Sign up Log in
Sign up

How to read the RSL list

Every column and every symbol in the table, in the order in which they appear there — without theory.

The list ranks all stocks of an index by Levy's relative strength, the RSL. An RSL above 1 means: the latest closing price is above the average of the stock's own closing prices; an RSL below 1 means: below it. Rank 1 goes to the stock with the highest RSL.

The column descriptions are the same ones that appear in the interactive list when you hover over a column header. Why the RSL is calculated this way is covered in RSL: Method & Origins.

Weekly basis or daily basis

The “26 weeks” / “26 days” switch changes the period over which the average in the RSL's denominator is taken.

  • 26 weeks is Levy's RSL: the latest closing price divided by the average of 27 weekly closing prices — the current week and the 26 before it. This basis is the default, and the index pages use it too.
  • 26 days is a short-term variant: the average of the last 26 daily closing prices including today's. It does not come from Levy and reacts much faster.

Why 27 prices and not 26: Levy calls his measure C/A26 and means the current price and the 26 weeks before it. The current price thus sits in the numerator and also counts in the denominator. A list that averages only 26 prices calculates a slightly different value.

The switch changes every column marked “yes” in the table below. It does not change the four columns framed in purple: their periods are fixed in the literature.

Source: Robert A. Levy 1967, Section II (“Price Ratios”)

Every column in a sentence

In the order of the table. Some columns are hidden at first and appear via “Show more columns” or by themselves on wide screens.

ColumnWhat it showsDepends on the basis
Rank Position in the ranking for the current basis. Rank 1 is the strongest stock. yes
★ Setting the star means: add to your personal watchlist. no
Rank (other basis) Position on the other basis, followed by the change from the previous day. yes
Symbol Ticker symbol. Click to open the chart on TradingView. no
Name Name of the company. no
RSL Relative Strength according to Levy: price divided by the moving average. Above 1 means the price is above its average. More yes
RSL 26W −1W The same RSL, but calculated one week earlier – numerator and denominator shifted together. If it is far from the RSL, the most recent price is driving the ranking. Always on the 26-week basis, regardless of the selected view. More no
Mom 12−2 Price return from 12 months ago to 1 month ago. The most recent month is deliberately left out, because prices tend to reverse rather than continue in the short term. This is how the research momentum factor is measured (Carhart 1997). More no
52W high Price divided by the highest closing price of the last 52 weeks. 1.00 means the stock is at its 52-week high. Considered the strongest single measure on record (George/Hwang 2004). More no
Vola 6M How much the stock fluctuates: volatility of daily returns over the last 6 months, annualized. Not a rating – Levy found that stocks that were strong and volatile at the same time performed best; but higher volatility also means higher risk. More no
RSL trend How the RSL has developed over the last 5 periods. A steady trend keeps the RSL constant – so the arrows show whether the trend is currently accelerating or flattening out. yes
% 1D Price change from the previous trading day. no
% 1W Price change over 5 trading days. no
% 1M Price change over 21 trading days. no
Price Latest closing price, in the currency of the home exchange. no
Mkt cap bn Market value in billions: number of shares outstanding times the closing price on the left. For companies with several share classes, only the class listed here counts, so the value comes out smaller. no
Sector Sector according to the GICS classification. no
Sub-sector Subcategory of the same classification – much finer than the sector. The source does not provide it for the DAX, the Dow and the two other Dow Jones lists; the column stays empty there. no
Piotroski Piotroski F-Score from 0 to 9: nine yes/no questions about the last two annual reports – profit, cash flow, leverage, liquidity, margin, asset turnover. High means financially sound. Empty if one of the nine figures is missing; for banks and insurers this is the rule. no
SMA-Trend Direction of the moving average itself: is it rising or falling. It is the denominator of the RSL and turns late. yes
Trend qual. Trend quality between 0 and 1: straight-line distance divided by the path actually traveled. Close to 1 means a straight course, close to 0 constant back and forth. The direction does not matter. yes
RSI Wilder's Relative Strength Index (0 to 100). Above 70 is considered overbought, below 30 oversold. yes
MACD Difference between the 12-period and the 26-period average, in the price currency. Not comparable between stocks – a 500-euro stock naturally has larger values. yes
Signal Position of the MACD line relative to its signal line: bullish or bearish. The suffix -cross means the switch happened within the last two periods – the strongest signal. yes
Index Index the stock belongs to. no

A dash instead of a number means: the stock's price history is not yet long enough for this value, or the source does not provide it. The list would rather show nothing than an approximation.

The index pages, such as the one for the S&P 500, show a shorter version: rank, symbol, name, RSL, the four columns framed in purple and the RSL trend, always on the weekly basis. The other columns are in the interactive list.

Rank, arrows and colors

The symbols in the table tell you where a stock stands and where it is heading — not whether you should buy it.

Rank and change

Next to the rank is how many places the stock has gained or lost since the last run: ↑3 means three places up, ↓2 two down. No symbol means: unchanged, or there is no comparison yet. The “Rank (other basis)” column shows the same stock in the other basis.

Highlighted rows

  • Strong green with an edge line: the stock is among the top 5 in both bases.
  • Light green: among the top 5 in one of the two bases.
  • Reddish: outside the top 25% of the index in the selected basis, i.e. in the bottom 75%.

The arrows of the RSL trend

The RSL trend shows how the RSL has developed recently, in five levels:

  • ↗↗ rising sharply
  • ↗ rising
  • → sideways
  • ↘ falling
  • ↘↘ falling sharply

A steadily rising price keeps the RSL constant. A rising arrow therefore does not mean “the price is rising” but “the price is moving away from its average faster”. The SMA trend has only three levels (↗, →, ↘) and shows the direction of the average itself.

RSI, MACD, signal and trend quality

These four come from technical analysis and are in the list as an extra; they do not affect the ranking. What each value measures is in the table above. For the signal, bullish means the MACD line is above its signal line, bearish below it; -cross marks a recent change.

Green and red in the cells

For 52W high, Piotroski, Trend qual., RSI and MACD, the text color shows where a value lies within its range: green at the top, red at the bottom. For the RSI and the Piotroski score the range is fixed (0 to 100, 0 to 9), for the others it is that of the index's stocks currently shown. Momentum and the price changes are colored by sign. The colors are a reading aid, not a buy or sell signal.

What the purple frame means

The four framed columns stand next to the RSL, not in its place.

The RSL is calculated the way Levy defined it in 1967, so that it stays comparable with other RSL lists. The four columns next to it reflect the current state of research, taken over unchanged from the literature. They do not determine the list's ranking. Each has a page of its own:

How they fit together and why the RSL still stays what it is is covered in Evolving the RSL Strategy.

What the list is not

A ranking by a documented measure — not a forecast for any individual stock.

What is documented is that price strength persists for a while across many stocks and many years. What is not documented is that any particular value in this table predicts tomorrow's price. More on this in What this list is not.

Not investment advice and not a recommendation. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results, and investing in securities involves the risk of losing your entire investment.

Disclaimer and risk information in detail

References

Every figure on this page is shown with its exact location in the source — section, table or page. The links lead to the paper via its DOI; the full texts are mostly behind publishers' paywalls, but the bibliographic details are enough for any library.