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Tenkan-sen

The Ichimoku fast line, the midpoint of the highest high and lowest low over the last nine periods.

Unlike a moving average, the tenkan-sen uses only the extremes of the window, so it goes completely flat whenever the high and low of the last nine bars are unchanged. Those flat stretches are themselves informative: they mark balance.

It is the fastest line in ichimoku-kinko-hyo and is used as a short-term trend gauge and as a dynamic level in fast moves. Its crossing of the kijun-sen is the system's basic momentum signal.

Because it ignores everything between the extremes, a single spike moves it sharply and then it sticks. That behaviour is different from a moving average and catches out traders who assume it behaves like one.

Related: ichimoku-kinko-hyo, kijun-sen, kumo-cloud, moving-average, senkou-span

See it drawn

Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.

A fast and a slow moving average crossingA jagged price line with two smoother average lines through it; the fast average dips below the slow one on the left and cuts back above it in the middle, where a circle marks the crossing.pricefast averageslow averagefast crosses belowfast crosses abovethe slow averageAverages of recent closes; the fast one reacts sooner than the slow one.
Fast and slow moving averages crossing. A moving average is the average of the last few closing prices, redrawn each period. An average over fewer periods turns sooner than one over many, so the two lines cross whenever the recent pace of the market changes.

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