RS rating: how a stock ranks against the rest

What the number means

An RS of 90 means the stock's performance over the past year was better than about 90% of Nifty 500 stocks. An RS of 20 means about 80% did better. It measures leadership, not value: a stock can have a high RS and still be expensive, or a low RS and still be a sound business.

How we calculate it

For each stock we take the price change over the last 3, 6, 9 and 12 months and add them up, with the most recent 3 months counted twice as much as each earlier window. Then we rank every stock's score from 1 to 99. Prices are adjusted for splits, bonuses and demergers first. Stocks with less than about six months of history are not ranked.

Because it is a rank, RS is always relative. When some stocks get stronger, others must slip, even if their own price did not move.

RS rating is not RSI

They share a name and nothing else. RSI (Relative Strength Index) is a momentum oscillator built from one stock's own recent gains and losses. The RS rating compares a stock with other stocks.

What it cannot tell you

RS describes the past year. A high RS does not mean the stock will keep rising, and a low RS does not mean it will keep falling. The change in RS over a few weeks often says more than the level, because it shows a stock gaining or losing ground. We show both, and we are testing whether RS carries any forward edge in Indian stocks; the result will go on the Track record page.