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S&P 500 MARKET INTERNALS
Breadth Perspective
A trigger-based read on S&P 500 market internals. We publish only when a historically validated setup fires — not a daily 1–10 score. Each trigger has been backtested against the unconditional SPX base rate (so apparent edge from secular bull drift is stripped out). Updated nightly at 23:00 ET.
Current Status
ACTIVE TRIGGER
Trigger-based framework. No continuous daily score. Fires only when a documented-alpha setup activates — ~8–10 publish-grade events per year on average.
VIX Single-Day Spike fired on 2026-11-05 (1 trading days ago). The signal remains inside its documented alpha window (3–24 months). Historical 12m alpha vs base rate: +4.5 to +8.6 percentage points.
SPX
7354
vs 52w high
-5.95%
200DMA
ABOVE
Regime
BULL-LIKE
As of November 6, 2026 · Next refresh: 23:00 ET tonight.
ACTIVE TRIGGERS
Publish-grade fires in the last 60 trading days
Each row is a discrete historical setup with documented alpha vs the unconditional SPX base rate. Fire date is the trading session on which the trigger conditions were first met. SPX return since fire is realized price-only performance to the current session.
| Trigger | Fire Date | Days Ago | SPX Since | Hist. 12m α |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VIX Single-Day Spike | 2026-11-05 | 1 | — | +8.6 pp |
TRIGGER LEDGER
Last 10 publish-grade fires
Historical track record. Forward returns are SPX price-only, from fire date to the N-month forward trading session. Blank = forward window not yet observable (trigger fired recently).
| # | Trigger | Fire Date | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | VIX Single-Day Spike | 2026-11-05 | — | — | — |
| 2 | Lowry 90% Down Day | 2025-12-31 | -3.8% | +10.1% | — |
| 3 | Lowry 90% Down Day | 2025-05-21 | +9.0% | +13.6% | +27.9% |
| 4 | Lowry 90% Down Day | 2025-04-21 | +22.3% | +30.6% | +38.4% |
| 5 | VIX Single-Day Spike | 2025-04-04 | +22.7% | +32.8% | +33.7% |
| 6 | Lowry 90% Down Day | 2025-04-04 | +22.7% | +32.8% | +33.7% |
| 7 | VIX Single-Day Spike | 2024-12-18 | -1.8% | +3.7% | +17.1% |
| 8 | Lowry 90% Down Day | 2024-12-18 | -1.8% | +3.7% | +17.1% |
| 9 | VIX Single-Day Spike | 2024-08-05 | +10.5% | +16.9% | +22.2% |
| 10 | Lowry 90% Down Day | 2024-08-05 | +10.5% | +16.9% | +22.2% |
METHODOLOGY
How the triggers are built and validated
Two publish-grade triggers. After testing eight classical breadth signals (McClellan, Zweig, O’Neil, Dorsey, Fosback, Hindenburg, AD-line, sector concentration), only two delivered statistically meaningful alpha vs the unconditional SPX base rate on our SP500-only universe:
- VIX Single-Day Spike — VIX closes up >40% in a single session. ~1 fire per year. Historical 12m alpha: +8.6 pp, 24m alpha: +7.6 pp.
- Lowry 90% Down Day — ≥90% of advances AND ≥90% of volume on the down side in a single session. ~6–8 fires per year. 12m alpha: +4.5 pp, 24m alpha: +5.7 pp.
Alpha vs base rate — honesty about the secular bull. SPX has averaged +13% at 12m and +42% at 36m over 2010–2026 (a secular bull market). Any trigger that occasionally fires during drawdowns will show positive forward returns simply because those drawdowns always recovered. Our alpha metric strips this out: we compare the trigger’s forward return to the SAME-WINDOW unconditional mean. The +4.5 and +8.6 percentage-point alphas above are what remains after removing the drift.
Regime gate. Triggers are suppressed during sustained bear markets (SPX below 200DMA for ≥60 consecutive trading days). “Buy the dip” signals systematically fail in protracted downtrends (1973–74, 2000–2002). Our 2010–2026 sample filters out 5–9 fires per trigger from sustained-bear periods.
No continuous composite is published. Earlier versions produced a daily 1–10 score. Backtest analysis showed the score was informationally neutral 87% of the time, with the apparent edge dominated by base-rate drift. The trigger-based framing concentrates signal into discrete, rare, high-conviction events — and remains silent when nothing is set up.
Diagnostic signals. Zweig Breadth Thrust, AAII Extreme Bear, Hindenburg Omen, Fosback HLLI, AD-line divergence, sector concentration, and price-vs-participation divergence continue to run internally but are NOT part of the published product. They lacked statistically meaningful alpha on the SP500 universe (the classical NYSE-tuned versions require the broader 3,000+ issue universe to translate).
Data sources. SP500 member OHLC (Yahoo, point-in-time membership), VIX (CBOE), AAII Investor Sentiment Survey (weekly). Nightly refresh at 23:00 ET.
Not investment advice. The Breadth Perspective is a research tool describing historical relationships between market internals and forward SPX returns. Past relationships are not a guarantee of future outcomes. Readings should be considered in the context of a complete research process. Signals may conflict with other perspectives on this site. Generated 2026-11-06 12:19 ET.