Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh is one of the most influential figures in art history. He is known for his bold use of color, expressive brushwork, and emotionally charged compositions.

Though he struggled with mental illness and found little commercial success during his lifetime, his work would later revolutionize modern art, inspiring movements such as Expressionism and Fauvism.

Masterpieces like Starry Night, Sunflowers, and The Bedroom showcase his ability to infuse ordinary scenes with deep emotion and energy. His unique artistic vision, characterized by thick impasto and swirling, dynamic forms, has made his paintings some of the most recognizable and beloved in the world.

Beyond his artistic achievements, Van Gogh’s personal story—marked by perseverance, passion, and an unwavering dedication to his craft—continues to resonate with audiences, making him a timeless symbol of artistic genius and resilience.

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“What happens today has happened before and will happen again.” Livermore

“The farther backward you look, the farther forward you will see.” Winston Churchill

“Rather than love, money, fame, give me truth.” Henry David Thoreau

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Tracking Account Valuation January 4, 2022 – $1,212,085

Tracking Account Valuation August 12, 2025- $1,975,051

Since 2021: +62%

Primary Trend: ~ Downtrend

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Positions: 7% TZA, 7% SQQQ, 84% Cash

Hard stop:  TZA 41.66, SQQQ 31.27 

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4:00: Stoch: RISING

Daily       LOLR      STS

2/5-DT    0/7-DT   4/3-DT

Breadth: 277/301

*ADR: 0.94/SPY: +4.17

NYMO: -38 Declining Intraday

NAMO: -17 Declining Intraday

The Summation Index is Falling

*NYSE Advance-Decline Ratio

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There are many ways to evaluate the health of a Bull Market. Still, one of the simplest—and historically one of the most revealing—is to examine how many individual stocks are making new 12-month highs versus how many are making new 12-month lows.

The reason is straightforward.

A genuine Bull Market should be characterized by expanding participation. As the market advances, more and more individual stocks should be breaking above their previous 12-month highs, while relatively few should be breaking below their previous 12-month lows.

If the number of new highs relative to new lows is increasing, the underlying trend is broadening and strengthening. Conversely, when new lows begin increasing while new highs diminish, the market is telling us that participation is narrowing and deterioration is spreading beneath the surface of the major averages.

This distinction is particularly important today because the SPX remains within 1% of its all-time high.

On the surface, that would appear to describe a market that remains exceptionally strong.

But the internal evidence tells a very different story.

What happened at previous major market peaks?

To put today’s market into historical perspective, we examined the 10-day averages of NYSE new 12-month highs and new 12-month lows at the peak SPX high of each of the last eight major market cycles.

The results are remarkably consistent.

At the 1966 peak, there were 83 new highs versus 35 new lows.

At the 1968 peak, there were 160 new highs versus only 6 new lows.

At the 1973 peak, there were 67 new highs versus 19 new lows.

At the 1980 peak, there were 132 new highs versus 15 new lows.

At the 1987 peak, there were 108 new highs versus 93 new lows.

At the 2000 peak, there were 327 new highs versus 108 new lows.

At the 2007 peak, there were 205 new highs versus only 25 new lows.

And at the 2022 peak, there were 107 new highs versus 71 new lows.

The message from these historical cycle peaks is remarkably clear: even when major Bull Markets were approaching their ultimate highs, new highs continued to outnumber new lows.

The relationship was not always equally strong. In 1987, for example, the difference was relatively small, with 108 new highs versus 93 new lows. In 2022, there were 107 new highs versus 71 new lows.

But in every one of these eight previous cycle peaks, there were still more new highs than new lows.

Then came August 13, 2026

At the August 13, 2026 SPX high, the 10-day averages were still consistent with that historical pattern.

There were 100 new 12-month highs versus 51 new 12-month lows.

In other words, there were almost two new highs for every new low.

That was already a deterioration from some of the great historical Bull Market peaks, but new highs still substantially exceeded new lows.

What has happened since then is dramatically different.

The current reading is extraordinary

Today, with the SPX still within 1% of its all-time high, the 10-day averages show:

37 new 12-month highs.

253 new 12-month lows.

That means there are approximately 6.8 new lows for every new high.

The relationship has completely reversed.

And this is the critical point.

This is not simply a weaker reading than we saw at the previous cycle peaks.

It is not merely the worst reading in our historical comparison.

It is in an entirely different category.

At every one of the previous eight major cycle peaks in our 60-year comparison, new highs outnumbered new lows.

Today, new lows are running at nearly seven times the number of new highs.

That is an extraordinary deterioration in the underlying market while the SPX itself remains almost at an all-time high.

Why can this happen?

The answer lies in the construction of the major indexes.

The SPX is capitalization-weighted. Consequently, a relatively small number of very large companies can have a disproportionate influence on the index.

As long as those large-cap stocks remain elevated, the SPX can remain near its highs even while a much larger number of individual stocks are deteriorating.

That is precisely why we have always placed so much emphasis on market internals.

The index tells us where the market is.

Breadth, new highs and new lows, leadership, and other internal measures tell us what is happening underneath the index.

And today, those two messages are becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile.

The SPX says that very little has changed.

The individual-stock data says that a great deal has changed.

A comparison that deserves attention

Consider the progression:

1968: 160 new highs / 6 new lows.

1980: 132 / 15.

2007: 205 / 25.

2022: 107 / 71.

August 13, 2026: 100 / 51.

Current: 37 / 253.

The progression from August 13 to today is especially striking.

New highs have fallen from 100 to 37.

New lows have exploded from 51 to 253.

Thus, while the SPX has remained within 1% of its all-time high, the underlying relationship between stocks making new highs and stocks making new lows has moved from approximately 2-to-1 in favor of new highs to nearly 7-to-1 in favor of new lows.

That is not the behavior we would expect from a broad, healthy Bull Market.

The importance of participation

Bull Markets are sustained by participation.

For a market to continue advancing in a broad and durable fashion, stocks must continually replace those that have already advanced. New leaders emerge, former leaders continue to participate, and the number of stocks reaching new highs remains substantial.

Eventually, however, the character of the market can change.

Fewer stocks make new highs.

More stocks begin making new lows.

Leadership narrows.

The major averages may continue rising because the remaining leaders have sufficient capitalization to carry the indexes higher.

This is one reason major market tops can be so deceptive.

The final stages of a major advance do not necessarily look weak on the surface.

They can look remarkably strong.

The averages can be making or approaching new highs while the number of stocks participating in those highs steadily contracts.

That is why the internal condition of the market matters so much.

The question we must now ask

The issue is therefore not whether the SPX is near an all-time high.

It is.

The issue is whether the broad market underneath the SPX is behaving like a market that is capable of sustaining that position.

The current new-high/new-low relationship raises a very serious question.

At every major cycle peak in our 60-year comparison, new highs still outnumbered new lows.

Today, while the SPX remains within 1% of its all-time high, there are 37 new highs against 253 new lows.

New lows are therefore almost seven times as numerous as new highs.

That is the most extreme divergence in the entire comparison.

And it is precisely the kind of evidence that can be obscured when attention is focused exclusively on the major averages.

The index is near its high. The market beneath it is not.

This is ultimately why we continue to believe that market analysis must go far beyond the headline level of the SPX.

The index can tell us that the market is near an all-time high.

But the new-high/new-low data tells us how many individual stocks are actually participating in that high.

Right now, those two messages are dramatically different.

The SPX remains within 1% of its ATH.

Yet the 10-day average of NYSE new lows is 253 versus only 37 new highs.

In our 60-year historical comparison, nothing at the prior major cycle peaks comes close to that relationship.

The significance is not that this one indicator can predict precisely what the market will do next. No single indicator can do that.

The significance is that an exceptionally large deterioration in the underlying stock population is occurring at a time when the major index continues to appear exceptionally strong.

That is a condition we believe deserves very close attention.

The SPX may still be near an all-time high.

The broader market is telling a very different story, and we are listening.