Relative strength
By WideRadar · Published August 17, 2026
Relative strength is how you answer “who is actually leading?” — not who is loud, not who used to lead last year, and not who has the best story. It is a ranking: this group versus the market, this stock versus the market, right now. WideRadar scores that ranking on the desk you already use for charts and breadth, so RS is not a silo you visit once a week.
A high reading tells you where money has been concentrating. You still open the chart, check earnings quality, and glance at breadth before you size. Strength without structure — or strength into a thinning tape — is how accounts get hurt.
Most damage in a growth book comes from fishing in the wrong pond. A clean breakout in a lagging sector is swimming against institutional flow. A messy name in a leading sector at least has a tailwind. Ranking strength first shrinks the universe before you spend attention on candles.
RS also works when the index is ugly. Scores are normalised 0–100: 100 is the strongest in the set today, even if every sector is down. That is the point of a relative measure. You still may not want to buy anything — that is the breadth question — but you always know who is least weak.
Each of the 11 SPDR sector ETFs is scored 0–100 from its price performance versus SPY over a rolling one-month window, then stretched across the full 0–100 range so the ranking stays readable. Technology, Discretionary, and Industrials on top is a risk-on tape. Utilities, Staples, and Health Care on top is money rotating to defence. That single snapshot should change how aggressive you are on individual breakouts.
When a sector leads, you do not stop at the ETF. Jump from that ranking into the stock list and Charting to find the strongest names inside the group. Rotation without a stock list is a slideshow. A stock list without rotation is a grab bag.
The stock leaders list is not “everything that went up yesterday.” Names must be in a confirmed uptrend: 50-day SMA above the 200-day. Inside that filter, each name carries a Leadership Score — relative strength versus SPY, trend quality, and volume — the same 0–100 you will see when you open the chart or scan Gainers/Losers. You are not reconciling three vendors. You are reading one number in three rooms.
When you click through, you can plot a stock RS line against the market so you see whether the name is still outperforming as price coils or breaks. A price breakout with a rolling-over RS line is a warning. A tight range with RS still rising is often the better hunt. Pair that with the data panel: if RS is high and EPS/sales/margins are accelerating, you have agreement. If RS is high and the numbers are rolling over, you are trading a leftover bid.
Each of the 11 SPDR sector ETFs is scored 0–100 from price performance versus SPY over a rolling one-month period. Scores are normalised so they always span 0–100: 100 is the strongest sector right now, even if absolute returns are negative.
It keeps the list inside confirmed uptrends so you are not ranking names that are structurally broken. Relative strength on a name whose 50-day is already under the 200-day is usually a bounce, not a leader.
No. It means the stock is behaving like a leader versus the market. Open the chart, check EPS/sales/margins, then breadth. High RS plus a thinning tape is how you buy the last strong name into a roll-over.
So you are not translating three different “strength” numbers. One Leadership Score, three surfaces — Leaders for ranking, Charting for confirmation, Gainers/Losers for the session’s movers.