While most stocks tend to move with the market, there are still winners and losers during plateaus and valleys. You will notice that the number of daily trend alerts has relatively slowed last week as the market struggles to find direction. This is typical when markets aren’t trending. It is a good time to find stocks you like and wait for that next upturn in the market.

In the other case, if we make a “lower low”, that will invite some sellers into the market. The most recent low in this most recent correction was 1029. In the prior cycle it was 1019. So far, we’ve made a higher low which suggests this intermediate uptrend in the market remains in place. Once a correction breaks below a prior cycle’s low, that will be a sign for caution.

The 30 and 50-day moving averages which had been sloping up for monhs have recently turned flat. That is another sign that sideways trade may prevail for some time as the indices bounces around them.

The time frame for trading is not necessarily only one week. We just update our stats weekly for everyone’s benefit. As you can see the average length for current trends is actually over 100 days due to the extended uptrend period of the overall market. Historically, this average around 30 days. In 2005, for example, the average Uptrend lasted 53 days with an average return of 11.47%.

In 2007, a more volatile time and the effective top of the last bull market, the average Uptrend was 37 days with an average return of 5.24%. In 2008 it was slightly less as Downtrends outperformed so Uptrends lasted only 30 days with a return of 3.5% - still respectable in light of how the market performed as a whole.

Through September of this year (including the dismal Q1), the average Uptrend lasted 40 days with an average return of just over 20%.

The # of stocks is difficult, the more diversification the better, typically speaking