What Is the Power Gauge?
The Power Gauge is Marc Chaikin’s proprietary stock-rating system. It rates over 6,000 stocks and ETFs using 20 different factors that institutional investors use when deciding what and when to buy. In the MAGI presentation at Brownstone Research, the Power Gauge provides the quantitative backbone for the timing of the stock picks.
As we explain in our full review of the MAGI presentation, Chaikin spent 60 years on Wall Street working with investors like Paul Tudor Jones, George Soros, and Steve Cohen. The Power Gauge was built from the factors those legendary investors prioritized. Chaikin explains his inspiration in the presentation:
“Across the six decades I spent on Wall Street, I worked with dozens of brilliant investors. These are the types of institutional investors that move the markets. And I learned that they each had specific factors or indicators they looked to when deciding what to buy. Some valued fundamental factors like earnings growth or price-to-earnings ratios. While others were more interested in technical factors like broader trends in price, volume, or insider interest.”
Chaikin compiled those factors into a single system. For more on Chaikin himself, see our profile of Marc Chaikin and our article on money flow analysis.
The Track Record
The Power Gauge has a specific and verifiable track record. After ChatGPT launched, the system “flashed bullish for all the top AI stocks” with peak gains of:
- 775 percent on Broadcom
- 1,324 percent on Palantir
- 1,423 percent on Western Digital
Chaikin says the system “flagged all of the top 10 performing AI stocks, no exception.” On average, the Power Gauge has flashed bullish on at least eight of the top 10 stocks of the year, every single year, going back to 2016.
In the most recent midterm cycle in 2022, the Power Gauge flagged Meta, Builders First Source, and AMD. All three more than doubled within 12 months. That is the system working in real time, not just in backtests.
How the Power Gauge Works in the MAGI Presentation
In the MAGI presentation, the Power Gauge serves two functions. First, it provides bullish or bearish ratings on the specific stocks Brown recommends. Second, it tracks institutional money flow to identify where the “big players on Wall Street” are positioning.
Chaikin explains the money flow concept: “I designed this system to track money flow from institutional investors, because nothing makes a stock go up or down faster than the action of those investors. So the fact that my system is lighting up like a Christmas tree tells me the big players on Wall Street are already preparing for what’s coming.”
The Power Gauge shows bullish ratings on all three stocks highlighted in the MAGI presentation: AMD (the free ticker), the hidden Tesla supplier making power-delivery technology for Optimus, and the Terafab equipment supplier. Brown cites specific institutional investors already in the space: Jeff Bezos ($400 million), George Soros ($69 million), Bill Ackman ($4.1 billion), Citadel ($7.3 billion), and Marc Andreessen ($500 million). The Power Gauge is detecting that money flow quantitatively.
The 20 Factors
Chaikin says the Power Gauge is “powered by 20 different factors that institutional investors use when deciding what and when to buy.” While the specific factors are proprietary, Chaikin describes the categories they fall into:
Fundamental factors include earnings growth, price-to-earnings ratios, and cash flow. These measure whether a company’s financial performance supports its stock price.
Technical factors include broader trends in price, volume, and insider interest. These measure whether market participants, particularly insiders and institutions, are buying or selling.
The system translates these 20 factors into a simple rating: bullish, neutral, or bearish. Chaikin emphasizes accessibility: “You don’t have to calculate or even understand what any of these mean, because my system just translates that into a simple stock rating system anyone can understand.”
For more on the research service built around the Power Gauge, see our article on the Chaikin Power Gauge Report.
The Election Cycle Connection
The Power Gauge does not operate in isolation. Chaikin pairs it with what he calls the election cycle, a market pattern he says has never failed since 1950. The pattern is that buying during midterm election year corrections has produced gains 12 months later in 100 percent of cases, with average gains of nearly 40 percent for the entire market.
The combination of the Power Gauge’s stock-level ratings and the election cycle’s market-level timing is what drives the urgency in the MAGI presentation. Chaikin says: “This is not a prediction. This is a market cycle that IS happening this year, guaranteed.” The “guaranteed” language is strong, and the 100 percent track record should be understood as a historical pattern. Past performance does not guarantee future results. But the convergence of the Power Gauge’s bullish signals with the election cycle’s timing pattern is a genuinely data-driven approach to market timing.
Access to the Power Gauge
In the MAGI offer, 12 months of the Power Gauge Report is included free with a subscription to Jeff Brown’s Near Future Report at $179. The Power Gauge Report normally carries a stated value of about $1,000. This gives subscribers access to the full stock-rating system, where they can look up the rating on any of the 6,000+ stocks and ETFs the system covers.
Chaikin describes the value: “If you have a computer and an internet connection, you can use the Power Gauge to see the ratings of more than 6,000 stocks and ETFs, all based on these 20 factors.” The system does not trade for you. It gives you a rating, and you make the final decision. But having a quantitative system that flagged all of the top 10 performing AI stocks as a screening tool is genuinely useful for any investor.
Ready to learn more about the MAGI presentation? Click here to access Jeff Brown and Marc Chaikin’s full research.
This is not financial advice. Always do your own research before investing.