JC_Hero
Market minute
Back to Market Minute

Ignore Market Noise and Focus on These Signals

Mike Burnick Apr 30 2026, 7:30 AM EST Market Minute 4 min read Print

Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI).

Managing Editor’s Note: Today, we’re hearing from our contributing editor Mike Burnick in his weekly Thursday feature.

Mike has over 30 years in the investment and financial services industry – from operating as a stockbroker, trader, and research analyst, to running a mutual fund as a registered investment advisor and portfolio manager, to being Research Director for the Sovereign Society, specializing in global ETF and options investing.

 And he’s been senior analyst at TradeSmith for three years, running Constant Cash Flow, Infinite Income Loop, and Inside TradeSmith.  

Here’s Mike…

Ignore Market Noise and Focus on These Signals

BY MIKE BURNICK, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, MARKET MINUTE

Separating profitable signals from the background noise in financial markets has always been a major challenge for investors.

And with today’s computer-driven, high-frequency trading, there has never been so much distracting noise.

But TradeSmith has dedicated the past 20 years to uncovering the potentially profitable trading signals found hidden in the market noise.

And we’ve just launched one of the most powerful trading tools we have ever built for that purpose.

Signals is a cutting-edge trading system that identifies consistent patterns in stocks that can lead to high probability profits.

Our Signals algorithms put hedge fund level analytics at your fingertips.

A signal is simply a pattern. Specifically, it’s a set of conditions that’s shown up in in the past – and when it did, a stock tended to behave a certain way, moving in a predictable direction.

Every day our system runs through almost 200 different possible entry rules and dozens of potential exit rules.

That adds up to more than 2 million potential trades analyzed every single day – more than 500 million a year.

And when the right conditions line up in stocks, they tend to move up or down in consistent trends.

A signal flags those conditions in real-time so you can act on them with the odds stacked in your favor.

From the huge universe of potential trades, Signals narrows the list to a small number of trades that meet our quality and consistency thresholds.

You don’t have to take my word for it – the proof is in the performance.

In a six-year backtest, a model portfolio of Signals trades delivered a 12X return.

And in 2022 – a bear market for stocks – they produced an average backtested gain of 16.6% while the S&P 500 fell nearly 20%.

Simply log in to in TradeSmith Finance and you’ll find the Signals tab on the main menu bar next to Options.

Think of this page as your daily command center for systematic trade ideas. Every trading day, you can visit this page to see the stocks with active trade Signals.

Let’s take a closer look.

The first tab shows you the Top 20 Signals – the highest-quality setups available today, as ranked by our system. Data displayed includes:

  • Stock ticker symbol
  • Outlook, bullish or bearish
  • Signal category (hover over for definitions)
  • Entry & Exit Rules (click link for details)
  • Quality Score, higher is better
  • Accuracy Rate for that stock historically
  • Average Gain, Max Gain and Max Loss for past Signals
  • Average Hold Time and much more

Click on the next tab to view all of Today’s Signals – currently up to 100, with more to be added over time.

Most of these data columns displayed are fairly self-explanatory. But to help new users get started with Signals, we have several educational guides available to subscribers.

Bottom line: Keep in mind that a signal isn’t a prediction. It’s a probability that tells you what happened under similar conditions in the past – not what will definitely happen now. Signals can help uncover the hidden patterns in stocks that you can turn into high probability trades!

Good investing,

Signature

Mike Burnick
Contributing Editor, Market Minute