A few weeks ago I bought a gold miners ETF based on a
Coppock Curve signal. The Coppock Curve is rarely used today but according to
Wikipedia the Coppock curve or Coppock indicator is a technical analysis
indicator for long-term stock market investors created by E.S.C. Coppock, first
published in Barron's Magazine on October 15, 1962. The indicator is designed
for use on a monthly time scale. It is the sum of a 14-month rate of change and
11-month rate of change, smoothed by a 10-period weighted moving average.
Coppock,
the founder of Trendex Research in San
Antonio, Texas, was
an economist. He had been asked by the Episcopal Church to identify buying
opportunities for long-term investors. He thought market downturns were like
bereavements and required a period of mourning. He asked the church bishops how
long that normally took for people, their answer was 11 to 14 months and so he
used those periods in his calculation.
A
buy signal is generated when the indicator is below zero and turns upwards from
a trough. No sell signals are generated (that not being its design). The
indicator is trend-following, and based on averages, so by its nature it
doesn't pick a market bottom, but rather shows when a rally has become
established.
Coppock
designed the indicator (originally called the "Trendex Model" for the
S&P 500 index, and it has been applied to similar stock indexes like the
Dow Jones Industrial Average. It is not regarded as well-suited to commodity markets,
since bottoms there are more rounded than the spike lows found in stocks. .
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