KALMATGuide · 2026-06-27
Relative strength: the 1–99 rank behind every screen
Almost every card in KALMAT carries a small number between 1 and 99. That number — relative strength, or RS — answers one question: over the past year, how has this stock performed compared with every other liquid stock in India? It is the fastest way to separate the stocks leading this market from the ones being dragged along by it.
First, what RS is not
RS is not RSI. The Relative Strength Index is an oscillator that compares a stock's recent up-days with its own down-days — the stock versus itself. KALMAT's RS rank compares the stock against the whole market. A stock can have a "cool" RSI while holding an RS rank of 95, and the two facts do not conflict: the first says it isn't short-term stretched, the second says it has trounced its peers for a year.
How the rank is built
After each close, every stock that clears the liquidity floor is scored on its price performance over roughly the past year, with more weight on the recent months — what a stock has done lately matters more than what it did three quarters ago. The scores are then lined up and converted to percentiles:
- RS 99 — stronger than 99% of the market. The top shelf.
- RS 70 — stronger than 70% of the market. The usual floor for "leader".
- RS 50 — the exact middle. Half the market is doing better.
- RS 20 — weaker than four-fifths of the market. A laggard, whatever its story.
Because it is a percentile, RS is self-adjusting. In a raging bull market you need spectacular gains to hold RS 95; in a flat market a stock that simply refuses to fall can rank in the 80s. The rank always measures the race actually being run.
Why leadership matters so much
Decades of market studies — and KALMAT's own multi-year simulated record — point the same way: the biggest advances come disproportionately from stocks that were already strong before they broke out. Institutions build positions over months, and that steady accumulation shows up as persistent relative strength long before the headlines arrive. Buying high-RS breakouts feels uncomfortable ("it has already moved!") and works anyway; buying weak stocks because they look cheap feels safe and usually isn't.
This is why every house screen carries an RS dial, and why the strongest setups pair a tight base with a rank in the 80s or 90s. A perfect chart on an RS-30 stock is a lovely picture of something the market does not want.
RS during a base — the quiet tell
The most useful RS reading happens when nothing else is moving. Suppose a stock pauses in a base for ten weeks while its price goes sideways. If its RS rank holds or rises through the pause, the stock is resting better than the market is running — a sign of relentless demand underneath. If the rank bleeds away week after week, the "base" is really a slow decay with good posture. Two identical price charts, two completely different setups, and only the RS line tells them apart.
Using RS well
- Set a floor, not a target. Screening for RS above 70–80 removes most of the market's dead weight in one stroke. Beyond that, a 97 is not automatically better than a 91.
- Watch direction as much as level. An RS rank climbing from 60 to 85 is a stock being discovered; one sliding from 95 to 75 is a leader being quietly abandoned — often before the price chart shows real damage.
- Combine with structure. RS says which stocks deserve attention; bases and pivots say when. High RS with no base is a chase; a base with no RS is a value trap wearing a costume.
- Mind the exception. Very young listings cannot have a meaningful year-long rank — that is why the IPO-base screen leans on other evidence instead.
One number, updated nightly, comparing everything with everything: RS is the closest thing screening has to an honest referee. The screens simply refuse to look at stocks the referee has already waved off.