The rules
- Channel: the highest high and lowest low of the 20 (or 55) daily candles before today. Today is left out, so a close beyond the channel is a new 20- or 55-day extreme.
- Breakout: a close above the upper line after a close that was not, in the last 3 days. Breakdown: the same below the lower line.
- Range position: where the close sits in the 20-day channel, 0% at the low and 100% at the high. To 20-day high: how far that high is from the close.
About this setup
- What it is
- A Donchian channel is the highest high and lowest low of a set number of past days. A close above the upper line means price closed higher than any price in that window.
- How traders use it
- Channel breakouts are the entry signal of classic trend-following systems such as the turtle rules, which used 20- and 55-day breakouts and shorter channels for exits. Traders often take only breakouts in the direction of the longer trend and size positions by ATR.
- Caveats
- In sideways markets most breakouts fail and reverse. Trend-following systems usually lose on many small trades and depend on a few long trends. By the time a breakout shows here, price can already be well past the breakout level.
Calculated in your browser from daily candles; crypto’s daily candle is still forming until 00:00 UTC, so today’s values can change. Not investment advice.
Frequently asked questions
Which markets can it scan?
Four, picked with the Market buttons above the table. Crypto (the default) scans the 250 busiest USDT pairs on Binance. Crypto perps scans the 200 busiest USDT perpetual futures on OKX. Both are free public data and need no key. US stocks scans about 600 US stocks and ETFs with your own free Alpaca key, and CME futures scans about 25 front-month CME Group contracts (stock indexes, Treasuries, oil, gas, metals, grains, livestock, currencies and CME bitcoin) with your own free Massive key.
Why do stocks and futures need a key?
Stock and futures prices are licensed data, so a website can’t hand them out for free. Alpaca (for stocks) and Massive (for futures) give anyone a free data key. Your key is saved only in your browser and sent only to that provider. See how to get a free Alpaca key and how to get a free Massive key for futures.
Is the data real-time?
Crypto and crypto perps are live from Binance and OKX, on daily candles that start at 00:00 UTC (today’s candle is still forming). Alpaca’s free stock data is 15 minutes behind the market, and Massive’s free futures plan is 8 hours delayed. Turn on auto-refresh next to the results to update the table in place every 30 seconds, minute or 5 minutes.