What is Advance/Decline?
Advance/Decline counts the bars in the window that closed above their open and the bars that closed below their open, and divides the first count by the second. A dashed line at 1 marks parity, as many up bars as down bars. A bar that closes exactly at its open is counted as neither. The name comes from market breadth, where advancing and declining stocks across a whole exchange are compared; this version applies the same idea to the bars of a single market.
It measures how often bars closed up rather than down. It says nothing about the rest of the market, nothing about how large the moves were, and it does not predict the next bar.
How to use Advance/Decline
- Above or below 1. Above 1, more bars in the window closed up than down. Below 1, more closed down.
- The size of the reading. A reading of 2 means twice as many up bars as down bars. Readings below 1 are squeezed between 0 and 1, so the scale is not symmetrical around parity.
- A window with no down bars. The ratio would divide by zero, so the line shows the number of up bars instead, which is the value it climbs towards anyway.
- Persistence, not size. Ten small up bars and ten large ones give the same reading, so pair it with something that measures how far price moved.
These are ways to read the line, not entry signals on their own.
Settings
| Setting | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 10 | Bars in the counting window. Shorter reacts faster and jumps around more; longer is steadier. Minimum 1. |
Adjust the window length in the indicator settings. The comparison of close against open is fixed.
Calculation
Each bar is marked as an advance, a decline or neither, and the two counts over the window are divided:
advance = close > open
decline = close < open
advances = number of advances in the last 10 bars
declines = number of declines in the last 10 bars
A/D = advances / declines (advances if declines = 0)Both tests are strict, so a doji, a bar that closes exactly at its open, is left out of both counts and the ratio is taken over fewer bars. That is the one difference from Advance/Decline Ratio (Bars), which counts a doji as an up bar. On markets that print dojis, the two lines disagree because of it.
The first full reading appears once the window holds 10 bars. With no down bars in the window, the advance count is plotted in place of the ratio.
Limitations
- It is not market breadth. It only looks at the bars of the market on the chart, not at how other coins are moving.
- It ignores the size of moves. A window of small up bars and one large down bar can still read well above 1 while price has fallen.
- The scale is lopsided. Readings above 1 can grow large while readings below 1 are compressed towards 0, and the line jumps to the up-bar count when there are no down bars.
- The live candle moves. The current bar can switch between up, down and doji until it closes, changing the reading.
- It is not a strategy. On its own it carries no risk management, sizing or exit.
Frequently asked questions
In Altrady Charts it is a single-market version of the breadth idea. It counts the bars in a window that closed above their open, counts the ones that closed below, and divides the first by the second. A dashed line at 1 marks an equal number of each.
Above 1, up bars have outnumbered down bars over the window; below 1, the reverse. Because it counts bars rather than measuring them, it shows how persistent buying or selling has been, not how strong. Use it alongside price or an indicator that measures the size of moves.
Both divide up bars by down bars over a window. Advance/Decline counts a bar that closes exactly at its open as neither and uses a default window of 10. Advance/Decline Ratio (Bars) counts that bar as an up bar and uses a default window of 9.
Yes. The indicator declares one input: Length, default 10 with a minimum of 1. Open the indicator's settings on the chart to change it.
No. Each value depends only on the bars inside its window, and closed bars do not change. The current candle's value moves while that candle is live and settles when it closes.
Use the Add to chart button at the top of this page. It opens BTC/USDT on Binance in the Altrady Charts terminal with the built-in Advance/Decline already applied. On any other market, open the indicator picker on the chart and choose Advance/Decline from the Momentum group.