Moving Average

A moving average is the average price of a stock over a set number of recent days, recalculated daily as new prices come in. Think of it as a smoothed-out trend line that filters out daily noise to show you the bigger picture. You'll see moving averages everywhere in stock charts because they help traders spot whether a stock is trending up or down. For example, if TechCorp's 50-day moving average is $85 and the stock jumps to $92 today, that single jump doesn't drastically change the average—but it shows momentum. The longer your time window (like 200 days versus 20 days), the smoother the line and the longer-term the trend it reveals.