Published on April 16, 2026.

Disclaimer: 

The features and tools demonstrated in this video reflect the TradeSmith platform as of the recording date. Please note that our software is continuously updated to enhance your experience. The current site may appear differently. The tabs and features you see on your TradeSmith Finance site will vary based on subscription(s) and subscription level(s).

Slide 1: Introduction 

Hi everyone! I’m Marina Stroud, your Senior Product Education Specialist. Thanks for joining me today! 

These monthly Walkthrough webinars will give you hands-on guidance across all TradeSmith products.  

My colleague Kristin Magenst and I host them live to provide you with a real-time learning experience—so whether you’re just starting or looking to fine-tune your skills, you’re in the right place. 

And don’t worry—I am recording today’s session and will post the video and script in the Support Menu under the TradeSmith Walkthrough folder. 

Let’s jump right into today’s topics! 

Slide 2: Today’s Topics 

Today I want to talk about something that I think every investor struggles with — no matter your experience level:  

There is a ton of information about the markets… but turning that information into confident decisions is the hard part.    

We all have access to news, charts, ratings, and opinions.... a ton of opinions! 

But the real challenge is knowing:  

• When is an opportunity actually strong?  
• How much risk am I taking?  
• And how do I stay disciplined when markets change?  

That’s really what today is about. 

My goal is simple:  

To show how TradeSmith helps you take market insights — technical, fundamental, seasonal, AI — and turn them into repeatable strategies you can actually use.  

I’ll break the session into two parts:  

First, we’ll focus on the long-term foundation — how investors can use our Health, Risk, and Trend analysis to find strong opportunities in healthy market conditions. 

Then, we’ll shift to the shorter-term side—looking at tools like our AI software, Predictive Alpha, and seasonality patterns with Trade Cycles —to find high-probability setups.  

So whether you’re a long-term investor, an active trader, or somewhere in between, my goal today is to share practical, repeatable ways to approach the market with a clear plan — so you can invest with greater confidence and leave the emotions out. 

🎓 Just a Quick Note Before We Dive In! 

Slide 3: Disclaimer 

Everything we’re sharing today—and in future tutorials—is just for learning and exploration. We're not licensed financial advisers, so we can’t give personal recommendations or advice tailored to your situation. Please think of us as your friendly tour guides through the world of investing tools! 

📹 And don’t worry if you miss anything. 
We are recording today’s session! You’ll be able to hit replay whenever you like and catch up on anything you missed. 

Awesome—let’s dive in! 

I am logged into my TradeSmith Finance Platinum account. Your account may look different than mine depending on your TradeSmith subscriptions. 

Part 1: Long-Term Investing: TradeSmith Foundations 

Step 1: Assess the health of the markets 

As part of Ideas by TradeSmith, our Market Outlook helps us determine which markets are performing well.  

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

TradeSmith’s Health Indicator helps you quickly assess how major U.S. and international markets are performing. 

The Market Health widget includes two distinct indicators: Short-term Health and Long-term Health—each designed for a different investing timeframe. 

The Long-term Health Indicator is built for investors with a 12-month or longer horizon. It analyzes three years of price data, with the most recent year carrying the greatest weight. This makes it more stable and better suited for identifying sustained trends. 

The Short-term Health Indicator, on the other hand, focuses on trends lasting less than three months. It uses six months of price data, making it more responsive to recent market movements and more likely to generate frequent signals. 

How the Long-term Health Indicator Works 

When a stock or index is in the Green Zone, it is considered healthy and moving within its normal range based on its expected level of risk. 

That expected range is measured by the Volatility Quotient (VQ). 

Think of the VQ as a guide to how much a security typically moves up or down. Using historical price data, TradeSmith calculates the normal price movement for stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, indexes, and even cryptocurrencies. 

You can see the VQs for each index by going to the “List” view. 

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

• If a security declines by about half of its VQ, it moves into the Yellow Zone. 
  → This signals caution. The pullback may be temporary, or it could continue.  
• If a security declines by more than its full VQ, it enters the Red Zone. 
  → This indicates the security is behaving abnormally and may be unhealthy. 

How the Short-term Health Indicator Works 

The Short-term Health Indicator is designed to follow the current price trend. Because of this, it typically does not change before the trend changes—it reacts as the trend develops. 

Its signals are based on a combination of proprietary indicators that measure trend strength across different timeframes. What matters most is how these indicators relate to each other, not their individual levels. Because of this, it’s not possible to predict exactly how much the price must move before a signal changes. 

How It Compares to Long-term Health 

By comparison, the Long-term Health Indicator is simpler. It relies on a single measure—the Volatility Quotient (VQ)—and changes slowly. Because it’s based on longer-term data, it can take months to adjust to sudden market shifts. 

This slower pace allows us to estimate how much a security must decline before triggering a sell signal. 

Why Short-term Health Is Different 

The Short-term Health Indicator is designed to be more responsive and adapt quickly to recent market activity. 

For example, if a stock drops 12% in a single day, the VQ used in Long-term Health will not immediately adjust—even though risk has increased. Short-term Health is built to respond more quickly in situations like this. 

If you’re using the Long-term or Short-term Health Indicator as an exit strategy, here’s an easy way to remember it: 

• Green means buy 
• Yellow means hold 
• Red means sell 

Understanding the health of the markets you’re investing in is critical—because even the strongest stocks can struggle in unhealthy conditions. 

For long-term investors, the Long-term Health Indicator should be your primary focus. It helps you cut through short-term noise and identify stronger, more stable opportunities. While the Short-term Health can provide additional context, it’s not essential when your goal is long-term investing. 

The key is aligning your tools with your objective. If you’re investing with a long-term horizon, the Long-term Health should drive your analysis. 

For Part 1 of today’s demo, we’ll apply this approach to the S&P 500 to identify strong long-term investment opportunities—and find the strongest-performing stocks within the index. 

So, how do we find the Long-term Green Zone stocks in the S&P 500? 

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

Step 2: Pinpoint Long-term Green Zone Stocks 

Using our Screener Tool, we can filter thousands of stocks in seconds.  

To generate a scan of the S&P 500, I will click the blue drop-down triangle and select the “View Components” link: 

The site routes us to the Screener tool page and prefills the country of exchange (United States), markets (S&P 500), and asset type (stock) filters for us. 

Now, we can narrow down the S&P 500 stocks to those that are currently in the Long-term Green Zone and trending up. 

I will click the Add Filters button and add Health Long-Term (Green Zone) and Trend (Up). 

You can incorporate additional TradeSmith indicators, other technical and fundamental indictors, and newsletters as filters. 

Note: Available Screener filters depend on your TradeSmith subscription. For example, access to Trade Cycles and seasonality filters requires a Trade Cycles by TradeSmith or TradeSmith Platinum account.

Once we have our filters in place, we hit the Run Screener button. 

This leaves us with the top 100 results.  

Step 3: Refine our search and incorporate fundamentals. 

From our results page, I can sort the columns of information. For example, I can sort our Business Quality Score, which takes into account the company’s growth, payout, profitability, and safety fundamentals.  

The BQS is available with a Ratings by TradeSmith and TradeSmith Platinum account. 

I can add the BQS as a filter to narrow down our results: 

Ideally, we want a BQS of 80% or greater. 80% to 100% is high quality. 

Another indicator you can incorporate for longer-term investing is the Quantum Score, available with a Quantum Edge Pro or TradeSmith Platinum account. 

While the BQS looks at the company’s fundamentals, our Quantum Score considers fundamentals (sales and earnings growth, profits, and debt levels) and technicals (volume, volatility, new highs, and institutional buying). 

You can also add the Quantum Score as a Screener filter and go with 90% or greater, with 90-100 being the best. 

The BQS and Quantum Scores are longer-term indicators you can incorporate into your search; especially if the company’s fundamentals interest you. 

Let’s review our results. 

Results as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

To review any tickers in more detail, click on the ticker symbol from the Screener tool results page and a new window opens to the Asset Details page, where we can continue to research our new potential long-term trade. 

At the top of the Asset Details page, I can see the ticker’s latest price data and determine if there are upcoming earnings.  

Let’s check out Garmin (GRMN). 

Below, I included the statistic pills important to me when researching a new ticker. You can adjust the statistic pills according to our indicators and other technical and fundamental data by clicking the “Customize Statistics” link. 

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

There are numerous tabs that let me review our TradeSmith indicators, statistics, financials, price chart, and other information. 

If I am unfamiliar with the stock, I can go to the Overview tab. As I scroll down the page, I will see a brief overview of our indicators, the chart, Gramin’s (GRMN) peers, statistics, latest research, news for the ticker, and the company information. 

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

If I go to the Indicators tab, you will see a detailed view of all available TradeSmith indicators and what they say about our ticker. Your available indicators will depend on your subscription. 

Our stock rating for Garmin (GRMN) is Strong Bullish, according to Ratings, it’s in the Green Zone for both the long-term and short-term Health Indicators, it’s trending up, and gets high scores for the BQS and Quantum Score. 

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

Just a quick note—Garmin is being used strictly as an example for educational purposes, not as a recommendation to buy or sell. 

After researching this ticker, you may add it to a manual portfolio watchlist or track it in a basket. 

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

If I decided to enter a long-term trade and use our Health Indicator as my exit strategy, I would get out when the stock goes into the Red Zone. Our system would alert me via email and push notifications in the mobile app when it is time to take action.  

Please ensure that the Long-term Health indicator is enabled under the Alerts menu of your program settings.

So far, we have covered an approach to long-term investing.

What if you are a short-term trader? 

This brings us to Part 2 of my presentation. 

Part 2: Short-Term Trading: TradeSmith Tools 

Let's use Garmin (GRMN) as our example for a short-term trade and review two products geared for short-term traders, starting with Predictive Alpha. 

Predictive Alpha harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to forecast where over 2,700 stocks could go in the next month or 21 trading days.

Let’s see what the Predictive Alpha model predicts for Garmin (GRMN) by clicking on the Predictive Alpha button under the Indicators Overview. I can also go to the Predictive Alpha tab. 

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

The system will display the model with the highest target accuracy rate.  

Predictive Alpha projects a 5.62% target price ($280.79) on May 14, 2026. 

The 21-day projection historically reached its projected target price within 21 days 58.59% of the time. This is not as high as I would like it. I would prefer a Historical Target Accuracy of 70% or higher. 

If you are looking at Predictive Alpha, and it projects the price to move higher within 21 trading days, you may want to buy if it meets your other trade entry criteria. When following Predictive Alpha, you would exit at the projected price or 21 days (or whatever the Predictive Alpha Model states), whichever comes first.  

Predictive Alpha now has alerts that can be added from the Predictive Alpha Dashboard widget or the Predictive Alpha tab. 

You can get notified via email when a ticker reaches its Prime Target or Target Date. You can manage alerts in the Alerts tab within the Predictive Alpha Dashboard widget. 

Images as of Apr. 13, 2026. 

You can also incorporate our Short-term Health indicator as an exit or make sure the ticker is in the Short-term Health Green Zone before buying as added conviction. 

The Predictive Alpha AI prompts allow me to learn more about the ticker and research other questions of interest. For example, I can ask it to tell me more about Garmin’s projection and to show me all the stocks with strong bullish signals and high target accuracy rates.  

               Image as of Apr. 13, 2026. 

If you are an options trader, Predictive Alpha looks at the ticker’s trend, future projection, and Volatility score to determine potential options trades. 

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026.

Our Predictive Alpha Options recommends sell puts and buy/write covered calls as the primary strategies. I can click the “Find Options” link to review a list of potential sell put and buy/write covered calls. 

Another tool for short-term traders is our Seasonality tool as part of Trade Cycles. 

Unlike Predictive Alpha, Seasonality analyzes historical price data to provide date ranges where we have seen high average returns. In this case, we are reviewing the last 15 years of historical price data for Garmin (GRMN).  

Image as of Apr. 13, 2026. 

The green shaded area with an up arrow indicates positive average returns for that date range going back 15 years and red shaded areas (if any) indicates negative average returns for that period. 

The dark blue line is the current price line, and the lighter blue line is the seasonal trend line, which highlights historical trends. 

Historically, we have seen average returns of 4.38% from February 2 to February 19, going back 15 years. The average returns may not seem like much, but we would only be holding the stock for about 17 days.

     Image as of Apr. 13, 2026. 

Let’s see the actual returns from February 2 to February 19 under the Years Under Review window: 

Image as of Apr. 13, 2026. 

With a start price of $206.13 on Feb. 2, and an end price of $238,88 on Feb. 19, the actual returns for this period were almost 16%, which is much higher than its historical average returns of 4.38%. It may not always work out that way, and you may see the reverse be true. 

For each pattern, you can view the historical accuracy rate, average, median, and annualized returns. 

Image as of Apr. 3, 2026. 

Note: The median return is the middle value in a set of investment returns arranged from lowest to highest. It tells you a typical return without being skewed by extremely high or low values.   

If the Relative Strength Index (RSI) is below 61 when this optimal period begins, the stock qualifies for Seasonal Synergy. 

Image as of Apr. 13, 2026. 

There are three levels of seasonal patterns: 

1️⃣ Standard Seasonal Patterns – These are the basic recurring trends, highlighted in green. 

2️⃣ Optimal Patterns – A step above, these patterns have a higher level of reliability.  

3️⃣ Seasonal Synergy – The strongest level, where an optimal pattern also aligns with momentum. 

We use the Relative Strength Index (RSI) as the momentum indicator, and it is associated with the pattern. For example, a stock might have three optimal patterns with three different optimal RSI values. 

This reflects the unique personality of each stock and recognizes that the stock behaves differently at different times of the year. 

You can also use the Screener tool to find short-term opportunities and incorporate our Short-term Health, Predictive Alpha, and Seasonality filters. 

Let’s go back to the Screener tool.  

These simple filters will help you zero in on the short-term opportunities. 

Screener Filters:  

• Asset Type: Stock 
• Country of Exchange: United States 
• Health (Short-Term): Green 
• Optimal Seasonal Pattern Only: Yes 
• Days to Seasonality Pattern Start Date: Less than 30 
• Prime Outlook: Bullish, Very Bullish 
• Prime Historical Target Accuracy: Greater than 70% 
• Prime Expected Move: Greater than 5% 

Once you have selected our filter parameters, click the Run Screener button. 

Let’s review our results. 

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

We can focus on the stocks in the strongest performing sectors according to our indicators. 

If we look at the S&P Sectors, Energy and Utilities are in the Green Zones and have the highest health distributions: 

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

Our first two results: IAC (IAC) and Advanced Energy (AEIS) fall under the technology sector, which is in the Short-Term Health Red Zone, with a majority of its underlying assets in the Red Zone. You may want to be cautious of the technology sector at the moment. 

The third result: Enviri (NVRI) falls under the industrials sector, which is in the Short-term Health Yellow Zone. This is not an ideal situation; however, you need to be methodical about your plan and leave the emotions out. 

Let’s take a look at Enviri (NVRI).  

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

Our Short-term indicators: Short-term Health, Seasonality, and Predictive Alpha provide additional insights.  

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

Predictive Alpha projects a 5.44% target price ($20.61) on May 14, 2026. 

The 21-day projection historically reached its projected target price within 21 days 76.56% of the time. The historical target accuracy is in our 70% or greater range. 

Let’s check out seasonality. 

Image as of Apr. 16, 2026. 

Based on the last 15 years of historical data, there is an optimal pattern from May 13 to June 9, with average returns of 9.52% and an 80% historical accuracy rate. 

The Seasonality and Predictive Alpha indicators don’t always align, though there are periods where they overlap. Ultimately, it comes down to which framework you’re more inclined to trust. Seasonality is rooted in historical price patterns, while Predictive Alpha leverages AI and machine learning to generate forward-looking projections based on hundreds of data inputs. Neither approach is inherently superior—each offers a different lens for analyzing market behavior. 

That’s all for today! Before we go, here’s where you can find all our educational resources. 

To access your educational resources, click the Support button in the top right of your program site. The main menu provides information on how to contact our Customer Success team and schedule a 30-minute concierge appointment, which is a one-on-one walkthrough with a knowledgeable agent.   

You can also register for and access previously recorded TradeSmith Walkthroughs with Kristin or me, as well as Inside TradeSmith webinars featuring Senior Analyst Mike Burnick.   

If you are new to TradeSmith, please check out our Getting Started Series. 

At the bottom of the Support menu, you will see three tabs: Main Menu, Product Updates, and Education Center. 

🏠 The Main Menu houses the Customer Success Team contact, concierge scheduling, and links to the TradeSmith Getting Started Series and other webinars. 

📣 The Product Updates provides the latest and greatest feature updates so you can be in the know on all site upgrades. 

📖 The Education Center houses our how-to articles, glossary, tutorials, and webinars. 

Slide 4: Contact Us 

Thank you for joining us! We're honored to support your educational journey. If you have questions, we are here to help.  

We look forward to seeing you in the next round. Until next time, bye! 

Marina Stroud 

Senior Product Education Specialist