RSI Explained — Measured (PDF Guide)

You have been told RSI below 30 is oversold and above 70 is overbought, and that the cross back through is the signal. Nobody has ever told you what that would have paid compared with entering on a bar picked at random, which is the only comparison that could make the number mean anything.

This guide builds that comparison and then uses it on every page. Entering on any eligible bar at all, under the same geometry and the same deadline, reached target 33.84 per cent of the time on 11,155 entries. Every RSI figure in the guide is printed beside it. This is a 45-page PDF that teaches RSI from the first thing you see on the screen through to a written strategy with an entry, a stop and an explicit rule for when the trade is wrong.

Nothing is taught underneath a chart. Every label sits on the candle, the line or the level it is describing, on real BTC, ETH, SOL and LINK charts. There are three quizzes on real charts, each followed by the same chart re-shown annotated with the reasoning, plus faded practice pages where the first steps are filled in and you finish the rest.

WHAT'S INSIDE

What RSI actually measures -- The size of recent gains against the size of recent losses, smoothed over fourteen bars. It is arithmetic on closes that have already happened, and it cannot see anything you cannot.

What the oversold cross paid, against a control -- 31.75 per cent against 33.84 per cent, z -1.38 on 1,197 signals. Below the floor, and the first time this figure has been published with a control beside it.

Why the overbought cross looks better -- 37.40 per cent against 33.84 per cent, z 2.11. It is a SHORT signal in a window that fell, and the guide shows the arithmetic rather than claiming the result.

And how often RSI is even in those zones -- Below 30 on 5.31 per cent of bars and above 70 on 4.54 per cent. The zones everybody talks about are where price spends about one bar in ten.

WHAT YOU'LL BE ABLE TO DO

Say what RSI is computed from, in one sentence, without jargon.

Quote what the oversold cross paid against its own control.

Explain why the overbought cross is the window and not the signal.

Ask any indicator claim the three questions that break most of them.

Build your own any-bar control on your own record in an afternoon.

AN HONEST NOTE

RSI is a clue, not a crystal ball. It describes what price has already done. This guide contains no win-rates, no backtest results and no promises about what you will make, because nobody can verify those and you should not trust anyone who prints them. What it hands you instead is a set of rules you can test yourself on TradingView in an afternoon. Educational, not financial advice.

Instant download. 45 pages, PDF.