Nasdaq Advance-Decline Issues: Intraday Breadth & Extreme Prints
Nasdaq advancing minus declining issues — live breadth — summarized per session since 2007: the day's participation bias, its ±2000 extreme prints, and an era-proof five-state read with forward QQQ base rates. The finding: breadth washouts led; unlike the TICK, broad up-days were not a reliable fade.
Today's reading
As of the July 2, 2026 close, Nasdaq breadth read Balanced: net advancers averaged -47 through the session (z -0.0 vs the trailing year), with no ±2000 extreme prints. Session extremes: +1844 net advancers at best, -750 at worst. Since 2008, balanced sessions preceded +1.44% average QQQ returns over the next 21 sessions vs +1.50% for all sessions.
Since 2008, balanced sessions preceded +1.44% avg QQQ returns over the next 21 sessions (68% positive) vs +1.50% baseline — 1,571 cases. Context, not a forecast.
Session bias vs its own era
Each session's bias (blue) against its rolling one-year mean and ±1.5σ band (gray). The band IS the era adjustment — what counts as a washout or euphoric session moves with the market's structure, which is why raw TICK levels from different decades can't be compared directly.
Cumulative TICK — trend & divergence
The running sum of each session's bias, rebased to zero at the left edge of the window. The trend is the read: a rising line confirms the tape beneath a rally; price making new highs while cumulative TICK makes lower highs means fewer stocks are ticking along — the classic divergence warning. On the Max window the line partly reflects listing-count and structure changes across two decades of Nasdaq breadth. Use the shorter windows for the trading read.
What followed each state — full history
Forward QQQ returns from every session in each z-score state since 2008. Washout sessions preceded the best average returns (+2.1% over the next 21 sessions vs +1.5% baseline) — breadth capitulation marked exhaustion. Note the euphoric fade familiar from the TICK dashboards is much weaker here: broad participation strength was closer to neutral than bearish.
| State | % of days | Next 5 sessions | Next 10 sessions | Next 21 sessions | N |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Washout | 8% | +0.59% · 61%↑ | +1.15% · 67%↑ | +2.12% · 71%↑ | 360 |
| Bearish tilt | 24% | +0.35% · 59%↑ | +0.59% · 61%↑ | +1.33% · 66%↑ | 1,074 |
| Balancednow | 35% | +0.30% · 60%↑ | +0.71% · 63%↑ | +1.44% · 68%↑ | 1,571 |
| Bullish tilt | 26% | +0.37% · 61%↑ | +0.69% · 64%↑ | +1.52% · 67%↑ | 1,177 |
| Euphoric | 7% | +0.27% · 58%↑ | +0.66% · 64%↑ | +1.66% · 69%↑ | 322 |
| All sessions (baseline) | 100% | +0.35% · 60%↑ | +0.71% · 63%↑ | +1.50% · 67%↑ | 4,504 |
Forward returns on QQQ closes. States use the rolling one-year z-score of the session bias, so they are era-comparable. Overlapping windows — descriptive tendencies, not signals.
Extreme-print days — modern era (2010+)
Days when ±2000 net-issue prints actually hit the tape, 2010+ — and unlike the Nasdaq TICK, these buckets have real samples (hundreds of cases). Washout-print days ran roughly 1.7x the baseline over the following week; surge-print days tracked close to baseline.
| State | % of days | Next 5 sessions | Next 10 sessions | Next 21 sessions | N |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Washout day (5+ −2000 prints) | 7% | +0.62% · 61%↑ | +1.24% · 63%↑ | +2.18% · 66%↑ | 287 |
| Heavy washout (10+ −2000 prints) | 6% | +0.66% · 62%↑ | +1.14% · 63%↑ | +2.00% · 66%↑ | 258 |
| Surge day (5+ +2000 prints) | 5% | +0.40% · 59%↑ | +0.69% · 60%↑ | +2.21% · 67%↑ | 188 |
| No extreme prints | 86% | +0.36% · 61%↑ | +0.71% · 64%↑ | +1.48% · 68%↑ | 3,570 |
| All 2010+ sessions (baseline) | 100% | +0.37% · 60%↑ | +0.74% · 63%↑ | +1.57% · 67%↑ | 4,157 |
±2000 counts are 5-minute bars whose high/low reached the threshold. Restricted to 2010+ where the print-frequency regime is stable. Overlapping windows — base rates, not signals.
How Nasdaq A/D Issues Works
- 1What the A/D issues difference isThe number of Nasdaq stocks trading above their prior close minus those below, printed through the session — live breadth. A reading of +1500 means fifteen hundred more Nasdaq issues are up than down at that moment; the sign of the tape's participation, not its price.
- 2Aggregate each sessionFrom 5-minute $ADQD bars (2007–present) we compute each session's BIAS — the average net-advancers reading, i.e. how one-sided participation was all day — and its EXTREME PRINTS: bars reaching +2000 (surge prints) or −2000 (washout prints), roughly the 5% tails of the modern distribution.
- 3Make it comparable across timeListing counts and market structure shift what a "normal" net-advancers reading is, so the state uses a rolling 252-session z-score of the bias — today versus the trailing year of itself.
- 4Classify the state — and attach base ratesFive states by z: Washout (≤ −1.5), Bearish tilt, Balanced, Bullish tilt, Euphoric (≥ +1.5). For each, what QQQ actually did over the following 5, 10 and 21 sessions since 2008. The washout edge is the finding: breadth capitulation preceded above-baseline returns.