Beware the Hindenburg Omen!
I thought it might be fun to put together a few charts of my own to follow the Hindenburg Omen.
Here are the Charts for tracking the Hindenburg Omen. Look for NYSE New Highs and New Lows to be 84 or higher at the same time as we get a NYSE that is higher than 50 days back. Also the McClellan Oscillator is negative on the same day:
More from Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org
Criteria
1. The daily number of NYSE new 52 week highs and the daily number of new 52 week lows are both greater than or equal to 2.8 percent (typically, 84) of the sum of NYSE issues that advance or decline that day (typically, around 3000)[3]. An older version of the indicator used a threshold of 2.5 percent of total issues traded (approximately 80 of 3200 in today's market).
2. The NYSE index is greater in value than it was 50 trading days ago. Originally, this was expressed as a rising 10 week moving average, but the new rule is more relevant to the daily data used to look at new highs and lows.
3. The McClellan Oscillator is negative on the same day.
4. New 52 week highs cannot be more than twice the new 52 week lows (though new 52 week lows may be more than double new highs).
The traditional definition requires each condition to occur on the same day. Once the signal has occurred, it is valid for 30 days, and any additional signals given during the 30-day period should be ignored. During the 30 days, the signal is activated whenever the McClellan Oscillator is negative, but deactivated whenever it is positive.[4]
Possible weaknesses
To eliminate false positives some technical analysts have imposed the condition that the Hindenburg Omen
* must be triggered three times in a row within a month from the first triggering event for said initial trigger signal to be considered to be valid (i.e. requires double confirmation)
* is only valid when "all tightly coupled triggerings are within a fortnight"
* will indicate a possible future downturn or correction, depending on the magnitude of any "one off" triggering
[edit] Conclusions
From historical data, the probability of a move greater than 5% to the downside after a confirmed Hindenburg Omen was 77% [The Wall Street Journal 8/23/2010 article cited below states that accuracy is 25%, looking at period from 1985], and usually takes place within the next forty days. The probability of a panic sellout was 41% and the probability of a major stock market crash was 24%. Though the Omen does not have a 100% success rate, every NYSE crash since 1985 has been preceded by a Hindenburg Omen. Of the previous 25 confirmed signals only two (8%) have failed to predict at least mild (2.0% to 4.9%) declines.
Because of the specific and seemingly random nature of the Hindenburg Omen criteria, the phenomenon may be simply a case of overfitting. That is, by backtesting through a large data set with many different variables, correlations can be found that do not really have predictive significance. The Omen is at best an imperfect technical indicator that is a work in progress.
[edit] Recent occurrences
* August 12, 2010: The Omen's creator, Jim Miekka, considered the Omen officially triggered on this date with 92 and 81 new 52-week highs and lows, respectively. The McClellan Oscillator was a negative -120.03 and the 10-week NYSE moving average was rising; the market closed above its open of 50 days prior (May 27). [5]. In the ensuing week, the Omen narrowly missed confirmation twice (August 13 and 19).
* August 20, 2010: According to the Wall Street Journal, the omen was confirmed on Friday, with 83 new 52-week highs and 95 new 52-week lows on the NYSE. The McClellan Oscillator was a negative -106.46 and the 10-week NYSE moving average was rising; the market closed above its open of 50 days prior (June 11). [6]
* August 24, 2010: 166 New Lows, 87 new Highs, McClellan Oscillator was negative, but the 10 week average began to fall. (Non-Confirmation.) (Although the 12 week average is still positive.)
* August 25, 2010: 150 New Lows, 90 new Highs, McClellan Oscillator was negative, but again the 10 week average was falling (Non-Confirmation.) (Although the 12 week average is still positive.)
* August 31, 2010: 86 New Lows, 164 new Highs, McClellan Oscillator was negative, and the 10 week moving average was up slightly 8.86 (0.13%) but falling (non-confirmation)
* December 14, 2010: 113 New Lows, 179 New Highs, 3063 Advancers+Decliners, McClellan Oscillator was negative (-5.36), NYSE Composite Index closed at 7855.22 vs 7272.53 50 trading days prior (October 4, 2010), and the 10 week moving average was rising.
* December 15, 2010: 89 New Lows, 156 New Highs, 3044 Advancers+Decliners, McClellan Oscillator was negative (-22.59), NYSE Composite Index closed at 7798.78 vs 7434.18 50 trading days prior (October 5, 2010), and the 10 week moving average was rising. This represents a single confirmation. |
