Tells Me: The price is generally in an established trend (bullish or bearish) for the time horizon represented by the moving average period (21, 50 or 200 bars). Moving averages are used to smooth out the volatility or "noise" in the price series, to make it easier to discover the underlying trend. By plotting the average price over the last several bars, the line is less "jerky" than plotting the actual prices. A bullish event is generated when the price crosses above the moving average, and in this state, the price is likely in an established uptrend. The opposite is true when the price crosses below the moving average, triggered a bearish event.

Tells Me: For bullish events, upward momentum has just built up with the latest price now trading higher than the price 10 bars ago. The opposite is true for bearish events where we're seeing downward momentum now that the price is trading lower than 10 bars ago. Momentum measures the velocity of price changes. For a 10-bar momentum, we take the difference between the last bar's close and the close 10 bars ago and we plot this as a line fluctuating above and below 0 which can be used as buy and sell signals when in agreement with prevailing trend analysis. Momentum is significant because it signals the strength of price trends. A healthy price trend tends to exhibit strong momentum, while weakening trends often have decreasing momentum indicating a trend reversal or correction.