What is the Williams %R indicator?
Updated on August 24, 2026 · by Alex
Williams %R is a momentum oscillator that compares the current closing price with the range between the high and the low of a period. It moves between 0 and −100 and shows where in its recent range the price is closing.
The scale runs backwards from what you would expect, and that is the first source of confusion: it goes from 0 to −100, where 0 is the high end.
The standard period is 14 sessions, but it can be adjusted: shorter makes it twitchier, longer smooths it out.
Because it answers a concrete question that the price alone does not: is this close strong or weak compared with what this same stock has been doing? A close at 100 tells you nothing; a close at 100 when the month's range ran from 85 to 102 does.
Its real value is not in any single day's reading but in how long it holds in a zone. Any bounce can produce an isolated spike; staying in the strong zone for weeks or months suggests steady demand rather than a one-off move. That is how it is used in the channel's portfolio selection criteria.
Reading "overbought" as "sell." It is the central misunderstanding with every oscillator of this kind. In a strong uptrend, an asset can sit in overbought territory for months while it keeps climbing. Whoever sells on the first overbought reading usually gets out at the start of the move.
The second mistake is using it on its own. It is a momentum indicator: it knows nothing about the business, its earnings or its industry. It describes how the price is behaving, not why. As your only decision tool, it is an expensive way to look at a chart.
