Moving Average (200-Day MA) — Stock Market Glossary

Moving Average — 200-Day (MA200)

The 200-day moving average (MA200) is the average of a stock’s closing prices over the past 200 trading days — roughly 10 calendar months. It is one of the most widely watched technical indicators for identifying long-term trends.

Formula

MA200 = Sum of closing prices for the last 200 trading days ÷ 200

200 trading days ≈ 40 weeks ≈ 10 calendar months.

How Traders Use It

Situation	Interpretation
Price well above MA200	Strong long-term uptrend
Price near MA200	Potential support or resistance zone
Price below MA200	Long-term downtrend; bearish
Price crosses above MA200	Potentially significant reversal (bullish)
Price crosses below MA200	Potentially significant reversal (bearish)

The Death Cross and Golden Cross

Two of the most watched signals in technical analysis involve the 50-day MA and 200-day MA:

Golden Cross: MA50 crosses above MA200 → bullish long-term signal
Death Cross: MA50 crosses below MA200 → bearish long-term signal

These signals have mixed predictive value but are followed by millions of investors, making them partially self-fulfilling.

How It’s Used on This Site

The 200-day MA is a key filter in the 🔪 Falling Knife strategy, which targets stocks trading below their 200-day MA that are also oversold by RSI. The thesis: a stock that has fallen sharply relative to its long-term trend and is oversold may be due for a bounce.

The 200-day MA appears in the Market Data card on every individual ticker page, alongside the current price so you can quickly see if the stock is above or below its long-term trend.

Moving Average (50-Day) — Shorter-term trend indicator
RSI — Often combined with MA200 to identify oversold/downtrend stocks
Beta — High-beta stocks fluctuate further around their MAs
52-Week High/Low — Annual price extremes, context for MA position