Aroon Indicator

Aroon Indicator

A technical indicator developed by Tushar Chande used for identifying definable trends in an underlying security. It is made up of two lines: one line is called "Aroon up", which measures the strength of the uptrend, and the other line is called "Aroon down", which measures the downtrend. The indicator reports the time it is taking for the price to reach, from a starting point, the highest and lowest points over a given time period, each reported as a percentage of total time. Both the Aroon up and the Aroon down fluctuate between zero and 100, with values close to 100 indicating a strong trend, and zero indicating a weak trend. The lower the Aroon up, the weaker the uptrend and the stronger the downtrend, and vice versa. The main assumption underlying this indicator is that a stock's price will close at record highs in an uptrend, and record lows in a downtrend.

Notes:

For example, when a stock's closing price is equal to the highest price over the given period, the Aroon up will have a value of 100, which indicates that the time it has taken for the stock to reach its highest price has elapsed 100%, indicating a strong uptrend. In addition to extreme values, transaction decisions can be based on instances when the two lines cross. For example, when the Aroon up crosses up through the Aroon down, the stock is said to be in a new uptrend and should experience some upward momentum.

This indicator is very similar to the directional movement index (DMI) that was developed by Welles Wilder, which is also a very popular indicator used to measure the strength of a given trend.

See also: Crossover, Directional Movement Index, Indicator, Technical Analysis, Trend