The rules
- MACD line: the 12-day EMA minus the 26-day EMA of the close. Signal: a 9-day EMA of the MACD line. Histogram: MACD minus signal.
- All three are shown as a percentage of the price, so a $5 coin and a $500 stock compare fairly.
- Signal cross: MACD crossing its signal line in the last 5 daily closes (the presets use the last 3). Zero cross: MACD crossing zero in the last 5.
- Histogram turning up: the histogram is below zero but higher than yesterday, after falling the day before (and the reverse for turning down).
A bullish cross below zero is an early, riskier signal; a cross above zero, or MACD crossing zero, confirms a trend that’s already under way. Combine it with the 200-day column to trade with the bigger trend.
Calculated in your browser from daily candles. Not investment advice.
Frequently asked questions
What is a MACD crossover?
It’s when the MACD line crosses its signal line. Crossing up is read as bullish momentum, crossing down as bearish. Because both lines are moving averages, the signal lags the price, so many traders filter crosses by trend.
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.