ChartWatchers

A BREAKOUT FOR THE DOW TRANSPORTS

Chip Anderson

Chip Anderson

President, StockCharts.com

Before looking at the chart for the Dow Transports, let's look at the Dow Theory situation. The Dow Industrials and Dow Transports both hit new highs in July and this marked a Dow Theory confirmation (bullish). Despite this bull market confirmation, both dropped sharply from mid July to mid August. In fact, both broke below their June lows and this development was bearish. The Dow Industrials quickly rectified this support break with a surge to new highs, but the Dow Transports could not get lift off and remained below its August-September highs. The Dow Transports has yet to confirm the new high in the Dow Industrials and this amounts to a Dow Theory non-confirmation.

$INDU - DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE

$TRAN - DOW JONES TRANSPORTATION AVERAGE

Turning to the price chart for the Dow Transports, you can see that this key average broke above the August-September highs with a big surge on Friday. This breakout is significant because the Transports were showing relative weakness. The breakout is the first step to challenging the July high and confirming the Dow Industrials. At this point, the trend is up for the Dow Transports and I expect a move towards 5300-5500 as long as key support at 4800 holds.

Chip Anderson
About the author: is the founder and president of StockCharts.com. He founded the company after working as a Windows developer and corporate consultant at Microsoft from 1987 to 1997. Since 1999, Chip has guided the growth and development of StockCharts.com into a trusted financial enterprise and highly-valued resource in the industry. In this blog, Chip shares his tips and tricks on how to maximize the tools and resources available at StockCharts.com, and provides updates about new features or additions to the site. Learn More