Aroon Indicator Explained: Spotting New Trends

The Aroon indicator measures how recently price made a new high or low to tell you whether a trend is starting, running, or fading. It plots two lines, Aroon Up and Aroon Down, each scaled from 0 to 100, and a new trend is often signalled when one crosses above the other.

Developed by Tushar Chande in 1995, Aroon is a timing tool rather than a price-following one. Instead of averaging price like a moving average, it counts bars since the most recent extreme. The name comes from the Sanskrit word for "dawn's early light," reflecting its purpose: catching the first light of a new trend before it is obvious on the chart.

Aroon Up and Aroon Down

Both lines work from a single lookback period, commonly 14 or 25 bars. They answer two simple questions over that window:

• Aroon Up = how recently the highest high occurred. A fresh new high gives a reading near 100; if the high is old, the line falls toward 0.
• Aroon Down = how recently the lowest low occurred. A fresh new low reads near 100; an old low drifts toward 0.

Because the lines are independent, you read them as a pair. When Aroon Up sits high and Aroon Down sits low, buyers keep printing fresh highs and the uptrend is healthy. Flip those readings and you have a controlled downtrend. When both lines are low, neither side has made a recent extreme, which usually means price is ranging.

How to read the signals

Crossovers that signal new trends

The headline signal is the crossover. When Aroon Up crosses above Aroon Down, the most recent high is now fresher than the most recent low, which can mark the dawn of an uptrend. When Aroon Down crosses above Aroon Up, a downtrend may be taking over.

Not all crossovers are equal. A cross that happens while both lines hover near 50 is noise from a flat market. The stronger setups come when one line then climbs and pins near 100 while the other collapses toward 0, confirming that one side has firmly taken control. Many traders wait for that follow-through rather than acting on the cross alone.

The Aroon Oscillator

If two lines feel busy, the Aroon Oscillator condenses them into one:

Aroon Oscillator = Aroon Up - Aroon Down

It swings between -100 and +100. Readings above zero mean Aroon Up is dominant and the bias is bullish; below zero, the bias is bearish. Values hovering near the zero line confirm a range. Because it is a single histogram, the oscillator makes it easy to spot when momentum flips from one side to the other, and how forcefully.

Using Aroon on MT5

MetaTrader 5 does not ship a built-in Aroon indicator, but it is widely available as a custom indicator. To add one:

1. Place the .ex5 or .mq5 file in MQL5/Indicators inside your MT5 data folder.
2. Restart MT5 or refresh the Navigator, then drag Aroon onto your chart.
3. Set the period (start with 14 or 25) and apply.
4. Read the two lines, or load an Aroon Oscillator variant for the single-line view.

Like every period-based tool, Aroon lags. Because it only updates when a new high or low forms, it can be slow to react inside fast reversals and prone to whipsaws in choppy conditions. Pair it with a structure read or a volatility filter rather than trading its crosses blindly. For a deeper look at trend strength, see our guide to the ADX indicator.

Does MSP use Aroon? An honest answer

No. Market Structure Pro does not include Aroon, and we think it is worth being upfront about that. Aroon is a useful trend-timing idea, but its signal overlaps heavily with tools we consider more robust, so we did not add it to the engine.

Instead, MSP measures trend strength with ADX and screens out chop with a CHOP-style ranging filter. Those two sit alongside structure, momentum and volatility checks inside a single 27-tool score. Rather than leaving you to interpret a crossover, MSP weighs all 27 inputs and outputs one verdict, a confidence level, an A, B or C grade, and a plain-English explanation of why.

The bottom line

Aroon is a clean, intuitive way to see how recently price made a high or low and to time the dawn of a new trend. Aroon Up and Aroon Down read trend strength on a 0 to 100 scale, crossovers flag possible changes, the oscillator simplifies the picture, and twin low readings warn of a range. It is a solid tool to learn, even though MSP itself reaches the same conclusions through ADX and a ranging filter. Explore more in our Learn hub or compare options in the best MT5 indicators for 2026.