What Does Distance From 20-Day High Mean and How Do You Use It?

Distance from 20-day high (shown as vs 20d High on the card) tells you how far today's close sits below the highest price reached in the last 20 trading days, as a percentage. A reading near 0% means the stock is at or near its recent high; -15% means it has pulled back 15% from that high.

How it is calculated

Take the last 20 trading days, roughly one calendar month. Find the highest intraday high in that window. Then:

• Distance = (today's close minus the 20-day high) divided by the 20-day high, times 100.

Because the reference is an intraday high and the numerator uses the close, the result is zero or negative almost all the time: 0% means today closed exactly at the window's high, -3% means today's close is 3% below it. Stock Compass keeps the sign, so smaller (more negative) numbers mean a deeper pullback. The window rolls forward each day, so a spike 21 days ago simply drops out and the reading can jump without the price moving.

Rules of thumb

vs 20d High	What it usually means
0% to -2%	At or pressing against recent highs; momentum intact
-2% to -6%	Normal pullback within an uptrend
-6% to -15%	Meaningful correction; trend in question
Below -15%	Deep drawdown from the recent high; short-term trend weak

These are conventions and depend on the stock's volatility. A -6% dip is routine for a small-cap biotech and dramatic for a utility. Check the stock's typical daily swing before deciding whether a number is large.

What it does not tell you

• Whether the high was meaningful. A single-day spike on news creates a high that the stock may never have "lost" in any real sense. One outlier sets the reference for 20 days.
• Absolute level or long-term trend. A stock can be -1% from its 20-day high while sitting 60% below its 52-week high. The window is short by design.
• What happens next. Being near the high is not a breakout, and being far below it is not a bottom. It is a position, not a forecast.

In Stock Compass

vs 20d High is the second cell in the metric strip on every stock card, between RSI and Vol Ratio, and is highlighted when the stock is within 1% of its high. In the card verdict, the price-momentum section reads it two ways: above -2% adds a positive note ("trading within x% of its 20-day high"), below -15% adds a caution note ("weak short-term trend"). Between those bands it says nothing.

It is a rule indicator under Trend & Momentum with the id pct_from_high_20d. The default condition is pct_from_high_20d < -8, which describes a pullback of more than 8% from the recent high — the shape of a trailing-stop rule. The opposite direction is just as common: pct_from_high_20d >= -6 keeps you from entering far from the high, and the published guides pair it with a return_5d cap so that "near the high" does not also mean "up 10% in a week". The guide Turn your logic into buy rules shows both uses; Take-profit and stop-loss rules covers the trailing-stop version.