My broad market analytical approach is comprised of three main steps: Price, Breadth and Sentiment.

First off is price. If you ask me what chart I would look at to get a read on the S&P 500 index, my answer would be a chart of the price of the S&P 500 index! Price is king.

Today’s One Chart is The Walt Disney Company (DIS). It’s an interesting chart because of the earnings beat this week and what that means for long-term potential appreciation, but also because it illustrates the concept of follow-through, or confirmation.

Last week on The Final Bar, one of our Mailbag questions related to Amazon.com (AMZN) and how far it has reached above its 200-day moving average. This phenomenon speaks to the long-term strength of AMZN’s price movements, the short-term overreaching of the price since the March market low and the high likelihood of further upside for the stock.

Today’s chart is the Nasdaq 100 index, and the focus is on bearish divergences. A bearish divergence is when you have higher highs in price and lower peaks in momentum, in this case in the form of RSI.

The essence of market breadth is to see how the stocks that comprise a benchmark are performing relative to the benchmark itself.

I've often said that by looking at individual stocks, you can get a deeper level of understanding of what's moving the overall equity markets.

In case you’ve missed it, we have recently found ourselves in a bear market environment.

The first quote I want to share with you about this market environment is,

“Bull markets are great, but they breed complacency. Bear markets can be energizing. Instead of fretting over the decline in your net worth think opportunistically about all of those bargains and the potential gains when inevitably a bull market returns.” – James B. Stewart

I wanted to share with you a quote from Jesse Livermore, which says “there is only one side of the market and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side”.

I recently commented that bond prices had completed a bullish continuation pattern, suggesting further upside for prices, and therefore, a further downside for interest rates. I received some pushback suggesting that interest rates were at all-lows. How could I possibly see further upside for bond prices?

When you check your portfolio to discover that your holdings are going down, or already in the red, how does that make you feel, physically? Likely, it is a slightly painful feeling and you get sweaty palms, feel lightheaded, get a weird feeling in the pit of your stomach, or maybe you feel pessimistic (or optimistic)?