What Is RSI and How Do You Apply It to Crypto Trading?

A trendline is a straight line that is touched 2 times or more. When the RSI breaks a certain trendline, we call it an RSI indicator breakout. The example below shows how the RSI broke out of a downtrend, retested the trendline, and then made an upwards continuation. When the price is trending, which means it is creating new highs or new lows, the RSI is less reliable. Because, when the market is making new highs, we cannot predict with the RSI where it will stop. And likewise, when the market is making new lows, we cannot predict how low the market will eventually go. When looking at the RSI indicator, you can see a bar or a band, indicating the zone between values 30 and 70.

• That in mind, we can look for potential bounces by focusing on what I would term as the “True RSI” level of the market.
• When the RSI breaks the 60 level from top to bottom, place a Sell Stop pending order 15 pips below the candlestick where the cross happened.
• Signals can also be generated by looking for divergences, failure swings and centerline crossovers.
• Traders should also be aware of the convergence and divergence of the RSI indicator.
• A bearish divergence occurs when the RSI creates an overbought reading followed by a lower high that appears with higher highs on the price.

True reversal signals are rare and can be difficult to separate from false alarms. A false positive, for example, would be a bullish crossover followed by a sudden decline in a stock. A false negative would be a situation where there is a bearish crossover, yet the stock suddenly accelerated upward. A bearish divergence occurs when the RSI creates an overbought reading followed by https://www.bigshotrading.info/ a lower high that appears with higher highs on the price. Divergence occurs when momentum is moving in one direction, but prices are moving in another. In this scenario, prices would continue to slide or rally, but the RSI would fail to confirm that momentum is increasing in the direction of the trend. Decelerating momentum could indicate that the trend is about to consolidate.

RSI goes down:

Ranging means that the price is going up and down in a certain zone, creating resistance above and support below. When price action is in a range, it is also said that the market is going sideways. There’s simply no significant moves upwards or downwards, no continuation. When a market is trending, the sentiment goes beyond indicators.

Therefore, traders should consider using the RSI indicator along with other indicators in order to avoid false signals. When a failure swing occurs, the RSI trend line will also break. For this reason, some traders choose to draw trend lines on the RSI oscillator to act as leading reversal indicators. Once selected, users can place the indicator above, below or behind the underlying price plot.

The best market for the RSI indicator

One would purchase Apple shares after the RSI crosses above the 30-trigger level, following an oversold reading. A sell signal is generated when the RSI declines from overbought territory below the 70-overbought trigger level. The RSI indicator generates a measurement between zero and 100.

The FlowBank trading platformconveniently allows you to set the overbought and oversold levels. The below chart shows the way the settings affect the trading signals that would have been taken from the RSI indicator. Bollinger Bands is a volatility indicator whose bands squeeze when there is low How to Use RSI Indicator volatility but diverge when there is high volatility. Periods of consolidation are usually followed by massive breakouts, which makes any Bollinger Bands squeeze a vital time to watch the markets. A breakout signal will be delivered when there is an RSI overbought or oversold failure swing.

RSI Line Calculation

Charles has taught at a number of institutions including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Societe Generale, and many more. Open an account to get started trading with the RSI indicator. You will automatically be granted access to a free demo account, where you can practise with virtual funds. Price has to be below the 20-SMA indicating a preceding downtrend.

• Other things you can do are just changing the colour, the line format, and placing additional levels.
• Shortly afterwards, the RSI line starts increasing, while the price action continues its downward movement.
• This technique is similar to applying a horizontal trend line to a price chart.
• Put a stop loss order beyond the top/bottom created at the moment of the reversal.
• The nature and extent of consumer protections may differ from those for firms based in the UK.
• Thus, finding the perfect period for your timeframe isn’t easy.

In both cases, RSI was accurate in identifying potential shifts in price momentum. This shows you that the price change is the foundation of the RSI indicator. RSI in effect measures how strong were the up movements vs the down movements in the period in question. The standard RSI period is 14 and we recommend you to keep the standard RSI settings. RSI settings for crypto are the same as for any other type of market.

Using the Relative Strength to Trade Divergences

The result of such calculations is displayed as a curve on a chart with a range of values ​​from 0 to 100%. Although the default settings for RSI is 14 periods, traders may choose to modify it in order to increase sensitivity or decrease sensitivity . Therefore, a 7-day RSI is more sensitive to price movements than one that considers 21 days.

• We also reference original research from other reputable publishers where appropriate.
• RSI settings for crypto are the same as for any other type of market.
• Welles Wilder and it is considered a leading technical indicator .
• Organizing these markets by performance will make it possible for you to find the most promising coins and tokens, and trade them.
• The important thing to note here is that the True RSI differs from market to market, symbol to symbol, and even time frame to time frame.

In this case, the RSI does not confirm the new high, indicating that price momentum has decreased. A bullish divergence occurs when the price makes a new low, but the RSI value does not. The RSI analyzes whether a crypto’s price is overbought or oversold by measuring the size of recent price moves, using a formula to calculate overbought and oversold positions. In the case of MACD, RSI can be corroborated when overbought conditions are paired with MACD’s identification of divergence from price. The alignment of these two indicators is a popular and effective tool for identifying a trade opportunity. The “swing” ends when the RSI breaks its recent low or high and continues to trend in the same direction. Those oversold conditions quickly swing up into overbought territory in September, after which the price drops and becomes range-bound in the immediate future.

A reading of 30 or below indicates an oversold condition. One could evaluate past overbought or oversold readings to see how long prices may remain overbought or oversold. These could also be used to determine how extreme the reading appears to have become. For example, Apple shares have been overbought six times in the past five years and oversold 13 times.

The distance traveled by the RSI is proportional to the magnitude of the move. The RSI provides signals that tell investors to buy when the security or currency is oversold and to sell when it is overbought.

Learn how the RSI is calculated and how this type of trading indicator​ can be used within the financial markets. Wilder thought that “failure swings” above 50 and below 50 on the RSI are strong indications of market reversals. For example, assume the RSI hits 76, pulls back to 72, then rises to 77. If it falls below 72, Wilder would consider this a “failure swing” above 70. Wilder posited that when price moves up very rapidly, at some point it is considered overbought. Likewise, when price falls very rapidly, at some point it is considered oversold.

This strategy can be very effective when the right inputs are used . You’ll often see in forums is to buy when RSI goes into oversold territory and sell when it goes into overbought territory . Some variations of the strategy involve waiting for the RSI line to cross back above 30 and to cross below 70 . You do not have to worry about calculating the RSI value of any crypto yourself; the indicator on exchange platforms does all the calculations for you.