What each indicator measures — and when it lies.
10 indicators, one guide each. Every guide gives the formula in words with the arithmetic actually done, the specific way the indicator misleads, the four things it cannot tell you, and what the peer-reviewed evidence says — with the papers linked. None of them promises a prediction, because none of the indicators makes one: they are all built from prices that have already happened.
The guides marked live are the ones our hourly technical readings are built from; each vote on those pages links back to the guide that explains it.
01 · 8 minute readlive
RSI: What It Measures and When It Lies
Recent gains against recent losses, 0 to 100. Lies in trends.
02 · 8 minute readlive
MACD: What It Measures and When It Lies
The gap between two EMAs, smoothed once more. Lies in ranges.
03 · 8 minute readlive
Simple vs Exponential Moving Averages: What They Measure and When They Lie
Equal weights or recent-heavy weights; both lag by construction.
04 · 8 minute read
Bollinger Bands: What They Measure and When They Lie
An average with two standard deviations either side. A touch is a location, not a direction.
05 · 7 minute readlive
Stochastic Oscillator: What It Measures and When It Lies
Where the close sits in its recent range. Stays "overbought" as long as the trend does.
06 · 8 minute read
ATR and Volatility Stops: What They Measure and When They Lie
The size of a typical bar, gaps included. A ruler for stops, not a signal.
07 · 7 minute readlive
Pivot Points: What They Measure and When They Lie
Seven levels from yesterday’s high, low and close. Depend entirely on what "yesterday" means.
08 · 8 minute read
Volume and On-Balance Volume: What They Measure and When They Lie
Activity, not direction — and on a CFD chart, ticks, not money.
09 · 9 minute read
Ichimoku Cloud: What It Measures and When It Lies
Five range midpoints, two of them drawn 26 bars ahead. The forward cloud is not a forecast.
10 · 8 minute read
Fibonacci Retracements: What They Measure and When They Lie
Fixed fractions of a swing you chose. The anchors are the whole problem.
See them on a live chart
The technical signals pages show RSI, MACD, three moving averages, the stochastic and the day’s pivots on every market we quote, recalculated hourly, with each vote explained in a sentence. Reading a guide and then the live number is the quickest way to see how often “overbought” and “still rising” coincide.
Educational content. Indicators describe past prices and can be wrong; nothing here is investment advice or a recommendation to trade. Trading leveraged products involves significant risk of loss.