Don't Ignore This Chart!

Break to New Highs in $SPX is Crucial for Leadership vs. Rest of the World

Julius de Kempenaer

Julius de Kempenaer

Senior Technical Analyst, StockCharts.com

Towards the end of May, the US stock market ($SPX) started to lose relative strength vs. other major world market stock indexes.

Around that time the $SPX tail vs. $DJW, the Dow Jones Global Index, rolled over inside the leading quadrant and started to rotate into and through weakening. This move has, and still is, continuing. The table below the RRG (inset) shows that the US over the last 13 weeks underperformed the Global Index by 1.5%; 18% gain vs. 19.5% for the world.

Not a massive underperformance, but, as you can see, there are quite a few markets that have done (a lot) better than the US over this period of time.

That situation seems to be coming to an end now. As you can see on the daily RRG at the top of the article. $SPX has turned back into the leading quadrant together with $KOSPI and $TSX.

The weekly tail on $SPX, while still inside weakening, has started to show improvement and is curling upward. For the US to get back firmly in the lead again vs. the world, the tail on the daily RRG needs to grow and get longer, which expresses power/momentum of the move, and continue to travel at an RRG-Heading between 0-90 degrees.

A break above resistance between 3385-3395 - the cluster of highs in February just before the market started to tank - will certainly help and confirm the current strength.

Such a break will be crucial to regain leadership vs. the rest of the world.

#StaySafe, --Julius

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Julius de Kempenaer
Senior Technical Analyst, StockCharts.com
CreatorRelative Rotation Graphs
FounderRRG Research
Host ofSector Spotlight

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Julius de Kempenaer
About the author: is the creator of Relative Rotation Graphs™. This unique method to visualize relative strength within a universe of securities was first launched on Bloomberg professional services terminals in January of 2011 and was released on StockCharts.com in July of 2014. After graduating from the Dutch Royal Military Academy, Julius served in the Dutch Air Force in multiple officer ranks. He retired from the military as a captain in 1990 to enter the financial industry as a portfolio manager for Equity & Law (now part of AXA Investment Managers). Learn More