MA Cross Indicator on a Live Gold Chart

What it shows

Two lines over the candles, the short and the long simple average. A small mark sits on the short line at each crossing candle. The mark does not say which way the cross went, but the order of the two lines does.

How Pravex works it out

1. The fast line is the plain average of the last 9 closes, and the slow line the plain average of the last 21.
2. On every candle, check whether the short average is above the long one, and do the same check on the candle before.
3. If the answer changed, the lines crossed on this candle and a mark is drawn at the short average. Candles where either average is not available yet are skipped, and equal values count as not above.

Settings

Setting	Default	What changing it does
Fast line length	9	How many closes the fast line averages. A shorter length hugs price and crosses more often.
Slow line length	21	How many closes the slow line averages. A longer length is steadier and produces fewer crosses. Nothing stops you putting it below the short length; the marks still appear on every swap.

How traders read it

The standard reading is that a cross up shows momentum turning higher and a cross down shows it turning lower. The marks make those candles easy to find on a long chart, which is also useful for reviewing: scroll back and see what price did after each one.

A cross on its own is a thin reason to act; a close beyond both lines or a higher timeframe pointing the same way adds weight. A cross happens after the move has started, so it is a confirmation, not an early warning.

When it misleads

Crosses are late by construction, since both lines are averages of old closes. In a sideways stretch of gold the two lines wrap around each other and give a string of crosses that go nowhere, and each one looks as important as a real turn. Fast pairs on short timeframes make this worse. The 9 and 21 defaults are a habit; there is nothing special about those numbers.

Questions and answers

What is a moving average crossover?

It is the candle where a quicker average moves from below a slower one to above it, or the other way round. Here both are simple averages of the close.

Is a 50 and 200 cross the golden cross?

Yes, that name is for the 50 crossing above the 200 on daily candles, and the death cross is the reverse. Set the two lengths to 50 and 200 here to see them. They come rarely and well after the turn began.

How do I tell a cross up from a cross down?

Look at the two lines after the mark. If the short line is above the long one, the cross was upward; if it is below, downward. The mark itself has no direction.

Why did a cross mark vanish from the last candle?

The candle was still open. Its close kept moving, so the fast average dipped back under the slow one before the candle ended. Marks on closed candles stay put.

Related: Simple Moving Average, Moving Average Ribbon, Moving Average Exponential, Moving Average Convergence Divergence, every indicator.