The market goes up almost every day. Any dips are frantically bought. Marketwatch notes that the buying power is extremely strong. Until this condition changes, the market is going higher and declines will be limited.
What I have in mind is a rare buy signal that was generated a couple of weeks ago by a trend-following indicator with a good long-term record. Prior to the recent buy signal, there had been only 12 of them since 1967.
And two of those 12 prior buy signals occurred in the last 12 months alone. In other words, between 1967 and March 2009, this indicator gave just 10 buy signals -- an average of just one every 4.3 years. Since March 2009, in contrast, they have averaged once every four months or so.
That's a very friendly trend indeed.
The indicator in question comes from Ned Davis Research, the quantitative research firm. It generates a buy signal whenever the percentage of common stocks trading above their 50-day moving averages rises above 90%. Davis refers to such events as a "breadth thrust."
The recent buy signal, according to this indicator, occurred on April 5. The other buy signals over the last year occurred on May 4 and Sep. 16 of last year.
How has the stock market performed following past buy signals? Quite well, according to Davis' calculations
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