About Indicators

Indicator studies assist in forecasting a market's direction and assist traders in making decisions related to entering, exiting, and/or staying in or out of the market. When applied to charts, indicators graphically represent mathematical formulas used to analyze market conditions, such as trends, trend reversals, and volatility by analyzing your data on a bar-by-bar basis. When inserted in a grid, indicators display the results of mathematical formulas as a value in a cell.

The difference between an indicator applied to a chart and an indicator applied to a grid is in the display. Indicators applied to charts display their values graphically as a line, histogram, or series of points on the chart, either over the charted price data or in a separate subgraph. Indicators applied to grids display their values as numbers in a cell. When an indicator is in the same subgraph as the price data, the current values (for the last bar on the chart) are shown in the chart status line. Indicators plotted in separate subgraphs have their own status line, which shows the indicator's input values and the current values (for the last bar on the chart).

You can include an indicator within another study such as a strategy or you can apply an indicator directly to a chart or grid. You can even set audible and/or visual alerts for indicators to notify you when the market meets the conditions specified by your indicator. Information on the triggered alert is posted to the Message Center for your review. To enable alerts, see Enabling and Disabling Alerts for a Study. For information on the Message Center, see About the TradeStation Message Center.

TradeStation contains over 120 technical indicators. You can apply these indicators to your charts and/or grids as they are defined, or you can change them to suit your own trading preferences and/or objectives. For information on technical analysis, see What is Data Analysis?.

Indicators include technical data (price data, volume, momentum, and so on) in their analysis. For a list and description of all indicators included with TradeStation, refer to the Indicator Library.

See Indicator Study Library for detailed descriptions and illustrations of each Indicator study.

About Indicators

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