Technical Analysis Plain and Simple: Charting the Markets in Your Language, Second Edition

Does the Market Have Bad Breadth?

Although the stock market can be considered to be a living, breathing entity, the term “breadth” refers to how all-embracing is the participation of all stocks in the market. The more stocks that rally, the broader the participation and the stronger the overall market becomes. One can measure how many stocks are rising and how many are falling. One can measure how much volume the rising stocks are getting, compared to the volume the declining stocks are getting, to see if each is getting their fair share. One can even measure how the blue chip names are doing compared to the small stocks or how different industry sectors are performing. If only a small slice of the overall market is rallying to send the major ...