What it is
Average true range, or ATR, is the typical distance a stock travels in a day, high to low. It also accounts for gaps between one day and the next. Divide ATR by the price and you get a percentage you can compare across stocks. When a stock's ATR percent falls into the bottom quarter of its 100-day range, it is moving less than it has in months. Volatility runs in cycles. Quiet periods end, and they usually end with a move.
How Breakaway uses it
ATR SQZ fires when ATR percent is in the bottom quarter of the stock's 100-day range. Once lit, it stays lit until ATR percent rises out of the bottom 32.5 percent. It counts on the finished day: during the session it keeps the last close's answer. It is a tight-range check, which means it tracks a range going tight. The daily range in percent is printed on every card.
How to read it
A tight range tells you the stock has gone quiet, and quiet ranges do not stay quiet forever. It does not tell you which way the next move goes. Read the context from the trend checks. An ATR squeeze inside a full moving-average stack near the 52-week high is a pause inside an uptrend. The same squeeze below a falling 200-day average is a pause inside a downtrend. Neither says what happens next.