Advances Vs Declines

In technical analysis, Advances and Declines refer to the number of stocks that have increased or decreased in price on a given day or over a certain period of time.

Advances refer to the number of stocks that have closed higher than their previous closing price. This is considered to be a bullish sign, indicating that more stocks are rising in value than falling. A high number of advances can indicate that the market is in an uptrend and that investors are optimistic about the future prospects of the stocks.

Declines refer to the number of stocks that have closed lower than their previous closing price. This is considered to be a bearish sign, indicating that more stocks are falling in value than rising. A high number of declines can indicate that the market is in a downtrend and that investors are pessimistic about the future prospects of the stocks.

How is advance-decline ratio calculated?

The Advance-Decline (A/D) ratio is calculated by dividing the number of advancing stocks by the number of declining stocks.

The formula for the A/D ratio is as follows:

A/D ratio = Advancing Stocks / Declining Stocks

Where,

Advancing Stocks is the number of stocks that closed higher than their previous closing price
Declining Stocks is the number of stocks that closed lower than their previous closing price

The ratio is typically used to help identify market trends, a ratio greater than 1 would mean that the number of advancing stocks is greater than the number of declining stocks, indicating a bullish trend. Conversely, a ratio less than 1 would mean that the number of declining stocks is greater than the number of advancing stocks, indicating a bearish trend.