What Is the TLMM Market Timing Model?

01The three pillars: price, momentum, and breadth

TLMM does not rely on any single indicator. It reads the market top-down through three components working together, so you weigh a full body of evidence instead of reacting to one line on a chart.

• •Price — the 10-, 21-, 50-, and 200-day moving averages and their crossovers (the 10/21 short-term, 21/50 medium-term, and 50/200 Golden Cross / Death Cross) define the trend across timeframes.
• •Momentum — primarily the 4% Up/Down Ratio: stocks up 4% or more divided by stocks down 4% or more on the day. Above 1 is bullish, below 1 is bearish; it is also smoothed over 5- and 10-day windows.
• •Breadth — advances/declines, up/down volume, net new 52-week highs/lows, McClellan indicators, and the percentage of stocks above key moving averages measure how broadly the market is participating.

02The Global Daily Breadth (GDB) score

The engine at the center of TLMM is the Global Daily Breadth score. GDB is a weighted, standardized composite of daily price change, net advance/decline ratio, up/down volume ratio, net new 52-week high/low ratio, and the 4% momentum ratio, normalized against the last year of readings onto a -100 to +100 scale.

Because it is normalized, the extremes are meaningful reference points:

• •GDB above +80 = a breadth thrust (excessive, broad buying).
• •GDB below -80 = distribution (excessive, broad selling).
• •A healthy uptrend typically prints steady readings between +20 and +80; a >+80 reading after an already-extended run can instead mark exhaustion.
• •Supporting breadth extremes: fewer than 25% of stocks above their 21 EMA is oversold, more than 75% is overbought (the same 25%/75% thresholds apply to the 200 SMA for the long-term read).
• •The McClellan Oscillator (the 19-day minus 39-day EMA of net advances) curling up or down through its 10-day moving average gives early turn signals.

03From GDB to trend states and signals

GDB feeds the Trend State Model, which classifies the market into five primary states based on which timeframes are positive: Uptrend (short, mid, and long positive), Pullback (short negative, long positive), Correction (mid and long negative), Rally (short positive, long negative), and Uptrend Attempt (mid positive, long negative).

Each state pairs with actionable trigger conditions. In a Pullback, short-term breadth below 25% plus a 1%+ daily hook up is a short-term buy. In a deeper Correction, long-term breadth below 25% plus a 1%+ hook up is a longer-term buy. In a Rally or Uptrend, breadth above 75% plus a 1%+ hook down flags a place to sell or trim.

The model reads only tradeable stocks — assets are filtered for average volume, float, liquidity, price, and market cap — and runs across equal-weight universes (RSP for the S&P 500, QQQE for the Nasdaq 100), the NYSE Composite (^NYA), and small caps (IWM), so mega-cap concentration does not mask what the average stock is doing.

04How to trade with TLMM

Start with the regime. Establish the trend state before choosing a bias, then use GDB for timing: in an uptrend expect +20 to +80 readings, use >+80 thrusts to confirm continuation after shallow pullbacks, and treat a break below -80 as a distribution warning.

Buy oversold extremes (percent above the 21 EMA or 200 SMA under 25% with an upward hook above 1%) and trim or short overbought extremes (above 75% with a downward hook above 1%). A higher low in a downtrend plus a GDB breadth thrust flags a follow-through day and potential bottom; a lower high in an uptrend plus a GDB distribution reading flags a potential top.

TradersLab pulls all of this into one dashboard and computes GDB, the trend state, and the trigger conditions for you, so you can size exposure to the market's real health instead of trading against it.