Weekly Market Report W/E 4/23

At the end of each week in Financial Tides, I like to clear my head of all the articles and newscasts that have clouded my vision during the week and look at just the facts. I use the data on Barchart to give me the 3 yard sticks to measure the market performance. Then I plan my strategy for the coming week.

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

• Index up this week by 3.55% -- up for 3 months in a row
• Index closed Friday above its 20, 50 and 100 day moving average
• Hit new highs in 12 of the last 20 trading sessions and was 5 for 5 last week
• 7.21% price appreciation for this month
• 100% Barchart technical buy -- 13 of 13 technical buy signals

Barchart Market Momentum -- Percentage of stocks closing above their daily moving averages for various time frames -- Above 50% is always better

• 20 DMA -- 77.90% closed above -- 68.30% last week -- 64.93% last month
• 50 DMA -- 85.01% closed above -- 83.15% last week -- 78.65% last month
• 100 DMA -- 86.21% closed above -- 83.86% last week -- 78.42% last month

Ratio of stocks hitting new highs to new lows for various time frames -- 1.0+ = bullish, 1.0 = neutral, below .99 = bearish -- Very bullish

• 20 day new high/new low ratio -- 2350/413 = 5.69
• 65 day new high/new low ratio -- 1860/140 = 13.29
• 100 day new high/new low ratio -- 1664/106 = 15.70

Investment Strategy -- Since all 3 yard sticks are positive I'll continue to stay in the market. I'll cull stocks that don't close above their 50 DMA and replace them.

Wall Street Survivor results -- The columnists who contribute to Top Stocks have a little friendly competition going over on Wall Street Survivor . I'm climbing out of the hole I was in and month to day I'm in first place with a 9.3% return just ahead of John Reese with a 5.15% return and we're both ahead of the S&P turning in a 4.09% return. We still have a full week to go this month so anything can happen.

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

Disclosure: I do own positions in stocks mentioned in my blogs