---
title: "Raw price"
description: "Raw price is the Indicator option that leaves a series untransformed, so a risk condition compares the series' own level against your threshold directly."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/glossary/raw-price"
last_updated: "2026-10-06"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/glossary/raw-price.md"
---

# Raw price

Raw price is the **Indicator** option on a [risk condition](/glossary/risk-condition) that applies no transformation, so the condition compares the watched series' own published level against your threshold. It is the simplest of the four indicator options, and the one a new condition starts on.

**Also seen as:** price level, index level, untransformed series.

## How does Fincanva handle it?

The VIX template's sheet reads the index untransformed: go Risk-Off when the value of the CBOE Volatility Index is above 25, back to Risk-On when it is below 20.

- Raw price is one of four **Indicator** options, alongside "Simple moving average", "Percent change" and "Average momentum"; the sheet's hint for it reads "The series as it is published: a price, an index level or a spread."
- It takes no lookback window — the **Period** field applies to the indicators that summarise a span.
- The threshold you type is read in the series' own units: an index level for an index, a rate in percent for a yield series, a price for a stock or ETP.
- Several built-in [risk templates](/glossary/risk-templates) use it, including the VIX and VIX ratio templates and every yield-curve spread template.

## What does it look like in practice?

You build a Single series condition on a volatility index and leave the **Indicator** at "Raw price". The condition now reads whatever the index publishes: 18 one day, 31 a few weeks later. Those readings are compared straight against the number in the Risk-Off comparison, with no averaging, no percentage and no window in between — so a single day's print is the whole signal. That directness is exactly why the [confirmation delay](/glossary/confirmation-delay) exists: on a Raw price condition it is the only thing that stops one unusual day from asking for a switch.

Change the same condition's **Indicator** to "Simple moving average" with a **Period** of 22 and the comparison would instead read the average of the last 22 days — a smoother number, and one that needs a **Period** to be meaningful. All the parts of a condition are listed in [what a risk condition is made of](/glossary/risk-condition#what-is-a-single-risk-condition-made-of).

## When does a condition use Raw price?

A condition uses Raw price whenever the number you want to compare against is the series' published level itself, not something derived from it. That covers a volatility index you compare against a level, a yield spread you compare against zero, and a price you compare against another price. Because nothing is derived, no window is involved: the **Period** field has nothing to read over and does not apply. In a **Double series** condition, Raw price on one side is how a series is compared against a transformed version of itself — for example a price against its own [moving average](/glossary/simple-moving-average-sma).

Fincanva is for education and illustration only. It is not personalised financial advice, and past or simulated results do not predict future ones. [Read the Terms Addendum](https://fincanva.com/terms/addendum#section-3)