The raw ADX before smoothing.
The short answer
- What is the Directional Movement Index (DX)?
- Trend indicator: the relative difference between +DI and −DI.
- When does DX get it wrong?
- Very choppy. ADX is better for reading. Its current reading on the platform's symbols, at the latest daily close, is in the "Current reading" table on this page. See its current reading →
Reading now
| Ticker | Value | Five sessions ago | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| SPY | 3.84 | 17.49 | No clear trend (below 20) |
| QQQ | 8.77 | 30.52 | No clear trend (below 20) |
| IWM | 43.32 | 34.94 | Strong trend (above 25) |
| DIA | 2.94 | 21.25 | No clear trend (below 20) |
A description of where the number sits against its thresholds. It is not an entry or exit signal.
Indicator limit
Very noisy · ADX is easier to read.
Read it with
Moving average convergence divergence: when it rises with MACD above zero, the trend is strongly up. Below zero, it is down.
Answers: does the market have a trend?
What it actually does
The Directional Movement Index measures how clean a trend is at a given moment: the absolute difference between the positive and negative directional indicators, divided by their sum and multiplied by 100. A pure trend (all movement in one direction) reads near 100, and a perfect balance reads zero.
Its place: second to last step
It is the raw value that, once smoothed, becomes the well-known trend strength indicator. Its daily reading swings violently (one clean-trend session lifts it to 80, and a balanced session drops it to 10), and smoothing turns that turbulence into a readable line.
When to read it raw
When you want to catch a turn the moment it happens rather than after smoothing. Its sudden jump moves sessions ahead of the smoothed version, so some researchers use it as an early warning, at the price of high noise and a need for confirmation from other tools.
Hypothetical example
A market that has been flat for days gets two clean trend sessions in a row. The raw value jumps from the 20s to above 70 at once, while the smoothed version needs a week to reflect the shift. Whoever read the raw value knew early. Whoever relied on it alone got many false alarms at other times.
Where it errs and why
Its daily swings make a single reading nearly meaningless. Like trend strength, it carries no direction: it says "clean" but not "up or down."
Read it with
It is not read alone. The environment is classified with the trend strength indicator, confirmed with volume, and placed on the structural levels from the gamma map, since a signal at a dense wall carries more weight than one in open space.
Where to see it on the platform
The technical chart in the members area shows it in its full family on any symbol and timeframe you choose.
Its window and smoothing
It inherits the window of its two components (fourteen bars). The gap between it and its smoothed version is the trade-off between speed and confidence: whoever needs an early warning reads it raw and accepts its false alarms, and whoever needs a verdict to build on waits for the smoothed one. Some systems read both: raw for readiness, smoothed for execution. That combines the speed and the confidence instead of choosing between them.
