Market Breadth

Market breadth is used to determine the overall health of the market. But market breadth can be measured in a variety of ways. What it really means is the amount of force that is behind any price moves. This opens the question of what are the best ways to gauge the force. For instance, one method is related to the volume of trading in any particular share or financial security, which itself can be broken down into number of shares or number of market participants. Another method includes looking at whether prices are reaching new highs and/or lows, and if so how many are breaking previous levels. We will look at both these methods later.

But first, advancers and decliners. You may have heard them say on the financial report on radio, ‘Advancers led decliners’ and wondered what it meant. It’s just one of the ways you can tell how the market is doing as a whole.