Weekly market report -- W/E 4/09

On Financial Tides I just try to give you the facts not the hype. Another week has passed and the talking heads on the TV were as confusing as ever. Every hour it was a different story -- Oil is up that's why the market is down -- Oil is up that's why the stock market is up -- Since 1933 the market has been more up than down on the 3rd Tuesday of each week. Rather than just try to tell you what happened they over analyze and try to find some explanation no matter how lame. Let's be consistent and use our 3 yard sticks to see where we stand.


Value Line Index -- Contains 1700 stocks so it's much broader than the S&P 500 or the much narrower Dow 30

• Index was up by 2.49% this week -- That make 3 weeks in a row and better yet 3 months in a row


• The Index closed on Friday above its 20, 50 and 100 day moving averages


• Index is up 5.60% in the last 30 days


• Barchart's 13 technical indicators all signal a buy for a 100% technical buy rating

Barchart Market Momentum -- contains 6000 stocks -- Percentage of stock closing above their own daily moving averages for various time frames -- Good numbers for all 3 time frames

• 20 DMA -- 71.77% closed above -- 64.69% did last week


• 50 DMA -- 84..82% closed above -- 82.52% did last week


• 100 DMA -- 84.04% closed above -- 81.58% did last week

Ratio of stock hitting new highs to new lows for various time frames -- 1.0+ bullish, 1.0 neutral, below .99 bearish -- Bullish for all 3 time frames

• 20 day new high/new low ratio -- 1520/336 = 4.52


• 65 day new high/new low ratio -- 1082/97 = 11.15


• 100 day new high/new low ratio -- 996/76 = 13.10

Investing Strategy -- All 3 yard sticks gave me very positive vibes. If one of my stocks fails to maintain a price above its 50 DMA I'll cull and replace it. This market seems to have solid legs at the present time.

Wall Street Survivor results -- The columnists for Top Stocks have a little friendly competition over on Wall Street Survivor. This month the S&P 500 has returned 1.87% so far. I'm in first place for the month at 5.15% just slightly ahead of the Motley Fool All Stars with a 2.42% return. John Reese also beat the bench mark with a 2.36% return.

Jim Van Meerten is an investor who write on financial matters here and on Financial Tides. Please leave a comment below or email JimVanMeerten@gmail.com

Disclosure: I do not own positions in the stock contained in my blogs.