Long MRK, short XLV, name against its own sector: $1 of MRK against $1.78 of XLV, sized so that a typical day moves each leg by about the same amount. The spread is -21.5% over the last 120 sessions, -10.3% over the last 20, and today's level sits at the 3rd percentile of its own path, deeply compressed, narrowing over the last ten sessions. Alpha 43 against 85, a gap of -42 points (-26 ten sessions ago). Net market exposure at this sizing: −0.45, it leans short the market.
Not on the desk's list as of Nov 10, three sessions behind. Pro sees today's list.
The last 5 times these two sat this far below their one-year average, 1 closed half the gap within ten sessions: a spread that has tended to keep going.
One line of your account split $1 : $1.78 across the legs at the last close (MRK $146.70, XLV $187.74); fractions included. Arithmetic on a setting you choose, not a recommendation.
The house book has not closed a trade in this pair.
The house takes every listed cycle pair by the rules, after average trading costs; its full record is on the engine page. Pairs you assemble yourself are ideas, not posted trades: the Hedge pairs chapter says how the two differ.
Each leg against its sector fund, and each leg's true peers.
How to read it: the spread is what $1 long MRK and $1.78 short XLV would have made together, in percent of the long leg, close to close, before costs; the market's move cancels in it to the extent the two legs share it. Stretch is where today's level sits among the last 120 sessions of that path, a description of the spread's own history and not a forecast. Net β is the pair's remaining market exposure per $1 long at this sizing (each leg's beta over 250 sessions). The pages for MRK and XLV carry each leg on its own.