What is the New Highs New Lows Indicator?
New highs/new lows describes the number of securities reaching an extreme over a specified lookback, usually 52 weeks. The count differs from daily advancing or declining issues: a stock can rise today without reaching a new high.
Three calculations with different meanings
- Net new highs = new highs − new lows for one day.
- Cumulative NHNL = the chosen starting value + the sum of each entered day's net count.
- Daily ratio = new highs ÷ new lows when lows are positive. The mean shown here averages only those finite ratios; it is not a ratio of summed counts.
Keep the input universe consistent
- Choose one exchange or security universe and one provider definition. Do not mix all issues with common stocks only, intraday counts with closing counts, or different adjustment conventions.
- Enter oldest-to-newest daily counts as non-negative whole numbers. Use a known cumulative starting value or zero. Missing data should be obtained or omitted deliberately, not entered as zero.
- Calculate and inspect each row. The summary describes only the last entered row's count balance; it does not test an index price trend.
- Use Copy result for your research notes. Record dates and the data source separately because this form labels rows by position, not trading date.
Work through a synthetic example
With a starting value of 50, counts of 100 highs/20 lows add 80 for a cumulative value of 130 and ratio 5. A following 10 highs/30 lows subtracts 20, leaving 110 and ratio 0.3333. The mean daily ratio is 2.6667; the final row still has more lows. The positive cumulative level does not override that final observation.
If both counts are zero, the net is zero but the ratio is undefined. If highs are positive and lows are zero, the ratio is infinite. Neither case enters the finite-ratio mean. A small denominator can make this mean very large without a broad increase in participation.
Interpretation limits
Compare breadth with a price series from the same universe and period if you want to investigate divergence. This page cannot do that comparison because it has no price input. No universal ratio threshold here establishes a buy signal, an overbought market or a coming reversal. The cumulative level depends on where you begin; changes in that level are the sum of net counts.
New Highs New Lows Calculator FAQ
- What does Net New Highs measure?
- It subtracts the count of new lows from new highs for the same market universe, trading day and lookback definition. Positive means more new highs; negative means more new lows. It does not measure all advancing or declining stocks.
- What happens when there are no new lows?
- When lows are zero and highs are positive, the ratio is displayed as infinity. When both counts are zero, 0/0 is undefined and displayed as N/A. The finite-ratio mean excludes both cases and shows how many rows were included.
- Is the average ratio the same as total highs divided by total lows?
- No. This calculator takes the arithmetic mean of daily ratios with a positive low count. For example, 100/10 and 10/10 have mean 5.5; 100/1 and 10/10 have mean 50.5, while their combined ratio is 10. Changing denominators changes the weighting.
- How does the cumulative starting value affect the result?
- The starting value shifts the cumulative line vertically. It does not change any day’s net count or the change across the entered period. The summary label uses only the last day’s counts, so changing the baseline cannot turn that label from more highs to more lows.
- Does this page fetch NYSE or Nasdaq data?
- No. Enter your own counts in oldest-to-newest order. Keep the exchange, eligible security types, session cutoff and 52-week high/low definition consistent. The example is synthetic and does not represent a dated market observation.
- Can a divergence predict a market reversal?
- A divergence is an observation to investigate, not proof of a coming top or bottom. This calculator accepts no price series and therefore cannot detect price/breadth divergences. It supplies arithmetic summaries for separate analysis.