Quote from Lucias:
I don't buy that idea that bwolinsky is selling. I don't understand it, either.
Again, I'm arguing that in a bull market most of the news is expected to be good so any surprise to the upside is on average not going to be as large as a surprise to the downside. It is an artifact of linear regression extrapolations.
Buy it or not, that's a mathematical thing.
An example is a two stock index, 1 for $10 per share, and 1 for $100 per share. Assume that sharesunderstanding is equal 1 for the $10 stock and 2 shares for the $100 stock.
The price weighted index and value weighted index will both start with a baseline value of 1
So our index (10+100)/2=55 and our value is also the same (10+200)/2=105
Now, move both prices in the indexes up 1% and see the change.
(10.10+101)/2=55.55/55-1=1% as expected
(10.1+202)=212.1/105-1=2%
If the difference isn't obvious it should be. You have the price weighted index less on the same move in the value weighted one. The value weighted version goes up by 2% because the value of the two shares of $100 per share increased by $1 increasing the value of the index by about 2%.
It is an average mathematical result to keep going down this line of thought and you'll find that price weighted indexes exhibit downward bias. If it's not obvious by this example I don't think another would help, but if you have questions....