The rules
- EMA: exponential moving average of the daily close, seeded with a simple average of the first bars.
- 9/21 cross: the 9 EMA crossing the 21 EMA in the last 5 daily closes. 20/50 cross: the 20 EMA crossing the 50 EMA in the last 5 closes.
- Price vs 21 EMA: the close crossing the 21 EMA in the last 3 closes.
- EMA ribbon: the 8, 13, 21, 34 and 55 EMAs stacked in order, fastest on top (bullish) or at the bottom (bearish). The number shows how many days the ribbon has stayed stacked. The pullback preset keeps bullish ribbons with the close within 1.5% of the 21 EMA.
EMAs react faster than simple moving averages, so their crosses come earlier and more often. In a sideways market they whipsaw; a stacked ribbon is one way to keep only markets that are trending.
About this setup
- What it is
- Crosses between exponential moving averages (9/21 and 20/50), price against the 21 EMA, and the 8 to 55 EMA ribbon.
- How traders use it
- Short-term traders use the 9/21 cross and the 21 EMA for timing, and a stacked ribbon as a sign of a clean trend to buy pullbacks in.
- Caveats
- EMAs react faster than simple averages, so their crosses come earlier but more often, and they whipsaw in sideways markets.
Calculated in your browser from daily candles. Not investment advice.
Frequently asked questions
Why 9 and 21?
The 9/21 EMA pair is one of the most common short-term trend settings, and the 20/50 pair a common medium-term one. For the classic 50/200 golden and death crosses on simple averages, use the moving average crossover screener.
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.