Screening stocks around the 200-day moving average
The 200-day moving average is the average of a stock's last 200 daily closing prices. It moves slowly by construction, which is the point: it summarizes roughly ten months of trading into one line, so the daily noise cancels out and the longer trend shows.
A 200-day moving average screener sorts a market by where prices sit relative to that line. Used as a filter, it tells you which trend regime each stock is in. Used as a forecast, it tells you nothing, and it is worth being precise about the difference.
What position relative to the line means
Above the line means the current price is higher than its own ten-month average, which is what a sustained uptrend looks like arithmetically. Below means the opposite. Neither position says what happens next; both describe what has already happened.
The line's other use is as a reference level. Many traders watch it, which makes behavior around it worth observing: whether a decline stops near the line, whether a rally fails there, whether a stock that broke below manages to climb back.
Screen variants that ask sharper questions
A bare above/below screen is coarse. More specific conditions ask better research questions.
**Tested and reclaimed.** Stocks that dipped to or below their 200-day average in recent months and then closed back above it. This is more selective than "above the line today" because it requires a stress and a recovery, and it is a natural shortlist for a fresh fundamental review.
**Near the line.** Stocks currently close to their 200-day average, where the trend question is being decided now.
**Golden and death crosses.** The 50-day average crossing above the 200-day (golden) or below it (death). These formalize "the recent trend overtook the long trend" into a dated event.
**Stretched far from the line.** Stocks trading many typical daily ranges above or below their average. Normalizing the distance by each stock's own volatility matters, because 10% away means something different for a utility than for a small-cap biotech.
All four exist as ready-made screens on stocks-llm, with the exact rules stated on the screens directory. Readings recompute nightly from stored daily closes, selection is deterministic, and a stock with a stale or unevaluable price series is excluded from the screen rather than assigned a guess.
What the screener cannot do
It cannot predict. Trend-following logic is systematically late at turning points: a stock crosses below its 200-day average only after a meaningful decline has already happened, and reclaims it only after part of a recovery is done. In choppy, trendless markets the price will whip back and forth across the line and every crossing signal will look wrong in hindsight.
It also says nothing about the business. A stock can hold above its 200-day average while its fundamentals deteriorate, or sit below it while the balance sheet improves. The line reads price history, and only price history.
A workflow that respects the limits
Run the screen as a triage step: stocks that tested and reclaimed their 200-day moving average. Treat the result as a list of companies whose price behavior changed recently, with the as-of date attached.
Then switch tools entirely. For each name that interests you, read the recent filings, check revenue and margin direction, and look at valuation. The moving average earned the company a review. Whether it deserves anything more is a fundamentals question the chart cannot answer. The indicator glossary documents how each technical reading is calculated.
stocks-llm is for informational research only, not financial advice. Technical screens describe past price behavior and are not predictions or trade signals. Verify material information independently before making an investment decision.