By Adam Koós, CMT, CFP®, CEPA

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Chart Advisor for December 12^th 2025

It’s the 5^th and final day of “Chartmas” – at least for me and Investopedia’s Chart Advisor this week – so I wanted to wrap up by sharing a few, good, simple ways to stay on the right side of the trend. 

This is going to be novice initially, but my hope is to turn it into “child’s play” for all of you who are reading, so we’re starting with defining that a moving average is the average movement of an investment over a pre-determined period of time that you choose.

Moving averages can also be plotted on daily charts, weekly charts, monthly charts – and you can even drill down to 30-minute charts or an even faster timeframe.

In the chart below, I’m using three different moving averages to show you three different timeframes, and to save my fingers, we’re abbreviating “moving average” to simply “MA.”

• 21-day MA (black dotted line)
• 50-day MA (blue solid line)
• 200-day MA (blue shaded area)

I purposely took this chart back to 2021 so that you could see how the trend changes for each moving average, and how the three MAs can act almost like a ribbon, crossing one another as each timeframe breaks down with the market.

If it’s not obvious already, a 21MA is one month, and it’s a pretty fast-moving trendline.  So if you used it as your line-in-the-sand for being in or out of an investment, you would probably get whipped around quite a bit.  The 50MA is right in the middle, it’s slower than the 21MA, but obviously, not as slow-moving as the 200MA, which allows you to stay invested longer, on an intermediate timeframe, allowing the position to move and “breathe” a bit vs. all the whipsaws created by faster-moving MAs.

Another simple way to skin this cat is by switching up the charts from a daily to weekly timeframe.

Below is a weekly chart that looks very similar to the one above.  The only difference is the fact that each candlestick represents one week below, while each represents one day, above.

Furthermore, the moving averages used below look similar, but they’re different because we’re analyzing a weekly chart. 

Instead of a 200-day moving average, the shaded area below is a 40-week MA (which is mathematically identical to a 200-day, since 40*5 = 200).  Same goes for the 10-week MA below, which is the same as the 50-day MA (10*5 = 50).

So, instead of observing the market and making decisions daily, you’re slowing down the timeframe by the type of chart you use as well, analyzing the investment in question on a weekly basis (typically at the end of the week or the start of a new week).

If you really slow things down, you can use a monthly moving average, where every candlestick on the chart represents one month. 

In the chart below, I went all the way back to 1995 and added a 10-month MA, which is mathematically very similar to the 200-day MA (10*21 = 210 days). 

In this case, below, you’re giving the investment in question a LOT of room to move and breath, all while ignoring the “noise” that takes place throughout the month, waiting till the end (or beginning) of the month to perform your analysis and place trades.

Notice, by the way, how such a simple concept could keep you out of big trouble when times get really tough and the sky starts to fall – like in 2000-02 or 2007-09.

Last, but not least, I wanted to hit <rewind> and head back to the weekly chart (two charts above), but this time, I’ve zoomed in on one of those two catastrophic time periods in the market that I just mentioned a moment ago… 2007-09.

There are a lot of talking heads predicting a market top and huge, subsequent crash, so I want to show you one simple way to protect yourself from such an event, whether it arrives in 2026… or if the bulls take us to new heights for the next five years. 

In the chart below, you can see the 10-week MA (blue line) and the 40-week MA (blue shaded area).  While the 10-week is a faster, more nimble MA, I wanted to make sure I plotted it so that you could see how much it moves.  Technicians who implement the use of the 10wMA use other tools as well – or said another way, no portfolio manager uses just one indicator or tool to manage money, but I digress.

If you now focus on the 40-week MA (again, the shaded blue area), I like to say that, whenever the investment in questions is below the 40-week, it’s analogous to being “under water.”  …and any investment can spend some time under water, but if it doesn’t come up for air – and stay above water after too long, the investment might as well be drowning.

So again, whether you created a buy list of stocks using relative strength filters or threw darts at a list of stocks on the wall, if you merely focus on analyzing (let alone buying or owning) stocks that are trading above the 40-week MA, you can keep yourself out of a lot of trouble.

The great news is, it doesn’t matter what the market is doing, what it did, or what it might do when you’re implementing risk management as part of your overall retirement planning strategy. 

So rather than focusing on the news and worrying about what some guy in a suit is trying to predict, instead, just focus on price, trend, and momentum – and you’ll not only be a whole lot better off in your retirement portfolio, but you’ll be a whole lot less stressed too!

If you have any questions at all, feel free to email me personally, below. 

Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed this abbreviated “5 Days of Chartmas” …thank you, as always, for taking the time to read, and I wish you all a relaxing holiday season!

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Shared content and posted charts are intended to be used for informational and educational purposes only. CMT Association does not offer, and this information shall not be understood or construed as, financial advice or investment recommendations. The information provided is not a substitute for advice from an investment professional. CMT Association does not accept liability for any financial loss or damage our audience may incur.

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