Weekly four-stage mapping with average, range, and volume

What the weekly map records

Weekly stage mapping uses high-low-close bars plus a 30-week moving average and places the market in one of four stages. The stage-map is a four-state weekly classification of basing, markup, balance, and markdown.

The moving average is a 30-week average of weekly prices. It is a slow baseline that lags the market and is read as rising, flat, or falling.

Stage 1 and the move into markup

Stage 1 is an accumulation-range: a post-decline sideways band that trades on both sides of the average while activity dries up. Price works both above and below the moving average while share volume contracts.

The described handoff into stage 2 is a move above the stage-1 range on expanded volume after rallies begin to attract volume and declines lose volume. Those prior sideways ranges are the support and resistance whose upper and lower edges a later break must clear or fail.

Stage 2 is a markup-trend. It lasts while price remains above a rising 30-week average and advances carry more volume than corrective declines. A rising 30-week average is treated as evidence that capital flow into the name has been positive over a lookback longer than half a trading year. Volume-price analysis compares volume on advances with volume on declines to test whether demand or supply is in control.

Balance, then markdown

Stage 3 is a balance-range: a two-way band around a nearly flat average. Price swings through that nearly flat 30-week average, often on heavy two-way volume, until later action shows whether the range is only a pause or a top.

Stage 4 is markdown after the stage-3 range fails from below, with a declining 30-week average. Price then sits below that failed range and the declining average. The break can print on either heavy volume or light volume.

Index first, then groups, then names

The same weekly checklist is applied first to a broad market index, then to subgroups, then to individual names that share the stronger groups' stage.

Chart reading is framed as an attempt to interpret the current balance of demand and supply rather than as a field opposed to fundamental work.