Assessing Breadth.

For many technicians, breadth indicators are key in confirming new uptrends or downtrends. If we look at the New Highs(end of day) to New Lows(eod) for the markets - this is nothing more the stocks making new highs(or lows) vs. the reciprocate - we can see favorable developments that confirma the market bottom is in. For instance, in the Nasdaq chart, we saw 1,600 new lows develop in October, but only saw 1100 new lows develop in November even as the market made new lows - stocks making new lows decreased from the October plunge to the November low. The same holds true for the NYSE which saw a positive divergence from the October plunge to the final low in November - 2400 to 1000 respectively.

The question now is what kind of reciprocate numbers can we see on the upside. How many new highs will be made on a market rally? Only time will tell, but there will be clues, you just have to quantify them.