Point & Figure Charting by Thomas J. Dorsey is a worthwhile read if you want to view market activity through a different technical lens than a typical price vs. volume stock chart.
Point & figure charting is a technical analysis tool in which time is not a consideration. These charts look different from any stock price chart that you typically see. Charles Dow is given the recognition for the creation of this charting methodology so this is not new. The essential feature of a point & figure chart is that, by definition, stock price activity is the only consideration – and that is supposed to be real representation of supply and demand. Dorsey repeats in the book that stock price activity is the result of supply and demand, not earnings performance. He cites the many well-performing companies whose stock prices plummeted in 2008 as “proof” that stock price depends on whether or not there are more buyers than sellers or more sellers than buyers.
Besides highlighting a different method for charting stock price activity, the other major point of Dorsey’s book is his advice to track and understand relative strength. Relative strength does not predict what happens next but it does allow the trader to understand what has happened. Then the trader can react.
Another point made by Dorsey is his recommendation to view indexes via an equal weight perspective, not just a market capitalization perspective which is the composition of a “typical” stock index fund. A market capitalization view allows very large companies like Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, and other behemoths to influence the index when an equal weight perspective gives a much broader view of the breadth of the current market. He frequently cites market cap perspective to equal weight perspective as the difference between the composition of the US House of Representatives (ie, population-weighted) vs. the US Senate (equal weighting by state). Using an equal-weighted index when combined with relative strength and point and figure charting allows an objective look at current market/sector/etc. conditions.
Read this book for a different point of view of market assessment and trade entries/exits.