Hull Moving Average vs Supertrend

Michael Whitman · Trading since 2017, full-time since 2020 · YouTube creator, 137K subscribers · Published 2026-09-08 · Updated 2026-10-19

These two get compared because both draw a single line that people use to decide direction. That is where the similarity ends. One is a smoothing of closes and the other is a volatility-scaled trailing stop, and they answer different questions.

What each one is

The hull moving average is a smoothed line built from weighted averages, differenced to remove lag. It has one setting and no memory of what it said last bar. The hull moving average covers the construction.

Supertrend places a band a multiple of average true range away from price and flips it from below to above when price closes through it. Supertrend covers the rule, and average true range covers the volatility measure underneath it.

So one is a description and the other is a decision. The hull draws where price has been going. Supertrend commits to a side and holds it until a specific price is breached, whereas nothing in a moving average commits to anything.

Where they differ

Whether volatility is an input. Supertrend’s distance from price is set by average true range, so it sits further away when bars are large and closer when they are small. The hull has no idea how volatile the market is — it treats a quiet bar and a violent one identically.

Whether the tool has a state. Supertrend is long or short. It stays long through pullbacks that never touch the band, which is the entire point of a trailing stop. The hull can turn down for two bars and back up, and each of those is a fresh reading with no memory of the last one.

Whether you are given a price. Supertrend’s line is an actionable level — that is where the position ends. The hull’s value is a smoothed close, and putting a stop there is arbitrary because nothing in its construction relates to how far price normally travels.

How often each changes its mind. The hull turns whenever recent bars turn, which in chop is often. Supertrend requires a close beyond a volatility-scaled distance, so it ignores most noise by design and pays for that by giving back a fixed amount at every real reversal.

Where they agree

Both are trend-following and both lag by construction. Neither predicts a reversal; both notice one after it has begun.

Both fail in a range. In sideways stretches, price reverses direction after only a few bars, over and over, with no sustained move in between. The hull whips; supertrend flips and gives back its distance each time.

Both cost a round trip when acted on — a hull crossing and a supertrend flip are billed the same spread and commission. The hull generates more crossings, so it pays more often.

And both are lagging trailing tools rather than entry timers. Whereas an oscillator claims to say when a move is stretched, neither of these claims anything about where a move ends.

Which one to use: Hull Moving Average or Supertrend?

Run supertrend when you want the exit decided in advance. It names a price, it adapts that price to current volatility, and it holds through pullbacks. If you have not already written down where a trade ends, this is the tool that writes it for you.

Run the hull when you already have an exit rule and want an earlier read on direction. It turns before supertrend flips, so as a context line above your own structure-based stops it does real work.

Run supertrend when the instrument’s volatility changes a lot. A tool scaled by average true range handles a quiet week and a violent one with the same settings, whereas a smoothed line does not know the difference.

And when you are choosing between them as a signal generator, take supertrend. Not because it is more accurate — it is not — but because a flip is unambiguous and a line turning down is something you will interpret differently on a good day and a bad one.

What the trailing distance actually buys

On your own instrument, count how many bars a trailing stop survives at one, two, three and four average true ranges, and the wider settings will last noticeably longer than the tighter ones. Supertrend’s common default sits at three, toward the wide end of that scale, and the count at three is how long a position lasts before the band is touched.

And the same logic shows why tightening it is not free. Cutting the multiple from three to one does not trim a little room — a band one average true range away is reached by ordinary movement very quickly, which makes it a different strategy.

The original data

Supertrend appears in 133 titles at a median of 21,388 views across 101 channels; the hull appears in 101 at a median of 3,061 across 81.

Seven times the median audience on a similar number of videos. Supertrend and the hull are taught at roughly the same frequency and watched at wildly different rates, which is consistent with supertrend answering a question people are actually asking and the hull answering one they are not.

On the chart above, the two are not disagreeing — they are answering different questions. The line says recent bars turned. The band says the move has not yet given back enough to matter. Both can be right at once, and treating that as a conflict is the error.

When it fails

The characteristic failure is using supertrend’s flip as an entry rather than an exit. It is a trailing stop wearing a signal’s clothing. Entering on the flip means entering after price has already traveled the full band distance from the extreme, which at the common default is three average true ranges. Suppose average true range is $0.60: that is $1.80 of give-back before you are in. That is a poor entry by construction, whereas as an exit the same distance is exactly the room a position needs.

A second failure is running both and calling it confirmation. They lag differently but they are both trend followers on the same closes, so they agree in trends and disagree in chop, which is the useless pattern.

A third is tightening the multiple after a large give-back. The band-distance arithmetic above shows what that costs, and the give-back was the price of the trend you kept.

A fourth is using the hull’s line as a stop. It is not scaled to volatility and it can sit outside the price range entirely.

And a fifth is judging either on a sample without a range in it. Both look excellent in a trend, and that is the condition they are least tested by.

Related

The hull moving average covers the reduced-lag construction. Supertrend covers the flip rule and the multiple. And average true range covers the volatility measure that sets the distance.

This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.