How to read technical indicators on Korean stocks

A moving average is the average close of the last N trading days. Korean brokers' charts traditionally show the 5-, 20-, 60- and 120-day lines; the 200-day line is the one most watched internationally.

A golden cross is a shorter average rising through a longer one, a dead cross the opposite. In Korea the 5/20 and 20/60 crosses are quoted most often; internationally, the 50/200. 이격도 (disparity) shows how far the price is from its average, as a percentage.

Extreme readings can last in strong trends, so they show how fast prices moved rather than what comes next.

• RSI (14): 0–100; above 70 is often called overbought, below 30 oversold.
• Stochastic (14, 3, 3): where the close sits in the recent high–low range; %K crossing %D is a short-term momentum change.
• MACD (12, 26, 9): the gap between two exponential averages; crossing its signal line is read as momentum turning.

• Bollinger Bands (20, 2): a squeeze (very narrow bands) means unusually quiet trading.
• ATR (14): the stock's usual daily range, used to judge whether a move is large for that stock.
• ADX (14): trend strength; above 25 is usually called a strong trend.
• Ichimoku: price above the cloud is commonly read as an uptrend, below as a downtrend.

Volume shows how much conviction there was behind a move; on-balance volume (OBV) adds volume on up days and subtracts it on down days. Support and resistance are recent swing lows and highs where buying or selling showed up before.

Every trading day after the close, JONBUR works out these indicators for each stock with at least 120 days of prices, from prices adjusted for splits. Each technical event (a cross, a breakout, an RSI extreme) gets a notability score from 0 to 100: higher when several indicators agree, volume confirms, the move is large for that stock, it's the first such signal in months and the company is large and liquid; lower for small, noisy or repeated events. Only notable events are used for alerts.

The gauge counts how many indicator readings point up, sideways or down over the short and medium term. It is a summary of past prices, not advice.

Indicators lag prices and can give conflicting or false signals, especially for thinly traded stocks. Korean stocks can move up to 30% a day, and news or filings can move a stock regardless of its chart.