Highest High Value

What is the Highest High Value Overlay?

The Highest High Value overlay plots the highest price reached in a specific lookback period. Previous highs can act as a natural resistance line, and chartists may use them to set stops.

Calculating the Highest High Value

The calculation is extremely simple. For each data point, find the highest high achieved during the specified number of lookback periods.

Note: As the name implies, the Highest High Value overlay uses the highest intraday high value, rather than the highest closing value.

The default lookback period for this overlay is set to 14 periods, but this can be adjusted for your preferred investing timeframe. To use the 52-week high, choose 52 periods on a weekly chart or 252 periods on a daily chart.

Interpreting the Highest High Value

If the security continues to make new highs, the Highest High Value line will continue moving upward as new highs are set. If the security is no longer making new highs, the line flattens out and starts turning lower as older highs are dropped from the calculation. Once prices rebound, they will move towards the Highest High Value line once again.

Previous highs often act as a natural resistance line. There must be significant positive momentum for price to push above a previous high. The longer the lookback period, the more resistance there will be to surpassing that long-term high.

In the chart above, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is setting new highs in mid-November, pushing the HHV line higher. Price pulled back in late November and the HHV line flattened out, with no new highs being made. Price briefly touched the HHV line again in early December, before prices fell for the rest of December. The HHV line dropped so low by early January that a slight rebound in prices resulted in new highs.

Because the highest high is by definition an extreme price level, the Highest High Value is often used to identify exit points and set stops. If price is approaching or surpassing the HHV line, use other indicators to determine the strength of the move. If it's weak, this could indicate a coming downturn and a good time to exit a long position.

In the example above, a stop set just below the HHV might have resulted in exiting the position in early December, before the month-long drop in price.

The Bottom Line

The Highest High Value often acts as potential resistance line, so it can be a useful tool for identifying potential downturns and setting stops. Not all resistance lines hold, though, so it is important to use other indicators and analysis techniques along with the Highest High Value to assess the strength of the move.

Charting the Highest High Value

Using with StockChartsACP

This overlay can be added from the Chart Settings panel for your StockChartsACP chart. Chartists often plot both the Highest High Value and the Lowest Low Value on the same chart, as shown below. Taken together, these can act like support and resistance bands encompassing the recent trading range.

Click here for a live version of this chart.

By default, this overlay looks for the highest high across the last 14 periods, but this parameter can be adjusted to meet your technical analysis needs.