommendation Tracker
The Stock Recommendation Tracker is a table that features all of the current recommendations in all of our portfolios. It’s a quick way for you to see what stocks are currently in our portfolios and will highlight new additions or any to...
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Stock Recommendation Tracker
The Stock Recommendation Tracker is a table that features all of the current recommendations in all of our portfolios. It’s a quick way for you to see what stocks are currently in our portfolios and will highlight new additions or any to...
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This week’s Friday Update includes our comments on earnings from Wells Fargo & Company (WFC). We had no price target or ratings changes this week, although we are reviewing Wells Fargo shares as they trade above our price target.
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As we continue to balance the pursuit of opportunities with the desire to preserve capital/current gains we’re intently focused on stocks that are breaking down to new lows. Today we’ll take partial profits on another name and step completely away from one stock.
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This week certainly wasn’t the maelstrom last week was, but after a promising bounce following Monday morning’s wipeout, the sellers have come back around for things—on the week, the major indexes are lower, though the declines aren’t horrific, especially for broader indexes like and...
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People often overlook silver as a safe haven in volatile markets. But the best-performing silver stocks tend to rise faster than gold stocks.
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Well, 2021 is in the books, which we’re happy is the case, as it was far from a fruitful growth stock year—effectively payback for the amazing 2020 environment.
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Both Sprout Social (SPT) and Kornit Digital (KRNT) have made fresh lows today so we’re going to take partial profits by selling one quarter of each position.
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It continues to be a very bumpy ride for small-cap growth stocks, while those names with a slightly more value-oriented profile are providing a somewhat smoother ride. Big picture, there is no doubt the risk-off environment continues. The good news for more aggressive is...
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There is this widely held belief that January is a great month for investors. But I always throw cold water on this claim because the fact is, over the past 25 years, it’s been one of the worst months for stocks.
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Relative Performance (RP) measures how a stock is performing relative to a specific index and is a good sign of strength or weakness.
Momentum analysis of a stock’s Relative Performance is one of our favorite ways to measure a stock’s health. A stock that its...
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So far, 2022 is playing out as expected. But of course, this is only the eighth trading day of the year.
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In a recent update, I used the phrase, “It’s always darkest before the dawn,” as I reasoned that the marijuana sector’s dreadful performance in 2021 was likely the prelude to a well-deserved rebound in 2022. And the news is still pretty dark.
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Why I Love Micro Caps
Over the long term, investing in stocks has been a great decision as equities (no matter the market cap) have outperformed almost every asset class.
Historically, stocks have returned about 10% per year, an excellent result. But what if you to...
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The world has undergone a massive disruption over the last two years. Such events almost always create opportunity. The global pandemic hit the world like a meteor. The ensuing lockdowns crashed the economy overnight. And the end of those lockdowns revived the economy as...
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