Market Breadth and Moving Averages: Navigating a Sideways Market feat. Stephen Suttmeier

In this episode of the Market Misbehavior podcast, Dave is joined by Stephen Suttmeier, founder of Suttmeier Technical Strategies. Recorded 3/18/26. 

Steve shares what he’s learned from his extensive career on Wall Street, including his time working alongside legendary technicians like Bob Farrell and Mary Ann Bartels. We dig into his daily progression process for evaluating macro markets, the critical role of absolute versus relative price charts, and his strategic use of specific weekly moving averages. The conversation also explores current market breadth, the recent struggles of mega-cap growth stocks, his four-bucket framework for sector rotation, and how financial advisors can seamlessly translate complex technical analysis into actionable insights for their clients.

📈 Topics Covered
• The legacy of technical analysis at Merrill Lynch and learning from industry legends
• Defining secular and cyclical trends using 13, 26, 40, and 200-week moving averages
• Analyzing market breadth via advance/decline lines and the new highs versus new lows spread
• Evaluating the current market dynamic of equal-weight outperformance versus mega-cap weakness
• The "four-bucket" methodology for categorizing absolute and relative stock performance to find leadership
• Identifying sector rotations, including the recent strength in Technology versus Staples
• Practical ways financial advisors can integrate technical nuggets and risk management into client communications

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The content in this presentation should not be considered as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. All information is intended for educational purposes only and in no way should be considered as investment advice. 

Transcript

Steve: [00:00:00] when you do have a collapsing market like oh nine for instance, you know, had the higher low on discretionary, that proved to be leadership for a while. And I remember, you know, going through sector reviews of the fundamental analysts and the discretionary guys are in the room and you know, the technician, they always ask last, you know, I have to sit here an hour listening to all this fundamental mumbo jumbo.

Some of it's interesting, some of it I, you know, I nap through, but, but I'm just kidding. I was always interested, but, but, uh, you know, then I, started speaking and. I was not in the room live. I was actually on the call and I said, well, I'm here to tell you, the sector's bullish in my work.

And I explained why. And, and of course I heard like the room roar out in laughter and I'm like, you know, this gives me a lot of confidence that I'm gonna be right. And sure enough it was, um. I mean, look, are there times where, you know, I come up with a call like that and it's dead wrong?

Sure! But that wasn't one of them. 

​Hey there everyone. Dave Keller here with Market Misbehavior and welcome to our latest episode of the Market Misbehavior [00:01:00] Podcast. Today we're sitting down with Steve sme. Steve's the founder of sut Meyer Technical Strategies. He, uh, used to run for many years the, uh, technical research department at B of A Merrill Lynch, uh, which is a, uh, you know, sort of the latest iteration of one of the most legendary technical analysis, uh, departments on the street.

Back in the day, the, uh, you know, big Wall Street banks had huge, well-resourced technical research departments and the Merrill Lynch team, you know, many, many decades ago run by the, uh, legendary Bob Ferrell. Uh, was, uh, was one of the most important ones. People would hang on their, uh, words would be desperate to get insights from them because they just had such a wide following.

Always had great resources and a great perspective to bring to bear to any market environment. So it was a lot of fun talking, uh, with Steve a bit about his experiences, some of his mentors and who he learned from at Merrill Lynching at B of A. What he's doing now with Meyer Technical Strategies particular for financial [00:02:00] advisors.

So please enjoy this interview with Steve Meyer of Smy Technical Strategies.

Dave: Super excited to be sitting down with Steve Suttmeier. And Steve, it's been a while since I've, uh, caught up with you and I'm super excited to do it today.

Welcome to the show.

Steve: Thank you very much, Dave. 

Dave: Yeah, I have very fond memories. Not everything about my, um, my, my time at a large money management firm in Boston are happy memories, but a lot of them are, and one of them in particular were people like Steve Suttmeier are coming through Boston. Sitting down with us, sharing insights, sharing, you know, investment wisdom.

So I hope we could just get a taste of that , for our viewers here today. So tell me this, I mean, for those that are not familiar, I know you have a wide following in the institutional community, particularly financial advisors who I think have, have come to really rely on your expertise in terms of making sense of the markets. How would you kind of define how you approach the markets from a technical, from a macro perspective? Like what, what sort of defines. The tools and techniques you're bringing to bear every, every day, every week. 

Steve: Sure. I mean, 

just looking at [00:03:00] big macro markets in particular, it's really just looking at everything on, on an index level basis. absolute price charts, also relative charts to get what is leading and lagging. So since going out on my own, I've obviously looked a lot more at. Country ETFs and regional ETFs and different sort of ETF strategies that have been out there.

Even some of the ones that, uh, you know, are not the traditional go-to ETFs everybody asks about. when looking at equities in particular, you know, I also go cross asset now, which is something I, I wasn't able to do at the bank. 'cause they, they kind of pigeonholed me into equities the whole time I was there.

So, I mean, of course I looked at bonds and other things, but, um, so essentially, you know, the index is absolute price charts, I and relative price charts. I mean, obviously with the s and p, you know, I would look at it relative to the rest of the world just to see if you should have an international or us waiting.

Which, you know, actually appears to have turned in favor of international versus us in recent weeks. But, you know, so I, I, I look at it from that perspective. [00:04:00] But my, my favorite moving average is, on the weekly chart, because I kind of like to reduce that noise that you get on the daily charts. It's the, uh, 13 week moving average.

It's a quarterly moving average. You know, a lot of investors think in terms of quarters and, and 13 week is, is a nice. Smoothing agent that, that kind of helps me, on a short, intermediate term basis. I look at the 26 week moving average, which is a half a year, and one, one logical reason behind that is that when you run like mechanical models and look at performance going forward out to six months, a lot of times a pretty robust.

But once you get past six months, you know, they start to diminish a little bit over time. , So 26 week and a 40 week moving average. You know, people, why don't you use a 52 week? But I use a 40 week because it's , close to a 200 day, which is a popular moving average on the daily chart.

So in my work, I defined a cyclical trend based on, I mean, really simply put, 40 week movie average is a cyclical trend indicator for me. Rising is up, falling is down. Then I go secularly to a 200 week moving average. And people say, why [00:05:00] aren't you using a four year moving average or a 208 week moving average? Well, you know, 'cause two hundred's, a nice round number, easy to remember.

so I used that for a secular trend. And you know, in our work through the years, we, talked about this secular bull market, you know, on the breakout, on the s and p above, above the, you know, 2000, 2007 highs in 2013. And, you know, we've. Used corrections below the 40 week moving average. You know, even when it started to decline, we used corrections towards that 200 week as opportunities where, okay, well as long as you don't break this moving average decisively, you're correcting in a secular bull market.

, And that's worked out pretty well for us o over time. So, obviously that's just looking at. Absolute relative charts, but we also dive into the breadth indicators. Of course, in particular, you know, my, among my favorites, obviously, would be the advance decline line, of the advance decline volume line.

And I like looking at the spread between new 52 week highs, new 52 week lows. Along with the 10 day moving average of that [00:06:00] spread. , And what's interesting about all that is yes, breadth has come down in March, but uh, you did have higher highs on the advanced decline lines, particularly on the MYSC for stocks and on all issues as well, and also on the s and p and, and a few other of the major ad lines, going to new highs entering the year.

And of course, the markets didn't follow through with new highs of their own like they did late April, early May of last year. we were starting to publish research back then, you know, before launching officially in, in September.

And that was the first thing we were talking about. Like, my gosh, it's like these advance decline lines going to new hives, the market is struggling. But, you know, found a couple weekly Bull eng golfing patterns, had a breath thrust, you know, so the ad lines going to new highs, future leading indicators for new highs in the s and p and you know.

Gosh, by the time we hit 4th of July, there we were,

, The difference between then and now is, Brett is, you know, pulling back a little bit, and I'll, I'll quote Michael Hurley here. You're not getting that fall day for the new, new 52 week lows versus new [00:07:00] 52 week highs.

And I think he's very poetic, putting it that way. We don't have that just yet. In fact, I looked at the NYSC earlier today. You could see a similar pullback on the NYSC. December, 2024, and you saw an expansion in new lows versus new highs, and then you struggled into the new year, 2025 before the big dip in April.

who knew the reason why we were dip in April, you know, tariffs and all that, but that, that was a fall day, and then you proceeded to the correction. We don't have that just yet right now.

But you know, then the really weird thing about the market now, maybe not so weird, but it's just very interesting that, you know, a lot of people, consider when equal weight index beats the s and p, right?

Which is what happened late last year and early this year. People interpret that as bullish for the market. As being positive breadth,

but I don't know if that's really the case. Actually. I can point to a lot of bear markets where you have had outperformance from the average stock versus the biggest stock.

The risk of the market now is that. [00:08:00] These average Joes versus Globo gym doing a little dodge ball reference here, and that's what we're doing in the market. You have to pay, play dodge ball. The reason why we're not going to new highs is the biggest and, and, and best leadership names and growth struggled since late last year.

And even though the 80 lines are going new highs, guess what? The average Joes don't have enough muscle to push it to to new highs. 

Dave: Yeah, we're in that, we're in that sort of weird period I feel like, and it feels like we've been in here for a little while. Where almost you, it's the opposite of what you'd expect, right? I mean, the strong breadth means the biggest names are probably struggling and the, the weaker breadth has mean, has meant the, the stronger names are kind of, are kind of thriving here.

So in 2025 year to date, even before events in the Middle East kind of erupted and, and, and there's been quite a lot of volatility even before then. We've seen the market be flat. With the, uh, equal weighted s and p outperforming with the breadth, pretty strong advanced decline lines breaking out. And I'm hearing from you, the stronger [00:09:00] breadth hasn't been enough to overcome the weakness in the mag seven, right?

In the mega cab growth. Is that, is that fair?

Steve: Yeah, that's exactly right. you got a large cap names not only underperforming but also declining on an absolute price basis. But

There is some good news. I mean, you seem to have some climactic volume and software like, you know, a few weeks ago, and they're stabilizing a bit, you know, at the same time.

You know, while, um, you know, Broadcom and Nvidia are just kind of range bound and, you know, could be toppy, maybe not, we don't know the answer to that question just yet, but, you know, they haven't run up. But the great thing about semiconductors is, and I, I've. Learned this through the years is when one part of semiconductors stop working, often another part starts working.

And that's when you started to see analog devices break out and micron, which reports today? I don't know. You know, there the, there's a weekly gap that I'm paying a lot of attention to. If it can hold that after earnings, you know, you're, you're fine on Micron. If not, then we got ourselves another issue to look at there, but.

Semis have been pretty [00:10:00] solid overall. I mean, they, you know, as of late though, they, they've struggled a little bit on, on some of that mega cap weakness, right? So, we just gotta keep an eye on that. And you know, what I really find very interesting though, is that since this war with Iran began,

technology is solid solidly outperforming the market.

I mean, at least over two weeks or so, which is very interesting. and I don't know if this is gonna hold or not, but if it does. The narrative of the market could be very different two months from now, you know, much more bullish because I think, you know, the market does need, leadership from, from mega cap and growth.

that is a secular bull market type of story.

And you have secular bull market rallies where that doesn't take place. You can, but you know, that's not normally what the situation is. Secular bull markets are ruled by the biggest names typically. and I think if we continue to do that, because I noticed, I-W-F-W-I-W-D for, no, it's not familiar, it's a Russell 1000 growth ETF versus Russell 1000 value, you know, 38, 0.2% retracement, , so far defending that level, , holding support.

You got s and p growth versus [00:11:00] s and p value doing the same thing, holding a breakout point. it's really amazing if that continues. Say the market breadth indicators start to stabilize, that is the best combination that the market could have to go to higher highs. And it's really interesting because when all these other indices were struggling, the only indices that I have that hit a target for the breakout from the middle of 2025 was the MYSE composite.

That the only one, and it all, the RSP, the equal eight s and p got close. The s the s and p target was 7,400, did not get there.

I mean, the Dow got close to this target too, but now those other indices are, you know, taken a back seat to some extent, , relative to the others. And it's gonna be interesting to see how this all plays out because.

had a spike in the VIX last week, a dark cloud cover pattern on the vix. You had big spike in oil. Oil is a new vix by the way. I'm sure people have started talking about that. But, um, you know, you're actually, you know, starting to see a little bit of stability [00:12:00] out of the VIX believer or not, and a little bit of stability outta oil.

Of course the, the PPI numbers today did cast de poll on what looked like, could have been a, a decent rally today in the market pre,

Yeah. but I think the real key here is, is getting bonds to stop going down and stabilizing, because I will tell you, coming into March. Bonds were about ready to, to rip coming outta bases and,

and, and war broke out and my god, I walked in Monday morning.

Wow. Huge gap up in bonds 30 seconds later. Bearish engulfing powder. I mean, it's just, it's 

just amazing. 

And, and, and it, and it really is all about inflation. That's all it's about. And you know, it's gonna be very interesting to see, you know, what the Fed is saying right now. 'cause I'm sure they're starting to talk, or, you know, the FOMC committee, the Federal Open Mouth Committee, because they all like talking, you know, it's a very choppy market, midterm election year.

You [00:13:00] know, my guess is range bound and then, you know, you get your normal corrective phase. , No summer rally in, in midterm years typically,

right now it's very challenging to be in the market, obviously, because of just all the cross currents till we really start to see stability out of the growth, which we're, we're trying to right now.

You know, another ratio to look at, I think is very important is technology. XLK relative to XLP, which is Staples. You know what that did earlier this week or last week? It held the breakout above the 2000 high, which I thought technology broke out. I, I would've thought technology broke out relative to Staples long ago.

That is a recent, that is a recent event based on the ETFs, you know, maybe not on the indices themselves, but on the ETF it is, and, you know, that's what you trade. So I'm, I'm looking at it. You're also starting to see a little bit of stability for discretionary versus staples. I'm looking at things happening right now that if they continue, ' cause I know a lot of people are very bearish right now.

, Based on conversations and just the general feel, the war going on is definitely a, a [00:14:00] risk. I mean, but there has been, you know, attacks on energy infrastructure and, oil. It's not going up as much as it did a week ago. 

So the 

Dave: Um, Steve, you hit on so many awesome things right there. Um, oil is the new vix. That's a new one. I hadn't heard that one. I like that one. I'm gonna keep that, uh, and I'll

credit you with that one when I refer back to it. But no, you hit on a number of things. Listen, listen. You hit on, multiple timeframes.

You hit on. Sort of process of hitting on a number of different, uh, the relationship between all these different charts that we're thinking about. You even got into with semiconductors, which I appreciate. You kind of mentioned this and I, I just wanna highlight this one. Uh, so many people think of semiconductors as a, as a thing, right?

It's this one thing. There's a ton of dispersion in those names, and you're seeing it even. Just year to date we're like Nvidia Broadcom testing support. Same time you've got Micron breaking out, lamb research, rotating. I mean it really, Intel is kind of doing its own thing at all Points, so. everything you kind of mentioned to me reinforces [00:15:00] the fact.

This is what I remember from meeting with you, you know, back in the day regularly, you kind of always had a good sense of what was happening, right? you clearly have a sense of what's working and what's not, and sort of have this narrative in mind that you're putting together. Can you talk to us a little bit about. Your process, what is your process of actually reviewing all of this evidence? Is it more of a, I show up every day and do a certain thing Is it more of a long term? Every month I do something like, what does your process look like? So that when I ask you, Hey, out of these 3 things, what's most interesting?

You seem to always have an answer. So what's

Steve: Right.

Dave: Look like for you

Steve: , I call it going through progression, so it's kinda like, you know, you know, being a football player,

Dave: Yeah.

Steve: Way, I come in every morning, I look across all markets, you know, even, even crypto, uh, you know, which I never looked at before, right?

Um, because people ask about crypto, 

Dave: I'm not gonna,

I'm not on the subtle negative connotation you just dropped there, Steve, but Okay. Go ahead.

Steve: Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, I had a [00:16:00] couple good calls on crypto and a couple bad calls on crypto. It's just, it's just wild. But what I noticed about crypto, and not that I, there's a market caller or anything, but. If I had a solid close this month, it could be a bullish engulfing pattern near a support level on Bitcoin.

I'm like, who would've thought?

Dave: Right.

Yeah. It's.

Steve: An eye on that. I'm keeping an eye on that. But, um, but that, those are the type of little nuggets. I'll write that down. Oh wow. Look at that. You gap lower, start the month. Wow. You're really calling back. Put that down. Be sure to look at it. You know, the dollar index, stalling at a resistance level, going back, you know, two to three years.

Looking like it wants the bottom but failed. That's something else. You know, today it was two year breakout breakdown, retest on two year yields. Write that down. So I'm just kind of looking across the lay of the land. So that's, that's the macro stuff. I mean, look, I look at interest rates. I'll look at the DXY Euro.

Yeah. And I don't get into much of the other currencies unless, you know, asked about them or if they're topical. But, the basic three would be the ones I tend to look at most and some of the ETFs that are traded on that. I look at all the fixed income ETFs, like CW, B, convertibles, [00:17:00] risk on risk off indicator, look at spreads on high yield, which recently, Broke above a a level that's a little bit of a concern, But then after that I'll just go through regional ETFs. you know, the China ETFs and Japan and, you know, EEM efa. And, you know, essentially the conclusion there is, if a head and shoulders top for emerging markets versus the s and p happened in 2007, 2009, head and shoulders bottom or the last few years suggests the opposite.

Meaning that emerging markets are positioned for leadership relative to the us. And it's funny that the main leaders are the ones that are more tied to the technology and growth trade than the value trade. The one really interesting nugget I uncovered was if you wanna have growth versus value trade, that's very interesting.

where value's beating growth, it's an efa 

probably 'cause of the banks, you know, 'cause a lot of the European banks crushed it. Um, and that trend is still in place on, uh, EFA value versus e. EFA growth. That's the only place I really found. Not that I'm looking very hard, but that's the one that came up in my work.

And then it's, you know, individual country [00:18:00] ETFs, A lot of 'em with big bases, looking at advanced decline line of ETFs. and my sector process is pretty much absolute relative charts, , 13, 26, 40 week moving averages on both. I've lumped in this volume indicator, the volume advanced the client indicator as well.

And what I try to do is, know, I rank them, tactically in both strategically using those moving averages. And the scores are from negative 10 to positive 10. And the bigger picture score, including a 200 week moving average, would be from negative 20 to positive 20. So what's interesting about the market is, , you got a lot of, the sector rotations that have been in place.

It started a while ago. It started late last year. I mean, , it's defensive, cyclical leadership and growth in financials laggards and quite frankly, in February, I was like, this is strangest and I probably should have faded this. you saw a big trend for, for banks, trouncing financials, trouncing, FinTech.

Since early February that's reversed the other [00:19:00] way. So that would've been like a traditional hedge fund parar where, you know, you fade it and you know, quite frankly, I'm looking at that, that KBE chart, and I'm like, wow. It looks just like the EEM chart with a massive breakout from 2007. Well, the EE EM breakout is holding so far, but that KBE breakout is, you know, I would say challenged at best and bearish at worse.

A lot of bases in the banks have have either. Premature breakouts or failed breakouts. and, and they, they, they did really well late last year, although the broader financial sector was not so hot. So it's like, you gotta think about it in a way, like how if it's not clicking on all cylinders, then you know, there's more of a risk that something's going wrong.

But I was thinking about it in the way of semis, you know, when one group isn't working, another group takes over. And, and we kind of flipped the other way, but I don't really like the chart for PayPal. Yeah, sure can rally a lot, but it's not my game. You know, I'm not looking to buy strength and the declining longer term moving averages.

That's something that someone else can do, but that's not [00:20:00] me. I'm more likely looking to sell that strength. the strategy is, you know, you follow the trend. You bucket it in four different ways. One, you got an absolute uptrend with relative confirmation. What do you do with that?

That's your core log. That's your good running back with a good offensive line, right? You know, where you can get through. Then you got the other side of that where you have relative strength, uh, uh, absolute price strength, but relative weakening You know, that's where you, you got a couple injuries on your offensive line and, and you know, maybe you don't rally.

As far, one thing I've noticed in my career is when you start to see that relative roll over and the absolute continue, guess what can happen? You get bad news on the fundamental front from an earnings miss or something like that. And I've seen it. Scientific, which we put on our work multiple times and, quite frankly, at first it was positive.

Because, you know, you're starting to break out the relevant chart wasn't that bad, but as soon as that faded, I, I flipped on it pretty quickly because that relevant chart was telling me something. I, I basically. Had it in my notes, [00:21:00] in my research twice, and the first time I put it in there, it didn't work right away.

And people asking me about it, I'm like, yeah, but look where you're stalling. You're stalling right at the, the bearish moving averages and you're not even getting close to 'em on the relative chart. So I'm not long this stock, in fact, I'd rather short it. And 

then a couple weeks before earnings, I got the question again and I'm like, no, there's a, this thing I wouldn't buy it.

I would be more inclined to short it. And does it always work out that brilliantly? No. I mean, there's a stock, like I remember when I was at at B of A, there's a stock we all know called Starbucks at a pattern like this. You know, relative death sentence, but absolute price chart went sideways. Sideways in the raging bull market is no bueno.

Right? You might as well go someplace else. So that absolute uptrend and relative downtrend is basically, you know, if you're a long only fund manager, benchmark to the s and p, it's an avoid. Then the other side is relative weakness , and absolute weakness at your core shorts. And where I really get interested is.

Sometimes this can be a head fake, because last year there was a head fake on a few [00:22:00] sectors where you had this pullback into April where you did see, you know, leadership out of some groups into that low thinking, oh wow, okay, this is telling me this is where future leadership could be, you know, like industrials and financials and all of a sudden future and leadership turned right back to technology.

And our models caught that. You know, of course there was a little bit of pain. , But Technology was where we've been since like the middle of last year based on the models that we had. And a lot of the mid 20, 25 breakouts with good relative strength, you know, helped us out and helped us navigate that.

but sometimes though you have these downtrends, especially in a market that's not like collapsing, and sometimes when you do have a collapsing market like oh nine for instance, you know, had the higher low on discretionary, that proved to be leadership for a while. And I remember, you know, going through sector reviews of the fundamental analysts and the discretionary guys are in the room and you know, the technician, they always ask last, you know, I have to sit here an hour listening to all this fundamental mumbo jumbo.

Some of it's interesting, some of it I, [00:23:00] you know, I nap through, but, but I'm just kidding. I was always interested, but, but, uh, you know, then I, started speaking and. I was not in the room live. I was actually on the call and I said, well, I'm here to tell you, the sector's bullish in my work.

And I explained why. And, and of course I heard like the room roar out in laughter and I'm like, you know, this gives me a lot of confidence that I'm gonna be right. And sure enough it was, um. I mean, look, are there times where, you know, I come up with a call like that and it's dead wrong?

Sure. But that wasn't one of them. I mean, look, every time, you know, sometimes I'll experiment with different indicators. You know, there was one on energy a few years ago that I used that. Was flashing a majorly bullish signal, but it really was just a bear market rally.

So that one, that indicator throughout didn't work.

But there are other times when, the fundamental team gets really bulled up on that sector. I was away and they never asked me my opinion on it. And I wrote a note on energy not knowing that they were upgrading the sector. My note was pretty darn 

bearish. And of course they had me on the morning call right after the person that talked [00:24:00] about energy, and I'm like, great, what do I do here? You know? Do I, uh. Commit career suicide and go against the analyst. you know, I, I just said what my work showed and, I said let the market dictate who's correct.

you know, And I said, quite frankly, honestly, I hope our strategist is correct because I know you guys are gonna invest more money on her than what I'm saying, so I hope, I hope she's correct, but I'm pretty confident in my call because like, like, 

I was talking about with the absolute relative strength, it 

was rebounding, the declining moving averages, and not much movement on the relative chart, meaning no real shift in leadership.

Dave: Steve, that's so helpful. I I hope people sort of followed, thinking of four different buckets, right? Stocks performing well on an absolute basis and a strong relative basis. Weaker on an absolute and relative basis. And then the other two combination. And just thinking about what that tells you about the conditions around a, a stock or a, a group, I think that's, , fantastic.

~Hey, listen, you have a unique background relative to other guests that I've interviewed. Um, and, ~~and thank you on behalf of all Pacific Northwesterners for having a very Washington state friendly virtual background for me. That's very, very nice.~

~, But ~you're based in the Northeast and I know you had a lot of experience at. Bank of America, Merrill Lynch. Before that, , whole merger, talk to me about your formative years. How did you learn all this stuff? Were there people that you [00:25:00] worked with that helped you understand the value and helped you sort of develop these routines that you're now able to use today with, pretty good success? 

Steve: ~so my background actually is Breckenridge, Colorado, which is, uh, where yeah, we we're lucky that we actually have a, a place out there that we can go to.~

~Um, so I, I called the Breckenridge office. Um, so we got a nice mountain view at 10,200 and. 19 feet, you know, it takes a few days to get used to that.~

~So I'm, you know, very lucky and happy to have that out there. Um, you know, kids are getting older, so we have to, had to jump on something for, you know, for a retirement home. Right. You know what I mean? So we're, we're working on that. But, but ~to your question, I mean, obviously people. May familiar with my father Richard Meyer, who was like the first long bond trader Prudential dish.

I mean, we, me and him are very different with the way we approached the Marcus, by the way. I mean, he was more of a desk guy that learned on the fly. He prides himself on never reading a technical analysis textbook, like when I first started learning this business, I read every book I could get my hands on.

So my dad and I actually. rubbed off on each other, which is good because, you know, the real world, just being in the trenches type of point of view. He had, 'cause he was a trader and me kind of more like the, an analytical side.

you know, I worked with, you know, Walter Burke, great bond fixed income analysts at MCM Money Watch, which became informa.

Briefly, he was at, , Merrill Lynch when I was there, so I got to learn a few things from him. I never really dovetailed into the Elliot Wave stuff 'cause I have trouble counting from one to five, you know, on the charts. [00:26:00] And I, I thought a lot of those charts red, like subway maps in New York City.

But I will say I do respect that some people really make it work and he is one of those guys that, you know, can do that.

Dave: Yeah. 

Steve: Do is I can identify a rally as impulsive or, or corrective, just overlapping highs and lows. And that's good enough for me. I don't need to count the abs. I mean, not that I'm applying Elliott Wave.

I'm not, I'm not, that's not my strength. you know, then Merrill Lynch was obviously Maryanne Bartell's, Walter Murphy.

Fred Meisner and, you know, another Elliot Wave guy, uh, Walter Murphy and Maryanne, uh, definitely a, a force of nature, which, uh, she was fantastic. Uh, and she still is. I mean, she's still out there at Sanctuary.

, Learned a lot from her. , And Fred Meisner, from him as well too, 

Dave: Um,

for those that don't know, there's an incredible legacy of technical analysis in Merrill Lynch going back for, decades. , I got to meet Bob Ferrell finally at a CMT Association event a couple years ago, and it such a pleasure to just chat with him, chat with him because I've, [00:27:00] I've known so many people who have worked in that team and are part of that sort of. genealogy of great technical analysis at Merrill Lynch. So Steve, you're, you're one of many who have kind of come through that shop and come out a better investor and more knowledgeable. I know with your, with your firm now, Suttmeier Technical strategies, as you mentioned, you really,, tailoring a lot of your work to the advisor community.

And I know at, Merrill,

, Your name would often come up when I talk to advisors in the Merrill Network who would talk about. Your, you know, weekly calls or whatever, they just loved, you know, hearing your, hearing, your take on things. What would you say to an advisor who is not super comfortable using charts, not dig into technical analysis?

Like how should that be a part of their process? Thinking about their client portfolios, thinking about their relationship with their clients, , how should it fit into their sort of methodology do you think? 

Steve: Well, I mean, it's first. I mean, you all know that when everybody, no matter how fundamentally you are, if you're buying a stock, you're looking at a chart. I, I don't think people just blindly, blindly buy without [00:28:00] looking at a chart first. I try to keep it pretty straightforward with the work I do.

I mean, , obviously, there are some times where I'll, I'll get more into the weeds, but for the most part, it's really just a, simple chart looking at, okay, am I. Rallying absolute. Yes. Am I beating the market? Yes. Is there volume confirming? Yes. Those three things, are pretty helpful.

You know, do I get into an RSI every once in a while if there's something there? Sure. If there's a weekly macd buyer sales signal, you know, I may mention that too. Just saying, okay, we're looking at price momentum with RSI and Trend Momentum with MACD. I try to keep it just. Pretty simple with that.

I mean, obviously with market data and stuff like that, I mean, I, I'm looking at, alright, are we rallying? Sure, yes we are. Okay, great. Are we rallying with increasing participation? Yes or no? You know, and that, that, just simple things like that. , Most people will gravitate towards just having something, a nugget.

To say to their clients that makes them [00:29:00] seem knowledgeable about technical analysis. and, and sometimes it's like, I remember at the bank there were a bunch of fas. It's like, yeah, we don't really use a research. We just like having something that comes across smart to, to our clients, what we say. You know, whether it is or not, who knows.

But you know, the market will tell us later if that was actually a smart thing. And a lot of advisors have have told me that I've helped them. Create wealth.

I'm not really somebody that's gonna help you. Maximize a trading account per se, although I'm helpful with that too. But my primary goal is not short-term trading.

you know, It's position trading and using the methodology I use, it's rolling three to six months, meaning that if it still looks good after three to six months, I stick with it, risk management, stop losses across the board well of, it's just a low on a weekly chart, believe it or not.

I mean, if you're trending up, it's like, all right, here's your low this week. Here we are this week. All right, that week low. All right, now we move it here. You know, we move it here. I just, I just, you know, and sometimes if somebody asks me a question, I reversal on the weekly [00:30:00] chart, stock's still on uptrend.

I'm like, you know what? Practice some risk management here. Or if you don't own the stock here's. Two moving averages and three retracing levels to look at if the stock falls. Those are the type of things they value because if the stock does decline and they like it fundamentally, they definitely want to get it at a lower valuation and applying that sort of thing with a stock that's been rallying for a long period of time.

But looks like it could start to correct. ~You know, a name, I can't remember which one it was, it might've been Cardinal Health or something like that, which has had a huge run and you know, maybe backing a filling a little bit, you know, with decent. Relative in volume confirmation with the moving averages rising across all three.~

~You know, I mean, if it does pull back tests, the 26 week moving average or, or the 40 week moving average, which is, you know, on a healthcare stock is not that far below, you know, that that's where I would, you know, think about, uh, entering into position and the stock. I like fundamentally, so. I thought that was, you know, that that sometimes helps out a lot of folks.~

~Uh, with, with, with, with, with, you know, with combining the technicals, with the fundamentals.~

Dave: I love that idea. Well, you, you, generated a picture in my brain, you making it rain credibility on all the financial advisors listening to these nuggets of, uh, of information about the markets and being able to pass that on to clients to. Have a good conversation or help them make sense of things. , This is awesome. It's awesome to talk to you again. I

really appreciate you sort of talking through your approach. ,, You hit on a number of things about the current market environment, a number of comments about process, how you approach the markets technically, and then how advisors can use your work.

So I wish you much success, ongoing success with Suttmeier Technical Strategies. I hope we can chat again on the show here, but for now, [00:31:00] I'll say thanks for joining us, Steve.

Steve: Yep. Thank you very much, Dave.

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That was a lot of fun to chat with. Uh, Steve SME again, I hadn't seen him in a little while. Uh, and, uh, back in the day in my Fidelity days brokers, uh, and uh, and Wall Street strategists like Steve Tme and many others would make their kind of quarterly visits. Through the, uh, the big, uh, buy-side shops in Boston.

And, uh, it would be great to get his, uh, perspective. They used to produce this, uh, fantastic monthly chart book that had been going for years, probably decades. Uh, and every month I would get this monthly chart v chart book. Would love going through some of the different, uh, charts. Would love being able to ask Steve, uh, questions.

Uh, and, uh, some of the people he mentioned, people like Maryanne Bartells, who ran the group for a number of years. Um, uh, he mentioned like Walter Murphy. Uh, we, I had mentioned Bob Farrell who ran that team, you know, back in the, uh, back in the day, I mean, uh, many, many years ago, right in the seventies and eighties, that kind of time [00:32:00] period.

Um, you know those names, if they're not familiar with you, you have to know these are, uh, strategists that had wide followings in the institutional community. So money managers running large funds. Would be, uh, desperate to get perspective from people like Steve, uh, and, uh, Maryanne and, uh, and the others that, uh, that came up, Bob Ferrell and, uh, and others.

And it's so funny, I've known a number of people who came from that sort of Bob Ferrell, uh, legacy that, that, uh, genealogy, um, people like Frank t who ran the, uh, the technical team and was a fund manager at Wellington for a number of years before breaking off on his own. And running, uh, his own fund and research.

Um, uh, many others. One of my analysts, my former analysts at Fidelity worked, uh, worked on the Merrill team. So a lot of fun to just sort of, uh, get some insights about what that, what that was like, and just some of the, some of the ways that their process was so important. Um, you know, a couple takeaways from that interview with, uh, with Steve.

Um, you know, if you, if you, if you heard, [00:33:00] you know, a lot of what he talked about was just the process of going through all these charts and, and as I asked him things. Did you notice that he was just able to just talk without looking at the chart? He didn't have charts in front of him, but you could tell that he was seeing the chart in his brain, right?

He was sort of imagining the chart and picturing it as he's talking about different patterns and he's talking about what's working and what's not. And what always, uh, what, what I always took away from, um, you know, meeting with someone like Steve, he had an answer for everything. Meaning he, he kind of knew he had, he had looked at those charts, he had studied them, um, because that's what he did every day, every week, every month.

And so you could ask him, Hey, where are you seeing opportunities? What do you think about precious metals? What do you think about crypto? Or whatever it is. And he would be able to talk through. What had happened, what was kind of happening now, what he anticipated would happen next, what kind of things he would be looking for.

And it was just so helpful to have someone with that experience and just going through that consistent process, [00:34:00] uh, as a resource. And I know from, you know, talking with a number of Merrill brokers over the years, Steve had a weekly call and, and then, uh, a morning call at times that. Uh, was widely followed.

People loved, uh, getting his perspective. So if you're an advisor, I'd encourage you, , to check out his, , website SUT Meyer technical strategies, , because I know he's putting out some great work to, uh, to keep you informed and, , understanding the, , the market conditions. we talked a lot about, um, sort of long-term charts and one thing I didn't get a chance to ask him, but.

The monthly chart, uh, review that they would publish this big, you know, uh, PDF of charts. It used to be a physical book, but eventually it was a PDF. The front was always this really long-term chart showing the, uh, long-term secular trends. I'm talking going back 50, 70 kind of years, just really showing these long-term secular trends.

And it was, uh, helpful as a, as a, um, you know, working at a large investment firm. To remind us to not get so excited about the short term movements, like, [00:35:00] let's remember that. Our shareholders, right at the, at the firm like that. Our shareholders, our clients are investing for their retirement. They're investing for years down the road.

So let's make sure we understand those secular trends and respect those secular trends better than anything. Um, one other thing that I thought, and, and, and again, Steve had a number of great, great comments in there. I hope you have a chance to, uh, to think through. But that idea of bucketing stocks into those four buckets, right?

If you miss it, it was, you know, one bucket was positive. Absolute trend. And positive re relative trend. And what he's talking about there is the absolute trend is just the trend in the price action, right? Higher highs and higher lows. The relative performance, relative strength is showing how that stock is doing relative to its benchmark.

So strong prices, strong relative performance means that's a market leader. We want, we want to be thinking of those as core positions. Um, weak, absolute weak relative. These are year market underperformers. These are the things we wanna be underweight or probably avoiding. Then we have those two other buckets where.

The [00:36:00] absolute is still good, but the relative's rotating lower, which means there's probably a better opportunity somewhere else. I might wanna be lightening up. Um, weak price, but strong relative. Maybe that tells me that even though the price is going down, could gimme an opportunity to protect myself and, and get into more of a defensive positioning by getting into something that's, uh, performing a little better on a relative basis.

But thinking about those buckets definitely was something I wrote down and circled on my notepad as I was talking, um, thinking about how I could spend some time in my own process digging into that a little deeper. That's what I love about this podcast. Everyone, everyone that we sit down with, I feel like.

At least one interesting nugget that I kinda write down and I put it on the rainy day research list is a list of things like when I have a free hour, a couple hours at some point, kind of dig into one of these research topics and sort of do some work and, uh, and see what I can, uh, can come up with.

Thanks again to Steve Meyer joining us, uh, on the show. It was a lot of fun to catch up with them and, uh, great, great to get some take on. The broader market, uh, environments of course, as well as always. By the way, [00:37:00] if you wanna learn more about how you can apply some of these technical tools and insights that we talked about, how you can develop your own process, your own routines to uh, make sure that you improve your market awareness and make more mindful investment decisions.

Our market misbehavior, premium memberships may be a great opportunity for you. To supercharge your decision making here in 2026. Three great benefits to the premium membership. First off, we'll teach you all about technical analysis and behavioral finance through our virtual courses. Second, we'll keep you informed and engaged and updated with our member-only reports, like our weekly flight plan and our monthly chart review.

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And, you know, along the way, everyone gets to benefit from great questions and hopefully great answers. You can learn all about the premium [00:38:00] memberships@marketmisbehavior.com slash premium. Please make sure you use the Code Podcast when you check out for 30% off your first 12 months on any plan. That'll do it for today.

Thanks so much for watching and uh, listening to the Market Misbehavior podcast. My name is Dave Keller reminding you it's always a good time to own good charts. 

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