How TickerLean works: the 10 technical indicators and their rules
This page explains exactly what the numbers on TickerLean mean, from the RSI, MACD and moving-average rules to the golden cross and death cross. New to the terms? See the technical analysis glossary. Nothing here is a secret formula: every rule is also displayed next to each indicator on the result page.
1. The data
For the stock you search, TickerLean retrieves daily closing prices from Yahoo Finance, usually several years of history. Indicators are calculated from those closing prices. Because the data is daily, readings update once per trading day, not tick by tick. Results may be reused for a few hours to keep the service fast, and a saved copy may be shown if the data source is temporarily unavailable (the page tells you when that happens).
2. The 10 indicators
The indicators fall into two groups. Short-term timing indicators (oscillators) measure whether a price has moved too far, too fast. Trend indicators measure direction and momentum.
| Indicator | Group | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| RSI (14) | Short-term | Relative Strength Index: the balance of recent up days versus down days over 14 days. |
| Stochastic %K (14,3) | Short-term | Where today’s close sits within the last 14 days’ high–low range. |
| CCI (20) | Short-term | Commodity Channel Index: how far price is from its 20-day average, scaled by typical variation. |
| Bollinger %B (20,2) | Short-term | Position of the price inside bands set two standard deviations around the 20-day average. |
| MACD histogram (12,26,9) | Trend | Gap between a fast and a slow moving-average line, and whether that gap is growing. |
| Price vs 20-day average | Trend | How far the price is above or below its 20-day simple moving average. |
| Price vs 50-day average | Trend | The same comparison with the 50-day average. |
| Price vs 200-day average | Trend | The same comparison with the 200-day average. |
| 50-day vs 200-day average | Trend | Whether the medium-term average is above (“golden”) or below (“death”) the long-term average. |
| 12-day momentum (ROC) | Trend | Percentage change in price over the last 12 trading days. |
3. How each indicator becomes buy, neutral or sell
Each indicator casts exactly one vote: Buy, Neutral or Sell.
Trend indicators
- MACD histogram: Buy when above zero and rising, Sell when below zero and falling, otherwise Neutral.
- Price vs 20-day and 50-day averages: Buy when more than 0.5% above the average, Sell when more than 0.5% below.
- Price vs 200-day average: Buy when more than 1% above, Sell when more than 1% below.
- 50-day vs 200-day average: Buy when the 50-day is above the 200-day, Sell when below.
- 12-day momentum: Buy above +3%, Sell below −3%.
Short-term indicators and the market regime
Oscillators such as RSI are often misleading in strong trends: a stock in a long uptrend can stay “overbought” for months. To reduce this problem, TickerLean first classifies the stock’s market regime:
- Uptrend: price and the 50-day average are both above the 200-day average.
- Downtrend: price and the 50-day average are both below the 200-day average.
- Sideways / mixed: anything else, or not enough history.
The oscillator thresholds then depend on the regime:
| Indicator | Sideways | Uptrend (dips count, overbought ignored) | Downtrend (rallies count, oversold ignored) |
|---|---|---|---|
| RSI | Buy < 30 · Sell > 70 | Buy < 40 | Sell > 60 |
| Stochastic %K | Buy < 20 · Sell > 80 | Buy < 30 | Sell > 70 |
| CCI | Buy < −100 · Sell > 100 | Buy < −50 | Sell > 50 |
| Bollinger %B | Buy < 10% · Sell > 90% | Buy < 20% | Sell > 80% |
4. How the percentages are calculated
The Buy % is the number of Buy votes divided by the number of indicators that could be calculated (normally 10), and likewise for Neutral and Sell. If a stock has less than about 200 trading days of history, the 200-day indicators are missing and the page says so. The headline “6 of 10 indicators lean Buy” is a simple count.
Important: these percentages measure agreement between indicators. They are not the probability that the price will go up or down.
5. The historical check
For stocks with enough history, TickerLean replays the same ten rules on every past trading day (starting after the first 200 days). It then looks at what happened to the price 20 trading days later and compares three groups of days: days that looked buy-leaning (net score of +20 or more), days that looked sell-leaning (−20 or less) and all days.
- A useful buy signal should have been followed by a higher price more often than “all days”.
- A useful sell signal should have been followed by a higher price less often than “all days”.
The page then summarises this as “beat the average on this stock” or “no clear edge on this stock”. When today’s reading is mixed, or too few similar days exist, no verdict is given.
6. Limitations you should know about
- Technical indicators use only past prices. They know nothing about earnings, news, regulation or the economy.
- Indicators lag. By the time several of them agree, much of a move may already have happened.
- Past results do not predict future returns. Overlapping days in the historical check are not independent, so the statistics look more precise than they really are.
- Data can be delayed, adjusted for splits or dividends differently across sources, or contain errors.
- Thinly traded or newly listed securities give unreliable readings.
Please also read the Investment Disclaimer. If you find a calculation that looks wrong, tell us at thevanhalen@gmail.com.