The Leaders tab ranks sectors and stocks by relative strength, flags confirmed uptrends, and highlights emerging leaders. Here's a step-by-step guide to using it as part of a daily stock-selection process.
The Leaders tab is the starting point for a top-down stock selection process. Rather than scanning 5,000 stocks randomly, it begins by identifying where money is already flowing — the leading sectors — then surfaces the individual stocks within those sectors showing the strongest technical leadership. Here's how to use it effectively.
The top panel shows all 11 SPDR sector ETFs ranked by their Relative Strength score against SPY. The score reflects a blended 1-month and 3-month performance window, displayed on a 0–100 scale. Sectors scoring above 70 are outperforming the market on both recent timeframes; sectors below 30 are lagging badly.
Focus your stock selection on the top 3–4 sectors. Trading in a lagging sector with an RS score below 40 means the macro wind is working against you — even a strong setup in a weak sector faces a higher hurdle.
Watch for sectors whose RS is rising, not just high. A sector that has moved from 50 to 75 over the past month is showing accelerating relative strength — that momentum often continues for several more weeks before the leadership consolidates.
Below the sector panel is a ranked list of individual stocks. By default it sorts by Leadership Score (highest to lowest), but you can re-sort by RS Score, ATR%, RSI, or other columns to focus on the specific characteristics most relevant to your trading style.
The list only includes stocks where the 50-day SMA is above the 200-day SMA — confirmed uptrends. Stocks in downtrends, no matter how attractive their price action looks on a single day, are filtered out. This eliminates the majority of the false-breakout traps that cost traders money in weak market environments.
Look for stocks combining: a Leadership Score above 70, an RS Score above 75, membership in a top-4 sector, and an ATR that gives you meaningful price movement without excessive risk. These four criteria together narrow 5,000 stocks to a shortlist of 50–100 genuinely actionable candidates.
Emerging Leaders are stocks whose RS Score has been rising over recent weeks, even if their absolute score is not yet in the top tier. This list identifies names where institutional accumulation may be in early stages — RS acceleration is often one of the earliest measurable signals of a new market leader forming.
Emerging Leaders are higher-risk, higher-reward than the established Leaders list. They're appropriate for traders willing to take positions before a name becomes crowded, with the understanding that some will not follow through and will need to be cut quickly.
The Leaders tab is most powerful when the broad market environment (Breadth tab) is constructive. The combination to look for: a 5-day breadth ratio above 1.5:1, a leading sector with RS above 70, and an individual stock with a Leadership Score above 75. All three conditions together represent the highest-probability setup environment.
When breadth is deteriorating (5-day ratio below 1:1), the Leaders list still shows you the strongest stocks — but the environment makes breakouts less reliable. In those conditions, use the Leaders list for watchlist building and preparation rather than active entries.
Sources & References
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