The headline said that the market was up 1% today. But...what does that really mean? Was every stock up 1%? No. What if only tech stocks, which comprise 20% of the market caps of the S&P 500 (the market, in this sense), were up 5%? Well, that would imply that the rest of the market was net flat.
The breadth figures matter a lot, because they reflect overall sentiment in the market as a whole, not just one stock or one group or one entity. If the market is broadly...up, then maybe global interest rates went down...or peace broke out everywhere...or nervous investors just decided to collectively jump in, turning their safe cash into relatively risky equity investment.
And the notion of a market being liquid means that there's a lot of volume in it...usually a good sign for investors. Lots of volume usually implies lots of "new" money coming into the system, with sentiment getting better from those cash hoarders who have previously been sitting on the sidelines doing a whole lot of...nothing.
See: Thin Market. See: Liquid Market.
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Finance: What is a thin market?13 Views
Finance allah shmoop what is thin market peahen happens when
few stocks are trading on bonds to actually thin is
illiquid thin is when there just aren't a lot of
buyers at the given price levels Thin is when trading
volumes are described by the kindly wise cnbc commentators as
being anemic Thin is when the headlines ask where have
all the stock buyers gone Long time passing bob dylan
i'll go ask your parents finn is it Well not
this guy Fat is high volumes lots of cash being
put to work Buying securities fat is big demand to
buy a big supply of supply Fat or liquid markets
are generally driven by cash being put to work which
either came from investors who simply saved their pennies to
then deploy them in the market's taking on more risk
by being exposed to more volatility and generally speaking hi
liquidity even in a world where the stock market is
flat is generally perceived as bullish or positive voting in
the future of stock market values Yeah so what does
all that mean Money being put to work is good
It adds liquidity It means people are hopeful optimistic lots
Of opinions Then goto work assessing the upside and downside
of the market such that the gumball estimate effect is
in place And if you didn't go to third grade
in the last decade the gumball estimate game revolves around
the idea that if many opinions estimate the number of
gumballs in this big fish tank those numbers get averaged
and way more often than not The average guesses in
fact very close to the actual number of gumballs crushing
down on the innocent guppies and other goldfish below The
same holds true in the stock market where the aggregation
of many opinions usually makes for better decisions or at
least more accurate estimates And in the case where a
market suddenly grows thin it means that a lot of
educated well heeled invest astors have been spooked by the
notion of taking on risk in their portfolios by taking
their safe cash and risking it in the market So
they d risk or simply then keep cash in their
wallets Not wanting to put it to work until better 00:02:15.065 --> [endTime] signs come from you know on high
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Trading volume is the number of shares trading back and forth at a given time.