The Four Cycle States
The four cycle states classify any symbol’s price structure into Uptrend, Top range, Downtrend, or Bottom range — one label that answers “where in the cycle are we right now?”
Every asset’s price oscillates between expansion and contraction. The four-state framework slices that loop into four actionable phases: Uptrend (trend pointing up), Top range (momentum exhausting, bulls and bears fighting), Downtrend (trend pointing down), and Bottom range (selling exhausted, positions changing hands). It does not forecast price targets — it answers a more fundamental question: which phase of the cycle is the price structure in right now.
The value of the four states is that they front-load the decision. The exact same high-volume bullish candle means opposite things at the end of a bottom range versus the end of a top range; trading without first confirming the state is like crossing the street with your eyes closed. “Define the regime before you time the entry” is the professional version of the same idea.
State classification typically combines the position of a long-term moving average, the direction of a mid-term channel, and the volatility structure: price above the long-term average with the channel rising is an Uptrend; a flat average with price repeatedly crossing its center of gravity is a range, split into Top range or Bottom range by location; the mirror image is a Downtrend.
CycleMaster turns this classification into a systematic engine: every symbol is labeled with its state on both the daily and weekly timeframes, and once a label is printed it never repaints — historical labels can be replayed bar by bar. Every “Uptrend” tag you see is the conclusion the engine reached at that moment, not hindsight dressed up as a signal.
FAQ
Bull/bear is a coarse description of the whole market. The four states are a structured classification of a single symbol on a single timeframe, and they explicitly include the two transitional ranges — so a topping process is not mistaken for bull-market continuation.
No. The classification has built-in confirmation conditions, so one day of noise cannot flip the state. Until confirmation is met the label stays put — that is what “never repaints” means: once printed, a signal is never rewritten.
The most basic playbook: hold only in Uptrend, stand aside in Downtrend. One level up: scale in during Bottom range, scale out during Top range. CycleMaster’s transition alerts are built for exactly those two moves.
Related terms
CycleMaster labels every symbol with its cycle state and macro resonance verdict in real time — and signals never repaint.