mercatusdata

52-week position: what it was followed by

What an extreme 52-week position reading was historically followed by, measured across the stocks this site covers.

What an extreme 52-week position reading was historically followed by, measured across the stocks this site covers.

How to read this. These figures are measured only on instruments currently covered by this site — a set of companies that survived. Signals that appear to have ‘worked’ on the downside are conditioned on these names having recovered; a company that fell and never came back would not be here to measure. Read every number below as a property of this surviving sample, not a universal rule, and never as advice.

All figures are ‘excess’ returns — measured relative to each instrument’s own historical drift, not relative to the market. This is not alpha and not a market-beating claim; it isolates the signal from the instrument’s background trend. Measured from the first day each signal appeared (not its most extreme point), so it reflects what was knowable in real time.

Read the analysis: what followed a stock near its 52-week high or low, by decade and by stock.

Overbought / high extreme

Across 4297 past episodes where a stock was at a high extreme on this signal, the 4286 with a complete 20-session forward window lagged the stock’s own trailing drift by 0.27 percentage points on average (47% of those 4286 beat drift).

the stock forward excess return vs its own drift after high-extreme 52-week position readings, by horizon.
horizonexcess vs own driftbeat-drift rateepisodes with a complete horizon
1 session+0.01%46%4297
5 sessions-0.10%48%4292
20 sessions-0.27%47%4286

Oversold / low extreme

Across 1554 past episodes where a stock was at a low extreme on this signal, the 1552 with a complete 20-session forward window beat the stock’s own trailing drift by 0.30 percentage points on average (51% of those 1552 beat drift).

the stock forward excess return vs its own drift after low-extreme 52-week position readings, by horizon.
horizonexcess vs own driftbeat-drift rateepisodes with a complete horizon
1 session+0.26%50%1554
5 sessions+0.38%53%1554
20 sessions+0.30%51%1552

By instrument

Each instrument’s own history on this signal (where it has enough episodes to characterise):