Trade
Technical Analysis Technical Analysis Basic Education
Use Weekly Stochastics to Time the Market
By Alan Farley Updated December 26, 2024
Reviewed by Samantha Silberstein
Buy and sell cycles reveal hidden intentions of the market's biggest players, as they engage in macro strategies that affect price direction.
Investors and traders can identify these cycles through technical tools that measure the persistence of the push behind these cycles and can use these measurements to predict when such cycles will flip over from buy to sell and vice versa.
Stochastics
Securities trader George Lane popularized the stochastic indicator in the 1950s. It's a deceptively simple formula that compares the current price bar to a preset selection of highs and lows. Perhaps due to its simplicity, many 21st-century technicians fail to comprehend its immense power in predicting cyclical turns on indexes and individual instruments.
Crosses and Confirmation
It's an August weekend, and you're reviewing the market's progress to see if any adjustments are required to your ample long-side exposure. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 have just hit bull market highs, but the Russell 2000 is underperforming, caught in a big trading range. Stochastics on all three instruments have risen to overbought levels.