How does a person know if the stock market is doing well? How do you invest as an expat if you do not know where you will eventually settle?

I have been an expat for 9 years. Where you live now, is largely irrelevant to your investments. Sure, some things make a differen
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Martha Stokes
Answered June 27, 2020Franklin ParkerPaul Varghese
How to know if the stock market is doing well is an excellent question.

First don’t trust or listen to the stock market news. It is designed to create emotions of the retail groups. Secondly the indexes do not represent how the entire 4900+ stocks are trending. The problem is the indexes are all formulated, adjusted, averaged and skewed to make the market look stronger than it truly is. There are now only 2 Dow components above their all-time highs.

So, to know if the market is doing it requires analysis of the industries within the market and our huge economy.

This is how I determine the stock market condition, and the US economy. You will need to have time to read all of this as my analysis is fundamental, technical and risk or the Tri-Level Approach developed many years ago. It is extensive.There are 142 Industries in the US markets based on the Financial Services Industries and Sectors.

First I study each Super Sector.

Below are the 3 Super Sector charts. All are below their all-time high.

SSX 19 Cyclical Super Sector includes 4 Sectors: Basic Materials, Consumer Cyclical, Financial Services, and Real Estate. These 2 sectors each contain many industries. The Cyclical Super Sector considers these 4 sectors to have cyclical trends that are annual.

The SSX20 is the Defensive Super Sector. It has 3 Sectors: Consumer Defensive, Healthcare and Utilities. These are considered essential industries that are necessary for survival and everyday living.

The SSX30 Super Sector has 4 Sectors: Communications Services, Energy, Industrials and Technology. This is a mixed Sector grouping.

Then I study Each Sector:

SX10 Basic Materials Sector

SX20 Consuerm Cyclical Sector

SX30 Financial Services Sector

SX40 Real Estate Sector

SX50 Consumer Defensive Sector

SX60 Healthcare Sector

SX70 Utilities Sector

SX80 Communication Services Sector

SX90 Energy Sector

SX200 Industrials Sector

SX110 Technology Sector

Then I study each Industry, all 142, researching the industry itself and its reports and forecasting for the year as well as updates and information for each and every industry.

In summary for your answer: Out of the 142 US Industries the majority are in bear industry downtrend cycles. only 16 industries are at or above their all-time high in strong uptrends.

Conclusion: with only 16 Industries trending up or near their all-time highs, the economy of the US is in a recession and bear cycle. This is confirmed fundamentally with the NBER which is the source for all recession data. Therefore the stock market as it is represented in the indexes is not as strong as the indexes indicate.

To fully comprehend the entire economy and the enormous scope of the stock market that represents 142 industries and 4954 US companies stock, it takes work and research. News is not your friend. It is a method used by advertisers, mainly those companies that profit from retail investing to encourage the average investor to buy stocks and their products or services.

Martha Stokes Chartered Market Technician, cycle theorist, developer of Relational Technical Analysis.