Williams %R

Williams %R is a momentum oscillator that measures where the current close sits within the highest high and lowest low of a lookback window, typically 14 periods. It is plotted on an inverted scale from 0 to -100: readings above -20 indicate price is closing near the top of its recent range (often labelled overbought), while readings below -80 indicate closes near the bottom (oversold). The indicator is closely related to the stochastic oscillator — %R is essentially the fast stochastic inverted and unsmoothed. Traders use it to time entries within a trend, to spot momentum divergences, and to gauge range extremes, remembering that in strong trends the oscillator can stay pinned at an extreme for extended periods.