RE: Stan Weinstein's Stage Analysis and Market Breadth - Technical Analysis
Pring's Bottom Fisher
I've seen a few references to Pring's Bottom Fisher, a market breadth indicator that is considered, in the few articles I can find online, to be a reliable indicator for detecting market bottoms. This seems to be one of the less well known indicators. The best description I can find is in Stockcharts. Rather than make a second rate precis I suggest reading the article there.
I've also found a Youtube video which discusses its performance.
I've tried adding this indicator to my homegrown database / screener. Any sensible person will use the one in Stockcharts I suggest. Unaware of any other platforms that have it available. It is quite onerous to calculate as it needs Pring's KST indicator to be plotted for each stock in your pool of stocks and use that to determine the %s of stocks in winter or spring, as per the Stockcharts article. I've calculated it for my (rather out of date) pool of stocks representing the Russell 3000 and plotted that versus the S&P500. No gauruntees I have calculated the indicator correctly as I had to make a few assumptions calculating it and it is difficult to check my calculations.
The key levels seem to be when the indicator descends below the 10 and 30% levels, especially the latter. A 9 period SMA can be used as a signal line. Looking at the plot it worked well when rising from below 30% level through the signal line, circled in green. The two points circled in amber (muddy brown!) and red worked less well. However, these crosses of the signal line were above the 30% level. So perhaps the cross needs to be below the 30% level for a greater chance of sucess. Perhaps though, my dataset is rather small for good test?
Interesting indicator.