Don't Ignore This Chart!

FTSE Leads Europe and Turns Positive Year-to-date

Arthur Hill

Arthur Hill

Chief Technical Strategist, TrendInvestorPro.com

Today's stock market rally started in Asia, extended into Europe and carried through to the US this morning. The major European indices were sharply higher with the London FTSE ($FTSE) leading the charge. On the price chart, the FSTE surged to a trend line extending down from May 2015 and consolidated in the 6100-6200 area for five weeks. This consolidation looks like a flag and this is a bullish continuation pattern. The flag breakout signals a continuation of the February surge and solidifies the trend line breakout. 


The indicator window shows the FTSE relative to the Eurotop 100 ($EUR) using the price relative ($FTSE:$EUR). This ratio has been rising since late November as UK stocks outperform the rest of Europe. Brexit be damned! 

The PerfChart below shows year-to-date performance for the FTSE and eight other European indices. It does not, however, include today's big advance. With today's 1.6% advance, the FTSE turned positive year-to-date. The Netherlands AEX is up over 2% in late trading on Wednesday and also poised to turn positive year-to-date. Even with a big advance today, the other seven will remain negative year-to-date and lagging. 

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Thanks for tuning in and have a good day!
--Arthur Hill CMT

Plan your Trade and Trade your Plan
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Arthur Hill
About the author: , CMT, is the Chief Technical Strategist at TrendInvestorPro.com. Focusing predominantly on US equities and ETFs, his systematic approach of identifying trend, finding signals within the trend, and setting key price levels has made him an esteemed market technician. Arthur has written articles for numerous financial publications including Barrons and Stocks & Commodities Magazine. In addition to his Chartered Market Technician (CMT) designation, he holds an MBA from the Cass Business School at City University in London. Learn More