Glossary term
Directional Flow (DF)
Closelook's proprietary trend-intensity metric — a recency-weighted linear regression slope on log price, annualised — computed nightly across the full coverage universe. Positive DF means uptrend pressure is building, negative means downtrend pressure; it measures trend, it does not recommend a trade.
Definition & Calculation
Directional Flow runs a linear regression of log(close) over a rolling window (252 trading days by default), but weights recent bars more heavily than older ones — a linear recency weighting where the most recent bar carries the most influence. The resulting slope is annualised, producing a signed number typically ranging roughly −100 to +300. A rising DF means price is trending upward with increasing conviction from recent bars; a falling or negative DF means downward pressure is building. Because the weighting favors recent data, DF reacts faster to a change in trend than a simple flat-window regression would, while still requiring a minimum of 60 observations before it prints.
Reading It on the Boards
DF and its normalised counterpart, DF%, appear on Closelook's Directional Alpha boards, the company screener, and individual asset pages, computed nightly across the roughly 330-name coverage universe. The normalised view squashes raw DF through a bounded 0–100 scale so it reads similarly to RSI, with rough overbought/oversold reference bands.
What It Is Not
DF measures the intensity and direction of a trend already in motion — it is a descriptive statistic, not a signal to act on. Closelook treats it the same way as any other momentum-family metric: something we watch across the universe and report on, never something we tell readers to buy or sell against.