Founder’s Note: Grant Hawkridge always brings his “A” game on Saturday, whether it’s golf or charts he’s getting after.
He’s always looking to get better, and he’s always helping us get better.
Here’s Grant with more wisdom from Down Under – JC
By Grant Hawkridge
G’day, Grant here again.
Recently, I became part of my golf club’s Pennant team. In Australia, Pennant is an inter-club competition where the best players from each club face off against other clubs across the region.
Now I need to be clear about something.
I’m not good enough to be in the playing lineup. But I am part of the team as a caddy for one of my best mates who is playing.
And being around the team has been a great reminder of how powerful the right environment can be.
We practice together, and everyone shares ideas about what they’re seeing in their game.
You pick things up quickly when you’re surrounded by people who care about getting better.
Small details get noticed. Mistakes get corrected earlier. You learn faster simply by being around others who are working on the same craft.
Trading is not much different.
Most traders sit alone in front of their screens. No second set of eyes. No one challenging their thinking when the market gets difficult.
That makes the learning curve much harder.
The right community changes that.
You see different charts. You hear different ideas. You learn how other traders interpret the same price action you’re watching.
You don’t have to agree with every view. But exposure to different perspectives sharpens your own.
That same idea applies to markets.
Reading the Current Landscape
One thing that stands out when you spend time around good players is how often they talk through what they’re seeing.
Everyone is looking at the same course, but from slightly different perspectives.
Trading works the same way.
The best traders constantly compare notes on what they’re seeing in price.
That matters even more when news headlines get loud.
At the moment, there’s no shortage of headline noise. Every day brings a new narrative about what the market should do next.
But price doesn’t follow headlines.
And right now, several charts are pointing to a fairly consistent backdrop for me.
Here are a few I keep coming back to when I step back and look at the current market landscape.
The Primary Trend Still Points Higher
When headlines get loud, the first thing I do is zoom out:
At the index level, the S&P 500 hasn’t gone anywhere for a few months.
Price has been moving sideways for roughly four months, and the range during the first two months of 2026 has been extremely tight.
In fact, the January-to-February range is the smallest we’ve seen going all the way back to 1950.
On the surface, that can make the market feel uncertain.
But zooming out tells a different story.
The S&P 500 is still trading above a rising 200-day moving average, one of the most widely followed gauges of the market’s primary trend. That trend measure has been pointing higher for the past 210 trading days.
In other words, the market has spent nearly a full year with the long-term trend moving in the same direction.
Sideways movement over the past few months looks less like weakness and more like consolidation within that larger primary uptrend. Price has paused, but the underlying structure hasn’t changed.
Markets rarely move in straight lines. Even strong bull markets need periods where price moves sideways while trends catch up underneath.
Right now, that’s exactly what this chart shows. The trend remains upward, even if the index has been taking a breather.
Breadth Is Still Expanding
Trend tells us the direction of the market. Breadth tells us how many stocks are actually participating in that move:
This chart tracks the NYSE & Nasdaq 10-Day Net New High Advance–Decline Line, a measure designed to capture expanding or contracting participation across the market.
The calculation starts with net new highs, which is the number of stocks making new highs minus the number making new lows each day across both exchanges.
Those readings are turned into an advance–decline line and then smoothed using a 10-day average.
In simple terms, it tracks whether more stocks are pushing to new highs or slipping to new lows over time.
Right now, breadth is still expanding.
This indicator has been trending higher since January 5, showing that the number of stocks pushing to new highs continues to grow beneath the surface.
So even though the S&P 500 has been moving sideways at the index level, participation is still building underneath.
Price consolidation with expanding breadth is usually a constructive combination.
It suggests the market is digesting gains rather than losing internal strength.
In other words, the bench is still getting deeper even while the index pauses.
Risk Appetite Hasn’t Broken
The final chart I keep coming back to looks beyond the stock market itself:
It tracks our Intermarket Risk Radar Composite, a model designed to measure how investors are positioning across multiple asset classes.
Instead of looking only at equities, this composite pulls together 10 cross-market ratios covering stocks, credit, commodities, currencies, and factor relationships.
Each ratio reflects a different piece of investor behavior. Some capture equity leadership. Others track credit risk, global growth sensitivity, or defensive positioning.
Each of those ratios is evaluated across short, medium, and long-term trends, then combined into a single score between “0” and “1”.
Higher readings signal stronger risk appetite. Lower readings signal defensive positioning.
Right now, the composite has cooled and is sitting near the lower end of the constructive zone.
This is not unusual. Even during strong bull markets, risk appetite doesn’t move in a straight line. It expands, pauses, and resets as investors digest gains and reposition.
What matters is not whether the indicator dips. What matters is whether it breaks into risk-off territory.
So far, it hasn’t.
That keeps the broader bullish backdrop intact.
In fact, during bull markets it’s common to see this model dip toward these levels and then rebound higher as risk appetite re-expands.
The pressure we’re seeing right now looks more like a reset rather than a shift of regime.
As long as the composite holds above the risk-off zone, the larger market structure continues to favor risk rather than retreat from it.
What It Comes Down To
Being around the Pennant team these past few weeks has been a good reminder of something that applies directly to trading.
No single player sees everything on the course. Everyone notices something slightly different.
When those observations get shared, the whole team benefits.
Markets are no different.
Right now, the headlines are loud and the narratives are everywhere. But when you step back and compare notes across different charts, the message is more balanced.
The primary trend remains higher. Market breadth is still expanding beneath the surface. Risk appetite has cooled, but it hasn’t broken.
That combination does not describe a market that is under stress.
It describes a market that is digesting gains inside a broader uptrend.
Different perspectives help filter the noise and keep the focus on what price is actually doing.
And right now, the charts are still telling a fairly constructive story.
Happy hitting🏌️⛳
Grant Hawkridge
Quantitative Analyst, TrendLabs