The Power of New Information
I use the phrase new information frequently when I am talking or writing about price action and charts.
Technical analysts, or the purest among them, believe that the chart already contains all the information a trader needs to make decisions and that they need no other outside influences.
I don't subscribe to that view.
That’s not to say that I don't believe that the chart is full of clues and pointers about what happens next, because it most certainly is.
However, experience has taught me that there are almost always unseen catalysts for change when it comes to stock prices, and one of the most powerful of those is new information.
What do I mean by new information?
Events and data that the market wasn't aware of, but which make a material difference to sentiment, and the prospects and price of a stock.
We had a textbook example of the effects that new information can have on stock price earlier this week, on 26/05/2026.
The image below is a snapshot of the daily roundup of research and comments from UBS’s US division.
I have highlighted the top item in the snapshot, which is about memory chip maker Micron Technology MU US.
Can you see why these elements are so important/influential?
Just in case you can't let me spell it for you:
UBS Analyst Timothy Arcuri raised his price target on Micron stock from $535.00 to $1625.00, effectively tripling it.
I cannot recall seeing an analyst raising a price target by +300% before, so it was clearly material and most definitely new information.
And by the way I saw the news first in a Twitter/X post:
See: https://x.com/halfblindmonkey/status/2059184288403226795
Source: X
Source: UBS US Investment Bank
Here is what happened to the Micron stock price: it rallied by as much as +24.0% intraday, taking its market cap to more than $1.0 trillion as it did so.
Source: Barchart.com
The chart above shows Micron’s price action on the day that UBS raised their price target, and what's notable is that the rally didn't happen all at once.
The move evolved over the morning session in the US, and that was good news for traders, because that meant there was plenty of opportunity to get involved.
Zone of Opportunity
The chart below highlights the zone of opportunity on May 26th, in Micron.
It’s the box created by the intersection of the dashed vertical green and orange lines, and the horizontal pink and green dashed lines. Highlighted by the purple arrow.
Source: Barchart.com
Even if you didn't jump in immediately on the news, there was another +17.0% move higher, up for grabs, over the next couple of hours.
Not a one-off either
This wasn’t an isolated occurrence either, for example, here is Dell Technologies DELL US rallying almost 50.0% after it released earnings after the close on 28-05-2026 (see the chart below).
I have highlighted the pertinent parts of these Dell-related headlines:
Source: Thefly.com
Source: Barchart.com
Clues were there, if you knew where to look.
Interestingly, everyone had a chance to pre-empt this move because President Trump told us to “Go buy a Dell” three weeks ago. The US govt awarded Dell a $9.70 billion contract yesterday, too.
Source: Euronews
And a month or so before that, we had this story doing the rounds:
Source: Yahoo Finance
In recent articles, we have talked about having and using local knowledge and being prepared.
Essentially, that boils down to being aware of what's happening and what's being talked about, or anticipated by the crowd, in stocks that move.
Once again, this was the perfect example: Catalysts were being discussed in the open, the President of the US gave the company a name check (and later a multi-billion dollar contract), and price was edging up over the last week- so yes, the clues were there.
What did I do?
Believe it or not, I had looked the other way!
That is to say that I was interested in Dell's rival, PC maker HP Inc. (HPQ US.
Maybe that was a subconscious bias because I use an HP computer, and whilst they didn't have the spectacular one day leap, like Dell. They haven't done too badly over the last month either, as you can see below.
Source: Barchart.com
Paying attention to narratives and understanding the potential for price change in a given stock or stocks and being able to recognise how new information affects that is a key skill for a trader, which is at least as important as being able to read a chart, or understanding the messages within the price action.
Developing that skill won't happen overnight, but it will come over time through experience and application, and the sooner you start working on it, the quicker it will fall into place.
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