Stella Osoba is the Senior Editor of trading and investing at Investopedia. She co-founded and chaired Women in Technical Analysis. She has 15+ years of experience as a financial writer and technical ...

J.B. Maverick is an active trader, commodity futures broker, and stock market analyst 17+ years of experience, in addition to 10+ years of experience as a finance writer and book editor. Michael Logan ...

A moving average is a type of trendline that smoothes out values of adjacent statistical observations and thereby eliminates minor or irregular fluctuations (called "noise"). A moving average is one ...

Moving averages smooth out stock price fluctuations to clarify trends. Simple and exponential are the main types of moving averages. These tools help determine optimal stock buying or selling times.