Market Turning Points - 2026

Market liquidity is how much can be bought or sold near the current price without moving it. When it thins, the same order walks the price away from you while it fills, and that gap is a cost. What it does not do is change the cycle. This article covers why thin liquidity makes moves sharper both ways, why the directional read holds, and what does change: order placement and how much a brief move proves. On May 6, 2010 the Dow fell 998.5 points and gave most of it back within

Every uptrend begins as a rally, and most rallies never become one. The rally shows buyers arrived; the first pullback shows whether they stayed. When prices retreat and stop above the recent lows with crossover averages recovering beneath them, the move has absorbed selling. This article covers why the pullback is the real test, why an advance needs more than one group carrying it, and how to add exposure as the evidence arrives. In 2009 the confirming pullback came four mon

Breakout trading treats a price event as a signal when it is only a trigger. The clearing motion looks identical before advances that run for months and reversals that give it all back within a week. What separates them is cycle position: whether cycles sit near their projected lows, whether enough selling has happened, and whether crossovers strengthen after the entry. In 2020 the same event produced a 33.9 percent decline in February and a 51.5 percent advance from the Marc

Capitulation describes how the selling is happening, not whether it is finished. Short-term cycles falling deeply do precede a bounce, but when the intermediate cycle is still declining that bounce gives the ground back. This article covers what capitulation actually measures, why deep short-term readings are not bottoms, and what has to confirm before a washout counts as a turn. In 2008 the pattern repeated three times across five months before the low that held.

Higher yields reduce what investors will pay for future earnings, so stock market valuation improves automatically as prices fall. That makes the measure strongest exactly when acting on it hurts most. This article covers why the multiple compresses, why stalled intermediate cycles and lower highs matter more than any valuation level, and what has to turn first. In 2022 the forward multiple fell from 21 to 15 on FactSet's measure while the index dropped 25.4 percent.

Backwardation appears when traders pay up for protection immediately, and it does not last. Contango is the calm state, and it can hold for months while intermediate cycles decline the entire time. This article covers what each curve state actually indicates, why reading volatility against the crossover averages beats modeling the term structure, and what has to appear alongside calm volatility before a rebound counts as a turn. February 5, 2018 is the record of what calm con

A trailing stop loss tied to a fixed percentage exits on a number the market has no reason to respect. Tied to the crossover averages and cycle position, it exits when the trend has actually failed. This article covers where the stop belongs when price has reclaimed the 2/3 but not the 3/5 and 4/7, why short-term cycles turning up inside a falling intermediate cycle produce rallies that look like repairs, and what specifically has to change before raising the stop is justifie

Most traders read one chart and mistake a small move for the trend, or the trend for noise. Multiple timeframe analysis fixes that by reading the same market on more than one timeframe and acting only when they agree. The weekly chart establishes the dominant cycle and the larger pattern; the daily chart shows where you sit inside it and whether price confirms. This article shows how the weekly sets direction, the daily confirms timing, and why agreement across timeframes is

Almost all market news creates price blips, not trend changes. A headline moves futures, knocks stocks lower for a session, and triggers emotional selling, then fades because it never touched the forces that drive real trends. That makes most pullbacks buyable, but only inside an advancing cycle, and only after price confirms. This article shows how to buy the dip by waiting for selling to slow, prices to stabilize, and the faster crossover averages to hold, instead of guessi

Every investor has seen the seasonal charts, and certain months have historically delivered stronger returns than others. But knowing the best months for the stock market is not the same as knowing when to buy. The calendar tells you the odds are favorable; it does not tell you they are favorable right now, at this price. This article shows how to use seasonality the way it should be used: as a backdrop, not a signal, confirmed by the cycles before you act.

The TQQQ vs SQQQ decision is one of the most consequential calls a leveraged Nasdaq trader makes, and most traders make it the wrong way. They form an opinion about market direction, pick the matching vehicle, and hope they're right. There's a better way to make the call, and it doesn't require predicting where the market is going. It requires reading where the cycle already is. This article walks through the decision logic for going long, going short, or stepping aside into

Most ETF rotation strategies start at the wrong end. The investor picks a sector they like, builds a thesis around why it's about to outperform, and then looks for entry timing as an afterthought. The thesis might be correct. The timing usually isn't. The disciplined version reverses the order: the cycle comes first, the sector comes second. This article walks through how to build an ETF rotation strategy on a cycle foundation that works across sectors, asset classes, and fac

A leveraged ETF strategy that works isn't built around a vehicle. It's built around timing. The trader who knows when to be in a 3x position and when to step out doesn't care whether the ticker is TQQQ, SOXL, SPXL, FAS, or anything else with three letters and a triple-leverage prospectus. Cycle structure matters. The vehicle is just the expression. This article walks through the framework that applies to any leveraged ETF, with cycle timing as the foundation everything else b

TQQQ is a vehicle that punishes ambiguity. The 3x leverage means every wrong move costs three times what it would in QQQ, and the daily reset adds a slow tax on top of that. Most articles on how to trade TQQQ skip the part that matters and move on to vague advice about risk management. This article answers the two questions that count: when does the cycle structure say a TQQQ position has the wind at its back, and when does it say to step out before leverage works against you

Swing traders who time entries and exits off headlines almost always end up on the wrong side of the move. The news cycle and the market cycle do not run on the same schedule, and by the time a story is loud enough to act on, the cycle is usually preparing to turn the other way. This article shows how to use the intermediate cycle as the swing trader's primary anchor, how to confirm entries with crossover averages, and how to define exits before the trade is even open. Struct

Most traders who lose money on TQQQ and SQQQ do not lose because they picked the wrong direction. They lose because they were right too early, right too late, or right in the wrong cycle phase. This article shows how to use cycles, crossover averages, and price channels to decide which leveraged Nasdaq vehicle has the structural edge right now. Treat TQQQ and SQQQ as two settings on the same dial, with the cycle turning it and crossovers confirming when to act.

The market is consolidating after a strong rally, and that is normal. The initial short-covering surge has played out. Now comes back-and-fill behavior into early May. The real buy the dip meaning is recognizing this as digestion, not damage. Long-term cycles have turned up, providing the tailwind that keeps pullbacks controlled. Dips toward the 2/3 and 3/5 crossover averages are buyable resets as long as those levels hold.

Bull markets do not rally in spite of the wall of worry - they rally because of it. Every rally is built brick by brick on doubt and skepticism. Near lows, institutions switch from distributing to accumulating while retail hesitates. An intermediate advance runs 4-6 weeks. With long-term cycles rising, that extends to 8-12 weeks. Missing a move is not missing the opportunity. You are not late to the last rally. You are early for the next turn.

Short-term and momentum cycles are deep in the lower reversal zone, and the Dow's intermediate cycle is now joining them. When multiple cycles cluster together at these levels, it signals that the selling phase is nearing exhaustion. This next rally will be important. If prices reclaim crossover averages and hold, the probability increases that this stock market recovery can transition into an intermediate advance rather than just another brief bounce.

The February jobs report showed nonfarm payrolls declining 92,000 against expectations of a 50,000 gain. Unemployment rose to 4.4%. But the news is not driving the trend. The cycle structure was already pointing toward a corrective phase. Markets often attract negative headlines when cycles are already pointing lower. The projected trough around March 12 remains intact. Headlines arrived during vulnerability. They did not create it.