Stock market’s Arms Indexes show buying behavior is calm, collected

While the stock market sees a big, broad rally Thursday, the Arms Indexes suggest investors are buying in a very calm and collected manner. The Arms is a volume-weighted breadth measure that is used to depict the intensity of buying and selling in advancing and declining stocks, by comparing the ratio of advancing stocks to declining stocks to the ratio of advancing volume to declining volume. Typically, the Arms Index, also known as the TRIN, falls below 1.000 during market rallies, and rises above 1.000 during market selloffs; readings below 0.500 and above 2.000 suggest panic-like behavior. In midday trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+1.70%
climbed 381 points, or 1.2%, the S&P 500
SPX,
+1.89%
ran up 1.4% and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
+1.78%
jumped 1.3%. But the Arms Indexes were barely budged, at 1.101 for the NYSE and 0.829 for the Nasdaq. The number of advancing stocks outnumbered decliners by a 6.32-to-1 margin on the NYSE and by 3.04 to 1 on the Nasdaq, while volume in advancing stocks outnumbered declining volume by 5.75 to 1 on the NYSE and by 3.65 to 1 on the Nasdaq.