S&P 500: Using Comparison Analysis For An Edge

 | Apr 27, 2022 09:37AM ET

Multi timeframe, as well as comparison analysis, have many benefits. As traders, we tend to utilize the shorter-term time frames to enter our trades and place our stops. But big money is made from gleaning information from the longer-term charts. We would classify long term as monthly or weekly while short term would be a daily or 4-hour time frame.

Comparison analysis can be done by comparing different periods, or we can see how our market is trading vs. another highly correlated market.

Since we have a lot of subscriber interest in stocks, we thought it might be time to compare the current chart of the SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) to the S&P 500 index during the 2002-2009 period. The S&P 500 weekly chart experienced a nice bull market with several buy points from 2002 up to 2007.

S&P’s 2007 top occurred at its 2.0 or 200% extension of its 2002 high vs. low. Then about 5-months later sold off a little over -20%. After hitting the key -20% psychological end-of-bull-market area, the S&P rallied for several weeks up to its 1.618 overhead resistance. Then after turning back down at the 1.618, the S&P lost approximately -50% of its value. The complete drop occurred over a 17–18-month period from peak to trough.