Advance-Decline Line: Daily Net Advances & Cumulative A-D vs SPY
The classic participation gauge across 4,828 eligible US common stocks today: how many rose versus fell, whether that pressure is improving, and where a divergence lives. The liquidity ladder separates weakness in the less-traded tail from deterioration in the 2,000 names that carry most market activity.
Today's reading
As of market close on September 4, 2026, 2,419 US stocks advanced and 2,224 declined (50% advancers) — net advances of +195, a positive-breadth session. The 63-session advance share is 50.1% across 4,828 eligible common stocks. The structural breadth regime is tail contained.
Sources, methodology & freshnessLast updated 2026-09-04 · Open ↓Close ↑
50% of eligible issues advanced today.
SPY closed at $770.19. One session is noisy. Use the liquidity ladder and rolling participation below to locate whether weakness is broad or confined to the tail.
The liquid 2,000 remain net positive over 252 sessions; the less-liquid tail contains the headline weakness.
Range controls apply to the cumulative, rolling-pressure and daily charts. The liquidity ladder stays anchored to the A-D peak.
Cumulative A-D line
Cumulative Advance-Decline Line
Running total of net advances since 2010. Direction and divergences vs SPY are the signal; the absolute level is arbitrary.
By listing venue
NYSE-listed vs Nasdaq-listed A-D Lines
The same running total split by listing exchange — what other charting packages plot as the cumulative $NYAD and $NAAD. Ours count common stocks only rather than every listed issue, so they will not match those tickers. Venue resolves for 99.3% of directional issues; the remainder sit in neither line, so the two do not sum to the series above.
The gap is the point. NYSE-listed common stocks cumulate to 177k while Nasdaq-listed cumulate to -54k. Both carry the survivorship caveat above, and it falls harder on Nasdaq, where delistings and microcaps are more common — so read the shapes against each other rather than treating either level as a score.
Liquidity ladder
Where the Divergence Lives
Common stocks re-ranked after every close by trailing 63-session average dollar volume. Each panel has its own scale and starts at zero on 2021-06-11; add the three endpoints to reconcile the headline A-D change.
The liquid 2,000 reached a post-2021 high of +16,460 on 2026-08-14; today they stand at +14,015, or -2,445 below that high.
Rolling breadth pressure
Rolling Share of Advancing Issues
Normalized participation across changing universe sizes. Above 50% means more directional stock-days advanced than declined over the window. Latest: 21D 48.7% · 63D 50.1% · 252D 49.7%.
Daily advancers vs decliners
Advancing vs Declining Stocks
Advancers above the zero line (green), decliners mirrored below (red), SPY overlaid. A session with at least 90% of directional issues on one side is a genuine washout or thrust regardless of universe size.
Do unconfirmed highs predict a crash?
Confirmed vs Unconfirmed 252-Session Highs
Every SPY 252-session closing high since 2011, split by whether the cumulative A-D line was also at its own trailing high. Only complete 252-session forward windows are graded.
323 complete days
184 complete days
| One-year outcome | A-D unconfirmed 323 complete days | A-D confirmed 184 complete days |
|---|---|---|
| Average SPY return one year later | +9.4% | +11.3% |
| Positive one year later | 78.0% | 89.1% |
| Fell ≥10% below signal-day close | 37.2% | 28.3% |
| Fell ≥20% below signal-day close | 13.6% | 11.4% |
The observations overlap—adjacent record days share most of the same forward path—so these are regime-day base rates, not independent episodes.
Reading the current tape
On 2026-09-04, 2,419 stocks advanced and 2,224 declined (185 unchanged) — net advances of +195. The cumulative A-D line stands at 123,037 with SPY at $770.19. The 252-session breadth split is +4,448 net advances in the liquid 2,000 versus -11,675 in the tail, a tail-contained regime.
Cross-check the long-term trend on MA Breadth, leadership on New Highs–New Lows, and equal-weight performance on the Hidden Bear Index.
The Manual — the advance-decline line
In our 2010+ record, the cumulative A/D line peaked before every major market top — leads of 20, 15, 22 and 142 sessions ahead of the 2015, 2018, 2020 and 2022 tops. The full owner's guide covers how the line is built, the divergence record with charts, the cap-cohort decomposition that locates today's weakness in the illiquid tail, and the structural drift every A/D line carries.
Read The Advance-Decline Line Manual →50% of eligible issues advanced today.
SPY closed at $770.19. One session is noisy. Use the liquidity ladder and rolling participation below to locate whether weakness is broad or confined to the tail.
How Advance-Decline Line Works
- 1Classify every stock, every dayAfter each close we compare every eligible common stock's close with its prior trading day: higher = advancing, lower = declining, equal = unchanged. The live page reports the current denominator because eligibility changes over time.
- 2Net advances = advancing − decliningThe day's breadth pulse. A +2,000 day means broad buying; a −3,000 day means broad selling, regardless of what the cap-weighted index did.
- 3Accumulate into the A-D lineThe cumulative A-D line adds each day's net advances to a running total. Its absolute value is meaningless; its direction and its divergences from the index are the signal.
- 4Locate the divergence before interpreting itWhen SPY makes a new high but the full A-D line does not, participation is narrower—but the divergence can persist for years. Daily liquidity tiers show whether weakness remains in the less-traded tail or has migrated into the liquid 2,000-stock core.