We have received a wonderful response to our free trial offer to the new online Pulse of the Market report. Thank sot everyone for their support.

We are using the trial for several purposes.  The first is to offer basically the same service that Craig Schroeder offered in his daily e-mailed Pulse report.

One big difference is that Craig prepared his manually, by writing down market data every 5 minutes from several different sources and at the end of the day compiling the report and e-mailing it to his subscribers.  I have no idea how he did it and how he remained his calm and helpful self.

It was getting a bit much for Craig and he was very interested when I asked him about the possibility of creating online software that would  produce the same results.  Unfortunately, his cancer prevented him from completing the project with me and he has been sorely missed in more ways than one.

Our first week out of the box has had some ups and downs. We had to design a better date entry system when we discovered that data entered on an incorrect format caused the programs to slight malfunction. We corrected that issue with drop down boxes for the month, day and year. We also had to make a java script fix so everything worked in the Firefox browser.

In order to create the Wyckoff Wave, the Optimism-Pessimism index, the Force Index, the Technometer and the intra-day figures, we need to analyze every stock and index, every 5 minutes of every market day.  While our data feed service is well known and very reliable, on the first public report a 5 minute period was missed and some of the data was incorrect.  It just had to happen on our first report.  We manually updated the data base and have developed a system to resolve any future lost data. We are still testing the logic and it should be operational in a day or two.

However, despite these issues, the logic is working perfectly and we are pleased with the report. If you are not a subscriber and would like to sign up for our free trail, just go  to our sign in page, complete the simple form and we will e-mail you the access information.

If you have any comments and/or suggestions about how we can make the Pulse of the Market report better,  you discover a problem that needs our attention, please post a comment here or send me an e-mail.

As we make updates and improvements we will post that information here,  so check back often.

We have,  after many long months,  completed the programming that creates waves for all the individual stocks.  The primary issue was something called a floating point issue that impacted very small number changes.   Resolving this issue has also made us very comfortable with the process necessary to call waves using our software logic.

We are completing a few minor issues, doing some last minute testing and expect to offer the Pulse of the Market report on February 1st.

Wyckoff student Arthur Montuoro recently contacted us to inquire about the worth of a old 33 1/3 RPM record that contains all or part of the original Wyckoff Course in Stock Market Science and Technique, The Art of Speculation.
The record has a gold label that reads SMI Stock Market Institute. Side two is label in the same way and includes the old Illinois address: 808 Busse Highway Chicago Park Ridge, Ill. 60068, 313-825-5511,
The presence of a zip code suggests the record was produced after July 1, 1963, as that date was the first day zip codes were used.
If you are interested in this historical record, you can contact Arthur at Pipeline Trading Systems LLC, where he is the Managing Director of Sales
The contact information is
60 East 42nd Street, Suite 624
New York, NY 10165
Tel: 212-370-8315
Amonte@pipelinetrading.com

We are in the process of selecting stocks and indexes for our new charting service. Below is a list of stocks that have made the first cut and will be included in the Wyckoff Stock Market Institute. Com charting service.

In addition to the high low and close prices and volume information, each stock will carry its own O-P, Technometer and Force numbers.

If you are interested in this servie and would like to suggest a stock for consideration, please post a comment with your recommendation.
Here is what we have, so far:

3M
Abbott Laboratories
Abercrombie & Fitch Co.
Adobe Systems
Advanced Micro Devices
Agilent Technologies
Alcoa Inc.
Allergan
Allstate Corp.
Altria Group Inc.
Amazon Corp
American Express
American International Group
American Tower Corp.
Ameriprise Financial Inc.
Amgen
Apple Computer
Archer Daniels Midland
Ashland Inc.
AT&T
Autodesk
Avery Dennison Corp.
Avon Products
Bank of America
Becton Dickinson
Biogen
Black & Decker Corp.
Boeing
Bristol Myers
Broadcom Corporation
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.
C. H. Robinson Worldwide
Cabot Oil & Gas
Capital One Financial
Carnival Corp.
Caterpillar
Charles Schwab
Chevron
Chubb Corp.
Cisco Systems
Citggroup
Coca Cola Co.
Coca-Cola Enterprises
Colgate-Palmolive
Conoco Phillips
Corning Inc.
Costo Wholesale
CSX Corp.
CVS Caremark Corp.
Deere & Co.
Dell Inc.
DeVry
Diamond Offshore Drilling
Disney
DuPont
Eastman Chemical
Ebay
Emerson Electric
Expedia
FedEx Corporation
Fiserv Inc
Ford
Freeport-McMoran Cp & Gld
Garmin Ltd.
General Dynamics
General Electric
Goldman Sachs Group
Goodyear Tire & Rubber
Google
Grainger (W.W.) Inc.
Halliburton Co.
Harley-Davidson
Hartford Financial Svc.Gp.
HCP Inc.
Heinz (H.J.)
Hess Corporation
Hewlett-Packard
Home Depot
Honeywell Int’l Inc.
Humana Inc.
IBM
Integrys Energy Group Inc.
Intel
International Game Technology
Intuit
Intuitive Surgical Inc.
ITT Corporation
Jabil Circuit
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson Controls
JP Morgan Chase
Juniper Networks
Kellogg Co.
Kohl’s Corp.
Laboratory Corp. of America
Life Technologies
Lilly (Eli) & Co.
Lockheed Martin Corp.
Marriott Int’l.
Marsh & McLennan
Mastercard Inc.
McAfee
McDonald’s
Medco Health Solutions Inc.
Merck & Co.
Merk
Microsoft
Molson Coors Brewing Company
Monsanto Co.
Morgan Stanley
National Semiconductor
Newell Rubbermaid Co.
Newmont Mining Corp.
Nike
Norfolk Southern Corp.
Novellus Systems
Nucor Corp.
Nvidia Corporation
NYSE Euronext
Occidental Petroleum
Oracle Corp
Owens-Illinois Inc.
“Paccar, Inc.”
Paychex
Peabody Energy
Penney (J.C.)
PepsiCo Inc.
Petsmart
Pfizer
Polo Ralph Lauren Corp.
Praxair Inc.
Precision Castparts
Procter & Gamble
Pulte Homes Inc.
Qualcomm
Quanta Services Inc.
Quest Diagnostics
RadioShack Corp
Raytheon Co.
Red Hat
Republic Services Inc
Research in Motion
Reynolds American Inc
Rockwell Collins
Roper Industries
Ryder System
Safeway
SanDisk Corporation
Schlumberger Ltd
Sherwin-Williams
Southwest Airlines
Southwestern Energy
Starbucks Corp.
Sun Microsystems
Sunoco
Texas Instruments
Time Warner Inc.
Tyson Foods
Union Pacific
United Parcel Service
United States Steel Corp.
United Tech Corp.
United Technologies
Urban Outfitters
Verisign Inc.
Verizon Communications
Vornado Realty Trust
Walmart
Waste Management
Western Digital
Weyerhaeuser Corp.
Wynn Resorts Ltd
Xerox
Yahoo Inc.
Yum! Brands Inc.

A great question was recently asked in the Wyckoff Forum about the Activity report described in the Tape reading course.

Goerg7e said that he would like to keep up an activity chart, as shown in the Tape Reading Course. But, I do not see the formula for it. If it is not proprietary, kindly send me the formula. The activity is calculated by dividing the volume by the time. (volume/time).

George7e then noticed that the numbers in the Activity report did not match the formula and, quite naturally, asked why. I thought our response might be interesting.

This is a great question and, after a little research, discovered that the answer provides a little history of how SMI operated and some of the problems they encountered that no longer exist today.

Back in the 1970′s the ticker tape was still the primary method of getting stock prices quickly to brokerage houses and anyone else interested in receiving intra day market action. The Stock Market Institute had their own ticker tape machine and used it to track the market’s action. The tape was a printed continuous ribbon of paper tape which required less than 1 roll a day, but was over 3 rolls of mostly volume deleted and repeat prices omitted when the formula was changed.

Originally the Activity was based on, believe it or not, the actual adjusted footage of the ticker tape divided by the number of 5 minute periods in a wave.

In the 1970′s the market volume really began to increase and it was difficult for the Western Union (they provided the ticker tape) to keep up. To keep up, the Exchange compressed the tape by deleting certain digits related to the stocks price and volume.

The actual footage had to be counted and adjusted when the tape was running late. The NYSE used to report in 3 ways to speed up the tape. It would first go Digits deleted, then Volume deleted and then finally Repeat Prices omitted. The tape footage during these 3 processes then would have to be multiplied to get the actual footage. The multipliers were:
DD 1.15
VD 1.4
RPO 1.5

Gary Schuber, who was just beginning his SMI career remembers spending hours calculating the figures so the daily activity report could be included in the daily Pulse of the Market report. He often stayed late to make sure the report was finished and faxed to Wyckoff students in a timely manner.

Those days are long gone and now the Activity is a simple calculation of dividing the volume by the length of the wave and dividing by two. Since the Activity Report on Chart 3-14 reflects the calculations described above, it does not exactly match the present formula. Thankfully, technology has taken us beyond that measuring the length of the ticker tape and making adjusted calculations.

Thanks to Gerog7e for giving us an opportunity to share a little SMI history while answering his excellent and most perceptive question.

For years the volume aspect of the Wyckoff Wave was taken from the NYSE Composite Index.

This was simply because the Wave was calculated manually and combining the volumes of all the individual Wave stocks was cumbersome and extremely time consuming. But, it was tradition and traditions are hard to change.

When Craig Schroeder and I were beginning to develop the online data and charting service we decided to change tradition and designate the volume of the Wyckoff Wave as the total volume of each Wave stock.

Every 5 minutes we take the total, weighted price of each Wyckoff Wave stock and the total volume of all 12 Wave stocks. We use this data to determine or “call” each intra day wave throughout each trading day.

Additional calculations produce the numbers for the Optimism-Pessimism Index was well as the Technometer Force Index.

Craig and I both felt that by using the actual volume for the Wyckoff Wave stocks, this leading indicator index would be even more helpful to Wyckoff traders.

An online data and charting service that will include Wyckoff related data is being developed by Wyckoff Stock Market Institute.Com.  The service, which is scheduled for release this winter, will offer the following charts and data for both indexes and individual stocks:

1.  Price and volume
2.  Optimism-Pessimism Index High, Low and Close (Volume Analysis)
3.  Force data (Investor Sentiment)
4.  Technometer (overbought sold)
5.  Figure Charts

These charts will be available for the Wyckoff Wave, other major indexes, Wyckoff Wave stocks and 200 other significant stocks.

We have spent over a year developing the software that can calculate individual waves for the Wyckoff Wave, other indexes and individual stocks.  We had hope to roll out this service last summer, but programming issues, compounded by Craig Schroeder’s  illness have delayed the project.

A list of the stocks we will be following will be posted by the end of 2009.    If you have a stock you would be interested in following and it is not on the list, please leave us a comment.

We will also be posting progress reports as we get closer to the release date.

Back in the 1960′s and 70′s,  Robert Evans owned the Stock Market Institute.  It was based in Chicago, IL where Evans and his staff revised and sold the Wyckoff course and offered an excellent charting service.  That was back in the days when traders read the ticker tape and charts were drawn by hand. The charts were mailed out on Thursday morning (100 per week) and students spent a busy Saturday updating the charts with the Thursday and Friday data.

Bob Evans also produced a series of recordings (on reel to reel tape) that offered market commentary using wonderful stories that taught us valuable lessons.  At one time, the tape machine was mailed from student to student so they could listen to the tapes.  My, have times changed.

The fascinating thing about the Wyckoff method is that the principles he developed 80 years ago, work just as well today as they did in the 1920′s and the great depression (when SMI was founded).  On his tapes, Evans may be using a company that no longer exists to make his point, but it doesn’t matter.  It’s the concepts and the lessons that are important and they are timeless.

Probably Bob Evans’ greatest gift was his ability to communicate in a way that you remembered and used the information he presented.  While listening to the tapes was serious business, it was also great fun.  He made over 200 Evans Echoes tapes and many of them are SMI classics.

Gary Schuber and I are working on a project to convert these invaluable tapes into MP3 audio files and, along with the associated charts, are, for the first, time making them available to Wyckoff Students. They can be fouind in the vault section of the web site.  It is a big project and will take some time to update all the Evans Echoes tapes.  If you have a favorite, please leave a comment and we’ll make update it and place it in the vault.

The Wyckoff Stock Market Institute web site offers a forum where Wyckoff students can get answers to questions about the Wyckoff methods and techniques. It is open to all students who have purchased the Wyckoff course and anyone who subscribes to Craig Schroeder’s “Pulse of the Market” and “Trends and Trading Ranges” services. Click here to apply and ask away.