when investors use the phrase market breadth they are talking about a set of technical indicators that evaluate price movements in a given stock index sometimes an index may rise even though more than half of its constituents are falling market breadth indicators will let us know if this is the case 
the goal of market breadth is to determine the strength or weakness of moves in a major index this information should be used to confirm what price action is doing when more stocks are advancing than declining it suggests the bulls are in control conversely when more securities in the index are falling it suggests the opposite because markets trend rising or falling momentum may indicate rising or falling price trends correction april 3 2024 this article has been corrected to state that when the on balance volume indicator rises the total volume is positive 