A good example of this is the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD). The TRIX indicator is an oscillator that filters out the irrelevant or unwanted price fluctuations in the short term that do not matter to the larger trend. When the TRIX indicator provides traders with a positive value, it suggests a continued uptrend in the market, and when the TRIX value is negative, it indicates a continued downtrend. When the currency pair prices are closer to the upper band, the market is said to be in an overbought condition. On the contrary, when the currency pair prices are closer to the lower band, the market is considered to be oversold. The formula for ADX is relatively complicated, taking an average of the negative directional indicator (-DI) and positive directional indicator (+DI).

These are important indicators because of the significant role that volume plays in the financial market. In this article, we will look at what momentum indicators are and then identified some of the most popular of them. Note that this article does not constitute financial or investment advice. Always conduct your own due diligence before trading, considering your attitude to risk, experience in the market, and portfolio margin. The generally understood trigger for trades using the MACD is when the signal line crosses the histogram (crossover).

What is a momentum indicator?

To calculate the ROC, one takes the current value of a stock and divides it by the value from a previous period, then subtracts one and multiplies by 100 for the percentage figure. The MACD line is calculated by subtracting the 26-day MA from the 12-day EMA. The CCI value suggests that the S&P 500 has left the oversold zone and may have turned into a ranging or bullish market. The ADX is the average of the -DI and +DI, which are calculated from the comparison of two consecutive ‘lows’ and the respective ‘highs’, using the average true range (ATR).

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• Different momentum indicators have different formulas and serve different purposes.
• ADX rises when the price momentum increases, whether the trend is up or down.

Below is our take on some of the most popular momentum indicators available on the Capital.com platform, and how one could incorporate them into their trading strategy. The indicator is useful in that it shows the overbought and oversold levels as shown below. The MACD has a neutral line and is ideal in showing an asset’s trend and its momentum.

Crossover Signals

Williams %R indicator provides traders with overbought and oversold market conditions. The indicator gives traders values between 0 to -100 to signal them about the ideal entry or exit price levels. All readings between 0 to -20 signal overbought market conditions, and readings between -80 to -100 signal an oversold market condition.

The EOM values range between positive and negative values in the market, as the EOM line always fluctuates either above or below a zero line. Traders use crossovers between the MACD and signal lines as potential entry and exit signals. Additionally, when the MACD histogram crosses above or below the zero line, it can indicate bullish or bearish momentum in the market. Lastly, it’s also possible to spot divergences between price and the indicator’s peaks and troughs, similar to how divergences are identified with RSI.

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Remember not to invest or trade with more than you can afford to lose. Remember to do your due diligence before making an investment decision. The momentum indicator has less smoothing than other momentum-type indicators like RSI so the signal line is more reactive. That’s why it can help to use other indicators to confirm a momentum signal before placing a trade. To add strength to the crossover signals, traders will use both the EMAs and the histogram. In addition, traders use price crossing over the zero line for bullish or bearish signals.

Instead, it ranges from 0 to 100, with values above 25 indicating a strong trend and below 20 suggesting a weak or non-trending market. Second, there are indicators that seek to identify the closing price of an asset compared to a range. In other words, these indicators look at how an asset’s price is trading in relation to how it has performed in a certain period of time. First, there are momentum indicators where the closing price of an asset is compared with the previous one. The idea is that if an asset’s price keeps closing above the previous close, it has a bullish momentum. They are lagging indicators that compare the current price to averages over a previous period.

How to read momentum indicators

Relative Strength Index (RSI) is a strong momentum indicator that measures a currency pair’s current and historical market strength to analyse the overbought or oversold market conditions. When the RSI reading is below 30, it indicates an oversold market, and when the readings are over 70, it indicates an overbought market condition. Bollinger Bands are technical analysis tools that are used to measure overbought and oversold market conditions along with market volatility. They consist of two trend lines above and below a simple moving average line (the middle band). The stochastic oscillator seeks to measure the closing price of a security to a range of its historical prices over a defined period of time. It is used to generate overbought and oversold trading signals using a 0–100 bounded range of values.