Stock Market Leaders and Laggards

Leaders are stocks that breakout immediately when the market confirms a new rally. In the first several weeks, strong stocks with leadership ability will breakout on volume above their 50-day average. Some of these stocks will breakout on the largest volume ever. Typically, newer stocks that have come public in the past few years will have the most strength for sizable gains.

As multiple stocks breakout from similar industry groups within larger sectors, a confirmation of broad leadership is established. "Sister Stocks" will usually move in crowds and lead the way in similar fashion. Their charts will show some resemblance and their action with be closely related. When one leader goes up, so will the others in the group. It's not an exact science but almost anyone could chart the progression of leaders during the beginning stages of a rally.

Laggards are stocks that don't breakout immediately when the market confirms a new rally. They become laggards if they wait a few months to finally breakout while dozens of other stocks have already gone on to excellent runs. Investors must be on the lookout for a healthy correction after several strong months of advancement within a specific industry group or broad sector. As the correction materializes, the original leaders will be poised to continue their run so long as the 'M' in CANSLIM is still positive. 'M' stands for market health.

Investors must be on the lookout for stocks that only start their advancement on the overall correction. These stocks tend to be weaker and are more prone to failure. The original leaders will have more institutional support and are more likely to advance further. Laggards will often sport a nice breakout during the correction phase, only to disappoint the investor with a reversal.

Let's use a hypothetical example: XYZ breakouts out in October and runs up 50% in 3 months and then pulls back to correct. ABC breakouts out 3 months later in January while the correction is taking place (from the same industry group) but has been stagnant the past 3 months as many other stocks in the industry groups have made nice gains (like XYZ).

Laggards stay stagnant during the beginning stages of bull markets. This doesn't mean that they can't have a nice run, it just means that the chances for failure are higher because "dumb money" may be bidding up the cheaper stock in that particular group.

The "smart money", otherwise know as institutions may have ran up stock 'XYZ' for 3 months and will most likely allow weak holders to sell before they resume the advance. In the mean time, those weak holders may be the investors running up stock 'ABC' because it looks cheap. They may reason that it should be moving up because 'XYZ' moved up in the prior 3 months.

Finally, be careful and analyze each specific stock and situation before you make a commitment. This is a general rule to help you select a leader within a strong industry group. The market never works perfectly every time so make sure you are prepared for anything.

About the Author

Chris Perruna

http://www.marketstockwatch.com

Chris is the founder and CEO of MarketStockWatch.com, an internet community that teaches you how to invest your money with solid rules. We don't stop at just showing you our daily and weekly screens, we teach you how to make you own screens through education. Through our philosophy, you will be able to create your own methods and styles to become successful.

---

Creating Momentum with Options - Pro and Cons of At-the-money, In-the-money, and Out-of-the-money

To create momentum in your options trading you need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of at-the-money options, in-the-money options and out-of-the-money options.An at-the-money option has both advantages and disadvantages over stock and... Read More

Dumb Money

Many people have, at one time or another, taken some of their hard-earned funds, and decided to put them in the stock market. These well-meaning individuals either acted on a tip they saw... Read More

Investing As A Sport?

I said last week that money doesn't generally buy happiness, but the lack of it can buy absolute misery. This, by the way, is not just my personal observation. It is the conclusion... Read More

Retirement is Never Urgent Until

If you're like many people, your retirement savings have not been growing consistently over the years. We're not referring to the wild fluctuations in the stock market, but rather the fluctuations in our... Read More

Begging Your Trust in Africa

The syntax is tortured, the grammar mutilated, but the message - sent by snail mail, telex, fax, or e-mail - is coherent: an African bigwig or his heirs wish to transfer funds amassed... Read More

Asset Allocation Lessons: The 70% Inflation Solution

For investors only... and for speculators who need to invest their winnings.Lesson One: Asset Allocation is an Investment Planning Tool, not an Investment Strategy... few investment professionals understand the distinction, because most think... Read More

Building The Foundation For Wealth

You wouldn't build your home on anything less than a solid foundation. Similarly, you can't build wealth and financial independence without first having sound foundational principles to build upon.I have found that many... Read More

When NOT to Invest

Unfortunately, many investors who are seduced by the lure of easy money try to become "active" investors before they have the skills, the resources, or the appropriate intellectual framework to do so.This is... Read More

Investing In Sons Business Could Cause A Real Family Feud

Q: My youngest son wants to borrow $5,000 to start his own business. My wife is afraid to tell him no. She thinks we should just give him the money and not expect... Read More

Understanding The Real Rate of Return!

There is one indicator more than any other which determines the health of an economy and it is the Real Rate of Return. Furthermore this is the simplest of all indicators to understand... Read More

Art Investing for a Financial Future

When we think of investing we probably conjure images in our minds of the New York Stock Exchange, suited stock brokers making deals, bonds and treasury bills, and all manner of financial matters.... Read More

Porters Five Forces Analysis

If you've ever listened to Warren Buffett talk about investing, you've heard him mention the idea of a company's moat. The moat is a simple way of describing a company's competitive advantages. Company's... Read More

Bad News - Why The Financial News Media Can Cost You Money!

The communication innovations we have around us today like the internet, financial newspapers, and special interest television channels focused on investing like CNBC are a high speed pipeline of nonsensical chatter. All these... Read More

Rules of Simple IRA Your Business Needs to Know

A Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees plan, better known as a SIMPLE plan, is an IRA-based retirement plan available to employers with fewer than 100 employees.Under a SIMPLE IRA plan, an employee... Read More

Evaluating A Money Manager

Scams and frauds are designed to take your money through false promises and phony claims. Money management is supposedly designed to increase your net worth. Sometimes these two worlds meet and the results... Read More

Raising Capital in Today?s ?New Economy?

We've helped a number of clients develop business plans and raise capital from "angel" investors, corporate entities and venture capitalists during the last 6-8 years. It's always a daunting process that can be... Read More

Keep Stock Market Investment Profits

Have you had one of those huge investment winners ? a stock that went from $2.00 to $80.00? Or any other numbers you want that gave you a gigantic percent profit?Did you take... Read More

Love The Thrill of Risk? Invest in an Annuity!

With the stock market in steep decline, people are looking for safe places to invest their savings. Many banks and investment companies are pushing annuities. Annuities offer a higher interest rate than CD's,... Read More

Five Sure Fire Way to Secure Your Financial Future

"You can be poor when you're young, but you can't be poor when you're old." That was the tag line used some years ago in a financial services television commercial.Truer words were never... Read More

The Differences Betweeen the Wealthy and Everyone Else

I recently received an e-mail from a young lady who had doubts about the principles of wealth found in "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". She mentioned a couple of past failed investments, and wanted... Read More

Penny Stock Investing

The Nature of Penny StocksFor anyone new to investing in penny stocks, you should first be made aware of the differences between these micro-cap stocks and the more conventional blue-chip and mid-cap investments.... Read More

Coca-Cola - A Value Stock?

There has been much talk lately about Coca-Cola and its potential as a value stock ? as it now spots a dividend yield of 2.6% (which is the highest dividend yield since the... Read More

The Real Cost of a Bad Habit

What is the value of a good habit? Think of some daily habits, like brushing your teeth, or buckling a seat belt, or flushing. All of these habits have value important to some... Read More

Why You Need To Buy and Sell Gold Coins (Part 6)

Pre-1933 Gold Outperforms Today's Gold Bullion...Since 1970, an investment strategy that included Pre-1933 gold has been proven to outperform modern gold bullion, gold bars, Krugerrands, Canadian Maple Leafs, or American Eagles.In fact, $1,000... Read More

Types of Investment

The word 'investments' is one that most of us are familiar with hearing in financial context. For many of us, it may make us thing of big business and vasts sums of money,... Read More

The Perfect Economy?

The U.S. economic data reported this week showed strong output growth with tame inflation. Industrial Production expanded at about 1% in June, three times greater than expected, while both the June Consumer and... Read More

Risk and Reward

If you are doing your own investing in the stock market, what would be the first question you would ask yourself before you make any trade or investment? If your answer is how... Read More

Playing With Money - And Making More

Ready to start playing with your money? Not interested in complicated businesses or boring bank C.D.'s? Here are some methods that aren't quite a business because you can do them once, or just... Read More

What Age Should I Start Saving For Retirement?

Ask this question to 100 people and you will receive 100 very different answers. The fact of the matter is there is no right age to start. But don't fret (did I just... Read More