What I don´t get is how people can ignore the non operating co´s distortion in the breadth numbers. James, here talks about TRIN: http://www.thestreet.com/_tsclsii/markets/jamesaltucher/10160028.html But the thing is that many of those ticks lower were cefs which are proxies for bonds. The are crashing and they will continue to go down as the great bull market is over. I don´t mean to attack James here but its just getting on my nerves how people who should know better simply ignore this.
Babak, First a correction. James talked about tick not trin. But your point is valid. At least up to a point. I'm not sure when the proliferation of closed ends started. My impression is that many were formed in the '80's and '90's, but I really don;t have any data. I also wonder if the increasing use of ecn's and the narrowing of spreads influence the tick data. Actually, I'm not sure if ecn trades even are included in the NYSE tick data. I watch tcik closely, and I have to say that I worried about this but finally concluded that it didn't make a big difference, at least intraday. However, I don't use absolute numbers, so my experience might not translate into the reliability of extreme values. James used to post here under the handle vishnu. Perhaps he will address your points.