Volatility: Calm, Normal or High
Volatility is how large a pair's daily moves are. Cryptokly ranks today's ATR(14) against the pair's own last 90 days and answers with one word: Calm, Normal or High.
What it is
Volatility is the size of a pair's moves. A pair that moves a little each day is quiet, and a pair that swings widely is active. It says nothing about direction: a market can be highly volatile while rising or while falling.
The ATR lesson explains the measurement behind it. This lesson covers the word that Cryptokly builds from that measurement and shows on the live page.
How we compute it
The engine takes the closed 1D candles and divides ATR(14) by the close, which expresses the average candle size as a share of price. Dividing by price lets a small coin and a large coin sit on the same scale.
Today's value is then ranked against the pair's last 90 daily values. At or below the 25th percentile the word is Calm. Above the 75th percentile it is High. Anything in between is Normal. With fewer than 90 days of history the engine uses the days available, and with fewer than 30 closed daily candles it shows "History too short" in place of a word. The word is available for crypto pairs. Tokenized stocks do not show it.
Live example
How to read it
The word compares a pair with itself. Calm means the lowest quarter of the pair's own recent readings, High means the highest quarter, and Normal means the middle half. Calm is shown in green, Normal in amber and High in red.
Read the word beside the trend. A High reading with a Down trend and a High reading with an Up trend are both active markets, and they differ in direction only. A Calm reading says that recent daily candles have been small compared with the pair's own history.
Volatility also relates to zone width. A zone is at most one ATR wide, so in active periods the same zone can cover a wider range of prices.
Common mistakes
- Reading High as a direction. High volatility appears in rising and falling markets alike.
- Comparing words between pairs as if they were sizes. A Calm large coin and a Calm small coin can move very different amounts in price terms.
- Treating Calm as safety. Calm periods end, crypto trading carries a real risk of losing money, up to the whole amount invested, and nothing here is financial advice.
- Using one day as a verdict. The word is a ranking of a 14-candle average, so it changes gradually.
Questions
Why is it ranked against the pair's own history?
Each coin has its own normal range. Ranking a pair against itself shows whether today is quiet or active for that pair.
Why does the word use the 1D chart?
Daily candles give a stable, widely shared view of how active a pair has been. The other charts keep their own ATR(14) for zone width.
What does "History too short" mean?
The pair has fewer than 30 closed daily candles, which is too little to rank. The page shows that note in place of a guess.