Percentage of Stocks Above 200-Day MA
The Percentage of Stocks Above the 200-Day Moving Average is a market breadth indicator that measures what proportion of stocks within an index or exchange are trading above their individual 200-day simple moving averages, historically used to assess the long-term trend health of the broad U.S. stock market.
The 200-day moving average is one of the most widely watched technical reference points in equity markets. When a stock trades above its 200-day simple moving average, it is generally considered to be in a long-term uptrend; when it trades below, it is considered to be in a long-term downtrend. The Percentage of Stocks Above the 200-Day MA aggregates this assessment across all components of an index or exchange, producing a single breadth reading that summarizes the long-term trend health of the market as a whole.
Calculated for the S&P 500, this indicator counts the number of S&P 500 constituent stocks currently trading above their own 200-day simple moving averages and expresses this as a percentage of all 500 components. It is published daily and followed by a wide range of institutional and retail market analysts. A reading above 70% historically indicated that the large majority of stocks were in long-term uptrends, consistent with healthy broad bull market conditions. A reading below 30% historically indicated widespread long-term downtrend conditions, consistent with broad bear markets or major corrections.
The indicator is particularly useful for identifying divergences between price index performance and underlying breadth. During the 2015-2016 growth scare and the 2018 fourth-quarter sell-off, the S&P 500 remained close to all-time highs even as the Percentage Above 200-Day MA deteriorated significantly, reflecting leadership concentration in mega-cap names while the average stock in the index had already moved into long-term downtrend territory.
Extreme readings in either direction carry historical significance. Historically, readings below 20% have been observed during and around market bottoms — conditions where the overwhelming majority of stocks have been under sustained selling pressure — sometimes preceding significant recoveries as the selling pressure eventually exhausted itself. Readings above 90% have historically been observed during periods of exceptional broad-market strength.
The indicator can also be calculated for different timeframes — the Percentage Above the 50-Day MA provides a shorter-term view of breadth conditions, while the 200-day version focuses specifically on the long-term structural trend. Many analysts examine both simultaneously to understand both the near-term momentum environment and the longer-term health of the market's internal structure.
Investors and analysts also calculate variations of this indicator for specific sectors (such as the Percentage of Technology Stocks Above the 200-Day MA) or for smaller subsets of the market, allowing for sector-level breadth analysis that can identify rotation patterns and sector-specific deterioration before it becomes visible in headline indices. The broadest version, calculated across all NYSE or all U.S. exchange-listed stocks, provides the most comprehensive picture of market-wide breadth conditions.