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Short side scan · tested as a short trade

Death Cross Screener

A death cross happens when a stock's 50-day simple moving average crosses below its 200-day simple moving average. This scan finds stocks where that happened on the latest trading day.

Run this scan in the live demoFree, no sign-up. The demo uses made-up sample data.

The exact rule

Type this in Chalni: death cross

  1. SMA(50) crossed below SMA(200)

Find US stocks where the 50-day simple moving average crossed below the 200-day simple moving average today.

Formula view
# tested as a short trade (profit when price falls)
crosses_below(sma(close, 50), sma(close, 200))
Example chart: Death crossDaily candles of a made-up sample stock with 50-day SMA; 200-day SMA. The shaded day is the day the scan fired.
  • 50-day SMA
  • 200-day SMA
  • Shaded day: the scan fired
Example from Chalni's made-up sample market, not a real stock. It shows the most recent time this scan fired in the sample US market, picked whether or not the trade worked.

What it means

The death cross is the opposite of the golden cross. It shows that the medium-term trend has fallen below the long-term trend, which many traders read as a shift to a downtrend.

Chalni tests this scan as a short trade, which makes money if the price falls. Like the golden cross, it is a late signal: much of the decline has often happened already.

How traders use it

  • Long-term investors use it as a warning to review a position.
  • Short sellers combine it with weak relative strength and broken support.
  • Some traders wait for a bounce toward the 50-day average before shorting.

Watch out for

  • Death crosses often appear near market lows, just before a rebound.
  • Short selling has extra risks: losses can be bigger than the money you put in.

Test it before you trust it

Every scan in Chalni sits an exam. First it runs on older data, the practice: each time it picks a stock, the stock is held for 10 trading days and 0.2% is paid in costs. Then it runs on newer data it has never seen, the exam. A scan that only works in practice has just memorised the past.

See the practice and exam results for this scan in the demo (on sample data; real data comes at launch).

Questions

Is a death cross bearish?

It is generally seen as bearish, but it is a lagging signal, and many death crosses are followed by recoveries, especially in strong markets.

What happens after a death cross?

Sometimes a longer decline follows; often the market has already done most of its falling. Results vary, so test before acting.

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