A stock is a business

The letters on the screen stand for a company with customers, costs and competitors. The price is the crowd’s current opinion of that company, updated every few seconds; the company itself changes far more slowly.

“Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it’s doing.”

In Trendentum Every stock code opens a stock page that names the company and its sector, gives its P/E, dividend yield and market value in The company and its 52-week range under the chart, and shows recent insider activity — SEC filings for US companies, directors’ notices for Australia, Canada, the UK and Europe — the business behind the square.

The easiest person to fool

A rule that has never been checked against what happened next is a hunch with a name. Counting the misses alongside the hits is the only way to know which.

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”

In Trendentum How the rules have done on your stocks replays two of the outlook’s readings — the trend and the reaction to results; insiders and short sellers are left out, and the page says why — over years of your own holdings and counts, for every reading and every outlook, how often the price then moved its way, the other way, or hardly at all — and lists the worst misses by size. Trendentum never shows a compounded return or an equity curve, because those are the numbers that fool people fastest.

Watch what insiders buy; ignore what they sell

Executives and directors buy their own company’s shares for one reason: they expect them to be worth more. They sell for dozens of reasons — a house, a tax bill, a divorce, spreading their money. So a purchase says something; a sale usually says nothing.

“In addition, insider purchases are more informative than insider sales.”

“The result, however, is driven by insider’s ability to predict returns in smaller firms.”

In Trendentum Part of the outlook’s Insiders and short sellers reading since 8 October 2026: directors’ on-market purchases in the last 90 days count, and their sales never do. US filings come from SEC Form 4; Australia, Canada, the UK and Europe from directors’ notices carried by Twelve Data; Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore have none on file. The evidence table has the sources.

Price is not value

What a share costs today and what the business is worth are two different numbers that only sometimes agree. Everything Trendentum computes lives on the price side of that sentence.

“Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that ‘Price is what you pay; value is what you get.’”

In Trendentum The outlook’s three readings — the past year’s trend, the reaction to results, and insiders and short sellers — describe what the price and the people closest to the company have done; the methodology page says exactly how, and why valuation never votes. On each stock page, The company gives a P/E and a dividend yield, and the 52-week range sits under the chart, so the price has some context. Nothing here estimates what a business is worth, and the site says so rather than inventing a number.

A voting machine, then a weighing machine

Over weeks, prices move on opinion and crowd behaviour; over years, on what the business actually earns. Indicators built on recent prices are reading the vote, not the weight.

“As Ben said: ‘In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run it is a weighing machine.’”

In Trendentum An outlook is what the votes say today, and the site calls it that. The Portfolio Health factor section quotes this line beside where your holdings rank against each other on momentum and calmness, and the backtester’s 20-trading-day check is the vote checked against a slightly longer vote — never against the weight.

Winners keep winning — until they don’t

Stocks that have risen over the last several months have, on average and across many markets, tended to keep rising for a while. The same research shows the pattern fails hardest, and fastest, when a falling market turns.

“This paper documents that strategies which buy stocks that have performed well in the past and sell stocks that have performed poorly in the past generate significant positive returns over 3- to 12-month holding periods.”

“Despite their strong positive average returns across numerous asset classes, momentum strategies can experience infrequent and persistent strings of negative returns.”

In Trendentum How your holdings compare ranks your stocks on 3-month and 6-month momentum with the arithmetic one click away; the outlook’s trend reading (the 200-day average plus the 12-month return) is a momentum read on one stock. The backdrop row in Market Conditions shows whether the index itself is trending or range-bound — the setting in which the second paper says to expect the pattern to break.

Near the high, not far from it

A share sitting close to its highest price of the past year has, on average, gone on to do better than one far below its high. People anchor on the old high and are slow to pay more than it, so good news takes longer to show up in the price. It is a pattern across many shares and many years, weaker outside the US, and it says nothing about a share that is near its high only because the whole market is.

“Nearness to the 52-week high dominates and improves upon the forecasting power of past returns (both individual and industry returns) for future returns.”

In Trendentum Every stock page shows the 52-week low and high beside today’s price. The distance is shown; it does not vote.

A dimmer for the market, not a stock-picker

A slow average on the whole market — the 200-day, or the 10-month — has historically cut the depth of the worst years while giving up little in the good ones. The same idea applied to a single share, day by day, is a different and much weaker thing: our own count of the golden cross on 44 stocks came in below an ordinary day.

“Buy when monthly price > 10-month SMA. Sell and move to cash when monthly price < 10-month SMA.”

Our own count, not a quotation: on single shares, a month after a golden cross the price was more than 1% higher 71 times in 168 — less often than on an ordinary day with no pattern at all.

In Trendentum The backdrop row in Market Conditions: for each market you hold, whether its index is trending up, trending down or range-bound (an ADX trend read), with its 20-day change — a read on the whole market, not on one share. There is no golden-cross count on the stock page; the nearest single-stock read is the outlook’s trend reading (the 200-day average plus the 12-month return), and its record is under How the readings have done on the stock page.

Adequate, not excessive

When one company is a large share of what you own, its good and bad years become your good and bad years. How large is too large is one of the oldest arguments in investing, and both sides are serious.

“There should be adequate though not excessive diversification. This might mean a minimum of ten different issues and a maximum of about thirty.”

“We believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a business and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics before buying into it.”

In Trendentum Portfolio Health shows each holding’s share of your total, and notes that some investors concentrate on purpose. It describes the arithmetic; it never says which camp to be in.

Industries move together

Ten stocks in one industry answer to the same interest rate, the same commodity price and the same regulator. Owning many of them spreads the risk only if they do not all move as one.

“The returns from securities are too intercorrelated. Diversification cannot eliminate all variance.”

In Trendentum The sector-exposure section of Portfolio Health groups your holdings by industry, from the same company lookup that names them, and leads the page with it when one sector is most of your book. Holdings it cannot classify are shown as unclassified, never guessed into a sector.

You can’t predict. You can prepare.

Nobody knows what a price will do next — not a rule, not a fund manager, not this site. What can be known is what a rule has got wrong before, where the data is thin, and which days tend to be the loud ones.

“You Can’t Predict. You Can Prepare.”

In Trendentum The backtester lists its worst misses rather than hiding them. A note at the top of each stock page warns when a results day is within ten days, because price history says the least across one (an ex-dividend date within ten days gets a note too). A holding the price provider cannot price is flagged as such in your holdings table instead of showing a quiet dash, and the dashboard says plainly when the signals are stale.

The haystack view

The strongest argument against picking stocks at all comes from the man who built the first index fund, whose case is that most investors, after costs, trail the market they are trying to beat. A page about stock-level rules owes its readers that view.

“Don’t look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!”

In Trendentum The backdrop at the top of Market Conditions runs a trend read on the main index of each market you hold — the S&P 500 for US shares, the ASX 200 for Australian ones, and so on — so the haystack’s own direction sits next to the needles’. Trendentum describes the stocks you already chose; it has never claimed choosing them beats not choosing.

Boring wins

Over decades, the wildest shares have not paid for their wildness. Calm shares have kept up with them, often done better, and fallen far less along the way. Excitement is a cost, not a reward. The pattern is measured over decades, not months — calm shares can lag badly in a strong rising market.

“…high-beta and high-volatility stocks have long underperformed low-beta and low-volatility stocks.”

In Trendentum Market Conditions shows each stock’s volatility state — calmer or choppier than usual; Portfolio Health ranks your holdings against each other on calmness; How your holdings compare treats a calmer ride as the better one. Shown, not voted.

Nobody buys the bottom or sells the top

The lowest price and the highest price are known only afterwards. Waiting for either means waiting for a day that cannot be recognised while it is happening. The research on real accounts shows the mirror image of the wish: people sell the stocks that have gone up and keep the ones that have gone down, and doing so did not pay.

“Don’t try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. This can’t be done — except by liars.”

“I test the disposition effect, the tendency of investors to hold losing investments too long and sell winning investments too soon, by analysing trading records for 10,000 accounts at a large discount brokerage house. These investors demonstrate a strong preference for realizing winners rather than losers. … Nor is it justified by subsequent portfolio performance.”

In Trendentum Where the chart is on every stock page names the state a price is in — Consolidating, Broke out, Pulled back in an uptrend, Extended, Breaking down — and counts what followed each one in that stock’s own history. A state is a place on the chart that can be seen today; a bottom or a top is not. The counts say how often the price was higher a month and three months later, which is a question that can be answered.

How people plan around a range

A sideways range hands a plan two reference prices: its top and its bottom. People who trade ranges mostly fall into three camps. Some add near the bottom and decide in advance to leave if the price closes below it — a small, known loss if the range gives way. Some wait for a close above the top, often only on heavy volume, paying a higher price in exchange for seeing the move begin. Many also wait for confirmation, either way: the price staying beyond the level for two or three closes in a row (a time filter), or closing a set distance beyond it, 3% being the figure most often quoted (a price filter); John Murphy’s Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets (1999) describes both. The trade is always the same: the longer the wait, the fewer false breaks are acted on, and the more of the move has already happened. Holders often treat a close below the bottom as the moment to look again at why they own it. Each has its cost: the first is caught whenever a range breaks downwards; the second pays more and is caught by breaks that fall back into the range; the third can be shaken out by a brief dip. None of them knows which way the range will break — which is the reason the plan is written before it does. On the research: rules that act on a break out of a trading range were tested on the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1897 to 1986 by Brock, Lakonishok and LeBaron (Journal of Finance, 1992), who found the market rose more after upward breaks than after downward ones; a later study (Sullivan, Timmermann and White, Journal of Finance, 1999) found the best of such rules did not hold that edge in the years after the original sample.

“Prices, like everything else, move along the line of least resistance.”

In Trendentum When a stock is Consolidating, its stock page shows the two closes that would end the range on the next session, the volume that would make the break a heavy one, how often the price was higher after past ranges on that stock beside how often it was higher over any month, and a Tell me when this range breaks button. Which camp, if any, is yours.

How people plan around a break

A break out of a range, up or down, is the moment a range-watcher has been waiting for — and the moment most likely to be a false start. Three habits are common. Waiting for confirmation: the price staying beyond the level for two or three closes (a time filter), or closing a set distance beyond it (a price filter), at the cost of some of the move. Watching the volume: a break on heavy trading is read as more people taking part than a quiet one. Writing the exit before acting: a close back inside the range means the break did not hold, so a level just inside the old range is the natural place for a planned exit. Some also wait for a retest, a break that comes back to touch the old level and turns away from it again. Each habit trades a better-looking break for a later price; none tells you in advance which breaks hold.

“We propose a simple analytical framework to measure the value added or subtracted by stop-loss rules—predetermined policies that reduce a portfolio’s exposure after reaching a certain threshold of cumulative losses—on the expected return and volatility of an arbitrary portfolio strategy. … At longer sampling frequencies, certain stop-loss policies can increase expected return while substantially reducing volatility, consistent with their objectives in practical applications.”

In Trendentum For the five sessions after a break, the stock page shows the level it went through, how many closes since have stayed beyond it, the volume on the day, and how often past breaks on that stock held for three closes — with what followed each kind. Its button tells you if the break falls back into its range.

How people plan around a pullback

A dip in a rising stock back to its 50-day average is where trend-followers look twice: the trend’s own average is acting as a floor, or it is about to stop being one. Common plans: adding near the average, with an exit decided in advance below it — often a close a few percent under it, or under the 200-day average further down; waiting for the price to turn back up from the average before adding, at a slightly higher price; and, for holders, treating a close well below the 50-day as a first review line and one below the 200-day as a second. The research on momentum (the card above) finds that stocks which have risen for months have tended to keep rising for some months more — and that the pattern can fail sharply. So a pullback is both where a trend gathers itself and where it ends; on the day, the two look the same.

“Buy when monthly price > 10-month SMA. Sell and move to cash when monthly price < 10-month SMA.”

In Trendentum When a stock is Pulled back in an uptrend, its stock page shows its 50-day average and the close 2% under it that would end the reading, its 200-day average, and the high before the dip. Its button tells you if it closes more than 2% below its 50-day average.

How people plan around a stock that has run hot

A stock further above its long-term average than on nine days in ten has done something unusual, and the two instincts it sets off pull opposite ways: lock it in, or let it run. Common plans: letting it run with a trailing exit — a level that rises with the price and never falls, so a reversal is acted on without guessing the top; taking part off and keeping the rest, which settles the argument by doing a little of both; and, for anyone wanting to add, waiting for it to come back towards its averages rather than adding at the stretch. Each has its cost: the trailing exit gives back the distance to the trail; taking part off leaves less riding on a run that continues; waiting can mean the pullback never comes. Strong stocks can stay stretched for months.

“It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!”

“Despite their strong positive average returns across numerous asset classes, momentum strategies can experience infrequent and persistent strings of negative returns.”

In Trendentum When a stock is Extended, its stock page shows the close that would end the reading at today’s averages and how far above its 50- and 200-day averages it is; its button tells you when it stops being Extended. A trailing review point (the + review point button on Holdings) is the let-it-run exit, written once.

How people plan around a steady decline

A stock in a clear, steady fall — below its long-term average for months, each month peaking lower than the one before — tests the holder more than anyone, and the research below finds the usual response is to hold on too long. Common plans: holders deciding a review level in advance, a percentage below what they paid or a close below a set price, so the decision is made while calm; anyone looking to start a position waiting for the decline to end first — a close back above the 200-day average, the run of lower monthly highs broken, or a quiet range forming — which the proverb puts as not catching a falling knife; and separating the price from the business, by reading the company’s announcements for a reason the price alone cannot give. A steady fall can end at any time; nothing on the chart says when.

“I test the disposition effect, the tendency of investors to hold losing investments too long and sell winning investments too soon, by analysing trading records for 10,000 accounts at a large discount brokerage house. These investors demonstrate a strong preference for realizing winners rather than losers. … Nor is it justified by subsequent portfolio performance.”

In Trendentum When a stock is Breaking down, its stock page shows the two closes that would end the reading — above its 200-day average, or above the high of the month before the latest — and how many closes in a row it has been below the average. Its button tells you when it closes above its 200-day average.

How people handle an unusual day

A day with three times the usual volume, or a move several times the normal size, nearly always has a cause — results, a capital raising, a takeover approach, an index change, a large holder leaving — and the cause is usually in the company’s own announcements before it is anywhere else. Common habits: reading the announcement before reading the chart; waiting a session or two to see whether the move holds or is given back; and asking whether anything has changed about why they own it, rather than about the price. Heavy volume says that many people traded. It does not say who, why, or which way the price goes next — and on its own it is not evidence of manipulation.

“The investor’s chief problem—and even his worst enemy—is likely to be himself.”

In Trendentum On an Unusual day, the stock page shows the close before it, the volume, and where the cause is usually found; its button adds unusual days on your stocks to your daily alert (Pro).

Let the winners run

The hardest part of a rising position is doing nothing with it. The research on momentum (the card above) says a stock that has risen for months has, on average, kept rising for a while longer; the research on behaviour says the owner usually sells it first. The pattern fails hardest when a falling market turns, so the proverb and the catch arrive together.

“It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!”

“Despite their strong positive average returns across numerous asset classes, momentum strategies can experience infrequent and persistent strings of negative returns.”

In Trendentum A trailing review point on a holding (the + review point button on Holdings, or under Where the chart is on the stock page): “tell me if it falls 12% from its highest close since I set this.” The level rises with the price and never falls, so the position runs until the day it gives back more than you decided you would accept — and the deciding was done before, not during. The Extended state and its count show how far above its average the run has carried, and what followed that before.

A stop is a decision made in advance

Deciding what would make you leave, before you are in, moves the decision to the one moment you are calm and uninvested. Deciding in the moment hands it to whichever feeling the day brings. The research finds a pre-set rule has, in some settings, cut the depth of losses without costing return; it also finds the result depends on how often the rule is checked and what kind of market it meets, so a stop is a plan, not a promise.

“We propose a simple analytical framework to measure the value added or subtracted by stop-loss rules—predetermined policies that reduce a portfolio’s exposure after reaching a certain threshold of cumulative losses—on the expected return and volatility of an arbitrary portfolio strategy. … At longer sampling frequencies, certain stop-loss policies can increase expected return while substantially reducing volatility, consistent with their objectives in practical applications.”

“The investor’s chief problem—and even his worst enemy—is likely to be himself.”

In Trendentum Your own review points: a level below or above what you paid, a trailing point, or a condition on the chart state (“tell me when it stops being Extended”, “when its range breaks”). You write it once; when it is reached Trendentum shows it on your dashboard and in the Sunday digest (and with Pro, in that evening’s alert), and never says what to do then. It never suggests a level or a percentage; the stock page points out which chart-state condition matches today’s reading, and the choice is yours — the plan has to be yours for it to be a plan.

The chief problem is the investor

Most of the damage done to portfolios is done by their owners, reacting to prices that were always going to move. The fewer times a day you are shown a flicker, the fewer times you can react to one.

“The investor’s chief problem—and even his worst enemy—is likely to be himself.”

In Trendentum Signals refresh at market closes, not every minute. Quiet mode (Pro; switched on in Account settings under Your dashboard) folds everything behind one line — usually “nothing changed on your holdings” — and Since your last visit lists what actually moved rather than what merely wobbled.

Fearful when others are greedy

The mood of the whole market is measurable, and it is at its most extreme exactly when it is hardest to act against. Knowing which kind of week you are in is the part that can be read off a screen.

“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”

In Trendentum The backdrop in Market Conditions bands the US VIX at fixed levels — calm under 15, stressed over 25, ordinary in between — says where it sits against its own 60-day average, and reads cyclicals against defensives (US consumer-discretionary against consumer-staples funds) as risk-on or risk-off — a description of where the crowd is, with what each setting has historically meant for the rules. It never says what to do about it.

The rules don’t know what you paid

A stock’s prospects have nothing to do with your purchase price, yet the urge to let go of the ones that are up and hang on to the ones that are down comes from that number alone.

“We are just the opposite of those who hurry to sell and book profits when companies perform well but who tenaciously hang on to businesses that disappoint. Peter Lynch aptly likens such behavior to cutting the flowers and watering the weeds.”

In Trendentum The outlook, the rule grid, the alerts and the weekly digest never show your gain or loss (what this site never does). The readings are re-read at every close from prices, results dates and filings alone; what you paid is used only for your own gain and loss figures, Raising cash, review points set from what you paid, and the tax notes — never by the readings — so a holding that is up and one that is down are read in exactly the same way.