IYR Watch

The exchange-traded fund that tracks real estate, IYR, is showing a parabolic sar bull signal, which is line in with a fairly messy uptrend that began in March 2009 and marking, perhaps, the resumption of an upswing that began last February.

	trend	adx	psar	pps	macd	macd trend	sto	sto trend
IYR $53.65

At 2:55 p.m. Eastern

I call the uptrend "messy" because IYR has been prone to repeated phase switches: Eight of them show on the three-month daily chart, with the shortest being two days only.

To confirm resumption of the uptrend, IYR would need to break above the swing high of $55.

Reversal Levels

• $55.00, +2.5%
• $53.65 <== You are here


• $52.44, -2.3% (20-day moving average)


• $51.77, -3.5%


• $48.81, -9%

The upside potential, at 2.5%, is OK but not stupendous. Also, the stock is trending, but my usual tool for analyzing trend strength, the average directional index, was compromised by the mini-panic of May 6 and is not providing clear guidance. So I'm using an alternative measure: the 20-day moving average. If the price is above the ma20, and even better, if the moving average is rising, then there is an uptrend of sufficient strength to warrant consideration.

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Skynet Panic of May 6 Panic Looks Like This Skynet Panic Poisons Technical Tools Abbreviations: psar - Parabolic Stop and Reverse adx - Average Directional Index pps - Person's Proprietary Signal ma20 - 20-day moving average macd - Moving Average Convergence-Divergence mfi - Money Flow Index sto - Fast Stochastic About the glance: The colors indicate the state of each signal.

• trend: Determined by the 5-day moving average, green for up, red for down, yellow for sideways
• adx: orange for above 30-up, blue for 20-down, purple for in the middle. Red is most prone to whipsaws
• psar, pps, macd: green for bull mode, red for bear
• sto: green for overbought, red for oversold, yellow for the neutral zone.

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