Market Breadth Filter

Market Breadth Filter is not a standalone entry system - it is a regime filter that wraps another strategy. The premise: a signal is only worth taking when the broad market is behind it. If most stocks are in uptrends, a breakout has the tide behind it; if the index is being carried by a handful of names while everything else rolls over, the same signal is far more likely to fail. So the filter allows trades only while breadth is strong, and exits everything when breadth deteriorates.

It is a hard-difficulty, trending, daily strategy for portfolio trading.

How it trades

Buy (strong market AND your signal fires):

BREADTH() > 60 AND StrategySignal()

Sell (market weakens):

BREADTH() < 40

StrategySignal() is a placeholder, not a function. It is not implemented and is not in the > registry - it stands for whatever entry your underlying strategy uses. You substitute your own > condition. Throughout the tests and the examples below, a concrete Close > SMA(50) stands in for > it: > > > BUY WHEN BREADTH() > 60 AND Close > SMA(50) > SELL WHEN BREADTH() < 40 > > > Swap that clause for any entry - THREEBARPLAY(), VOLUMEDRYUP() AND Close > HIGHEST(20), > SQUEEZEON() == 0 AND MOMENTUM() > 0 - and the breadth filter gates it unchanged. Note the exit is > deliberately breadth-only: a breadth collapse takes you out regardless of what the underlying > strategy thinks.

When it works best

A portfolio-level regime filter that avoids weak markets - its core benefit. It keeps you out of the narrow, deteriorating tapes where breakouts fail even when the chart looks fine, and it exits on a market-wide signal rather than waiting for the individual stock to break. The costs are real: it requires breadth data you must source or compute yourself (no price feed provides it), it will sit out otherwise-valid signals during narrow rallies, and its thresholds (60/40) are regime assumptions worth tuning per market.