[the_manassa_mauler]

The focus in the method would be to remain with the leading stocks / sectors for the most part. There might be some exceptional stocks that are late movers (it's never utilities though), but for most part Weinstein, O'Neil etc all suggest that the leaders come out first from a significant decline in the market, and will generally continue to be strong until the end of Stage 2 advance. But they will have significant pullbacks and consolidations along the way. So, at this point in the Stage 2 advance you will have less Stage 2A breakouts, and much more continuation breakouts from higher consolidation bases. So you should be identifying the leading stocks and watching for proper bases to form that shake out the weak hands, and then be ready when they begin to make continuation breakouts.

Ideally, what id like to do in my roth & 401, is go w/ sector mutual funds and etf's much more then indiv stocks b/c of less risk. furthermore, they seem to more broadly capture the early movers and the slower movers w/in a sector as a basket, yet can perform very well. its why your sector table above the 150 avg appeals to me. Charting wise, for the sector, wouldnt etf's work better then mutual funds sense you get volumes with them?.... also can you define to me, what you mean by a stage 2a breakout vs stage 2 breakout?.... regarding lagging sectors, like utilities and energy, are there some time cases that even though they are lagging they can still be very explosive profitable stage 2 moves. I get it w/ utilities, by nature, even at their best, they just dont move that explosively. However, couldnt a case be made for energy along these lines: its been in a very long bottoming stage 1 base. weistein talks about how long term bottoms, esp head/shoulder bottoms, can end up being very powerful breakout moves. Also energy has gotten taken out artifically moreso by covid slowdown, yet projecting forward into fall, can move forward strongly riding the all hands who have been quaratined coming back to the econ.?

I post these each week on my twitter account. So you can find the last weeks one here: https://twitter.com/stageanalysis/status...1336330241

Thanks for the twitter headsup. Im now finding good stuff there too. I have a ques re your % of stocks above 150 MA table: is the nyse & nasdaq sectors literally looking at every stock within that particular exchange? .... & do you ever see a sector stay in the 80% range much more longer then normal before pullbacks?.... finally, do you also ever include small caps vs large caps as sectors w/in your 150 MA table?

I use stockcharts custom screener for the majority of mine, and a lot of visual scanning to prune the results down. This is the purpose of my daily watchlist that post in the blog. As I look for all the stocks showing the characteristics that we look for and highlight them, whatever position that they are in at the time. As some may be months away from a buy point, but it the methods characteristics that I'm looking for, and so I can make a note of them, and start to monitor the stocks nearer to buy points more closely.

when you screen stocks on stockcharts, wh/ screen variable items do you put in place that work best to abide by weistein's methods?... secondly, am I correct to deduce from what you are saying, that the stocks on your watchlist had all the correct parameters of what weistein looks for and have either already made their stage 2 breakthru move? Do you also include in that watchlist, ones that are well set up to break into stage 2 and on the cusp, but just havent moved yet?  if they are months away from a buy point, is this b/c they already broke up into stage 2 and are too extended, or is it b/c they have all the other characteristics but are just not technically close enough chart wise to a breakout?

I try not to be bullish or bearish, but instead just focus on the individual setups that I'm seeing and whether they are working or not. Currently, we've had two or three weeks of the leading stocks with failed continuation breakouts and getting hit on earnings quite hard. Whereas, some of the laggards have been doing well and breaking out. Hence why the S&P 500 moved into Stage 2. So breadth has been improving for the broader market, but the leaders continue to pullback. So I think we could be seeing some base building in those while some of the laggards rise up, but it should show which of the leaders are going to be the best, as they should ideally pullback the least on lighter volume, and show strong relative strength, and then make continuation moves once the market is ready.

But I think we are in a much tougher environment now in the short term, even though we are seeing signs of Stage 2 market. So, as always I recommend just to follow the price action and maintain proper risk management.

when you say laggards, do you mean stocks w/in sectors that are doing well, or do you mean lagging sectors themselves?.... is the tougher envir that you point to b/c of the uncertainity and questions due to covid, a vaccine & how long or severe shutdowns will be? or it b/c of election and fear of what a biden winning may do policy wise to the econ.? or does it simply mean, that there a conflicting technical signals in the charts themselves?

I hope that helps.

thanks again for you help and services.