trend
essential
Moving Average (MA)
The average price over a defined number of past sessions — a smoothed view of trend.
A moving average is the average of a stock's closing price over a defined lookback window. It smooths out daily noise and reveals the underlying trend direction.
Common windows:
- 20-day MA — short-term trend; used by swing traders for pullback entries.
- 50-day MA — intermediate-term trend; popular as a "support line" in uptrends.
- 150-day MA — long-term trend (about 7 months).
- 200-day MA — institutional baseline; price above/below is a major regime signal.
The MA stack
A healthy Stage-2 uptrend has the moving averages "stacked" bullishly: price > 20MA > 50MA > 150MA > 200MA, with all of them rising. Swing Edge uses this MA-stack rule as a hard prerequisite for many of its bullish scoring components.