“Who's leading?”

Frequently asked

Is leadership risk-on or defensive today?

The Leadership subscore reads five relative-strength signals each day: the share of S&P sectors beating SPY on a 60-day horizon, small caps versus large caps, QQQ versus SPY, cyclicals versus defensives, and equal-weight SPY versus cap-weight SPY. Risk-on leadership shows small caps and cyclical sectors outperforming large caps and defensives. When mega-caps mask broad deterioration — equal-weight lagging cap-weight — Leadership flags the divergence.

How is relative strength measured here?

Relative strength in TickerStance is the price return of one asset compared to a benchmark (typically SPY) over a fixed lookback window such as 60 days. A positive reading means the asset outperformed SPY; a negative reading means it underperformed. The Leadership subscore uses relative-strength comparisons across sectors, size factors, and style factors to determine whether the market is in a risk-on or risk-off configuration.