The VectorVest Views and Daily Color Guard Report, by Dr. Bart A. DiLiddo, keep you informed of the current status of the stock market. The VectorVest Views are published every Friday (or the last market trading day of the week), and the Color Guard Report is published daily.
VectorVest Views:
On the VectorVest Express Homepage there is a section titled VectorVest Views. To access the latest documentation of the VectorVest Views, click on the link labeled Read the VectorVest Views. You may also click on the VectorVest Views dropdown menu on the VectorVest Express Toolbar. This will retrieve the full length version of the VectorVest Views published each Friday, or the last market trading day of the week. The VectorVest Views contain much information divided into the following categories: Overview, Valuation, Timing, Strategy, Climate, Stocks, Portfolio, User Groups, and Products.
Daily Color Guard Report:
To access the Daily Color Guard Report, click on the link labeled Read the Color Guard. The Color Guard Report is documented for each trading day that the market is open. In addition to hosting the Color Guard, this report documents and analyzes what the market is doing in four (4) sections: Analysis, Summary, Strategy, and Data Table. Following is an explanation of each.
Section 1: Analysis
This section of the report describes:
Exactly how the colors are assigned in the Color Guard,
How the Price of the VVC is used to ascertain the primary trend of the market, and
How the Market Timing Indicator, MTI, is used to determine the underlying trend of the market.
Section 2: Summary
This section of the report recaps the color combination for the day and notes whether the market is Bullish, Bearish or Neutral. It also recites the direction of the primary and underlying trends of the market and the situation created by the particular combination of trends existing that day.
Section 3: Strategy
This section provides guidance to readers based upon the analysis shown above and the type of investor referenced. We address three kinds of investors:
Prudent Investors who prefer to buy fundamentally sound stocks and hold them for the long-term. We recommend they go bargain hunting at the beginning of market upturns. They should refrain from buying stocks, protect profits and accumulate cash during Bull Market downturns. They should sell stocks and hold cash during Bear Markets. Bull and Bear Markets are identified in the VectorVest Investment Climate.
Aggressive Investors and Traders who buy and sell stocks on a short-term basis with little regard to fundamentals. They are dedicated to using technical analysis to identify entry and exit points for their trades. We suggest they buy stocks long at upturns and sell stocks short at downturns as signaled by the Color Guard Report. We also suggest that they base their trading decisions on what the market is doing at the moment of the trade. These investors should use the Bull and Bear Market scenarios cited in the Investment Climate as background information only.
Riding the Wave Investors who are using the VectorVest Market Timing System to identify when to buy and sell stocks. They use VectorVest Strategies to select which stocks to buy long or sell short and the VectorVest Portfolio Manager to manage their portfolio. We example this technique with a Model Portfolio by buying stocks at upturns and selling stocks short at downturns. The Model Portfolio is intended to be used for illustration purposes only.
Section 4: Data Table
The final piece of the Daily Color Guard Report is the data table. Although it is self-explanatory in most regards, the Trend column has caused some confusion. The Trend column shows a combination of two terms which are denoted as UpDn, for example. The first term refers to the direction of the Primary Trend, also known as, the Primary Wave and the second term refers to the direction of the Underlying Trend. As of the end of today's trading, the combination was DnDn. This means that the Primary Trend is Down and the Underlying Trend is also Down. A major shortcoming of the Data Table is that it provides data only one day at a time. In order to capture the most information from the data, it is helpful to study how the data changes over time. Fortunately, someone out there invented graphs.
Additional information on the Color Guard can be found in the Overview Section of the VectorVest Views on 07/30/2004 and 08/06/2004.