Chart reference · Indicators

Trend

Trend indicators answer one question in different ways: which direction is this in, and where would that stop being true. Sixty-nine of the 276 sit in this category, and almost all of them draw straight onto your candles.

The Chart page — 60 of these 67 draw on the candles themselves — the live page, with each part numbered — 1The trend chip 2Lines over price
The Chart page — 60 of these 67 draw on the candles themselves — captured from the live page. Hover a number to see what it is.

What

What this page is

The trend category holds 67 entries, and it is the one you reach for first because it is the only category that gives you levels. A momentum oscillator tells you the move is strong; a moving average tells you the price at which it would no longer be a move at all. That is what makes these the indicators people actually place orders against.

Sixty of the 67 are overlays, drawn on the price scale over your candles. Only seven sit in a pane of their own: Linear Regression Slope, MA Trend Agreement, the Gator Oscillator, TTM Trend, the Accumulative Swing Index, the Impulse System and Moving Average Compression. Each of those reduces a trend to a number or a state rather than to a price. Because overlays never take a Source, everything in this category except those seven is computed on the candles themselves.

The 67 fall into nine families. The classic moving averages differ only in how they weight recent bars against old ones, which is a trade between lag and noise and nothing else. The adaptive averages change that trade automatically as the market changes. Regression lines fit a straight line rather than take a mean. Ribbons show several averages at once. Bands and channels wrap price. Trailing stops follow it from one side. Pivot ladders precompute the day levels. Ichimoku is a whole system. The last two are trend states reported as a number.

Every one of them lags, and none of them can avoid it. An average of the last twenty bars cannot know about the twenty-first. The lists below say which entries buy their speed with overshoot and which buy their smoothness with delay, because that is the only real difference between most of the first two families.

Why

Why it helps you

If you trade

Days to weeks · you care about timing and the crowd.

Pick one average and learn it rather than sampling twenty. The differences between an EMA, a WMA and a Hull average on a Nepali stock over a week are far smaller than the difference between choosing 9 and choosing 50.
The trailing stops are the most directly usable entries here. SuperTrend, Chandelier Exit and Parabolic SAR each give you a price to leave at that moves in only one direction, and that is a rule you can follow without judgement.
Pivot Points Standard computes the day levels for you from the previous session, which is the same arithmetic most intraday traders do by hand before the open.
The Price Channel is the cleanest breakout definition on the page, because the level is visible before it breaks rather than named afterwards.

If you invest

Months to years · you care about quality and price paid.

On a daily or weekly chart a long moving average is a holding rule, not a trading signal. Price above a rising 200 period average and price below a falling one are two genuinely different situations for a long-term position.
The Ichimoku Cloud reads well on weekly data. The cloud gives a zone rather than a line, which suits a decision you will act on over months.
The ribbon entries, Moving Average Ribbon and Multiple Moving Average, are a fast way to see whether short-term and long-term holders are pulling the same direction without adding six separate averages.
Ignore the fast adaptive filters. Their whole purpose is to shave bars off a turn, which is a benefit measured in hours and irrelevant at a horizon measured in years.

When · Where

When to use it, and where to find it

Add a trend indicator first, before anything from momentum. Whether a market is trending decides which momentum reading means anything: an overbought oscillator is a warning in a range and normal in a trend.
Use the pivot entries before the open. They are computed from the previous session and do not change during the day, which is what makes them worth writing down in advance.
Reach for the adaptive family when a plain average keeps whipsawing you. That is exactly the condition Adaptive Moving Average, FRAMA and VIDYA were built for.

How to

Try it — a short walkthrough

1
Filter the catalog to trend
Open fx on the chart toolbar and click the trend chip. The counter beside the title reads 69 of 276 and the list shows only this category, sorted by name.
2
Put a fast and a slow average on together
Add Exponential Moving Average, open its gear and set Period to 9. Add it a second time at 21. Two legend rows appear, and where they cross is the classic two-average signal.
3
Swap the whole family from one dropdown
Instead of adding nine entries, add Moving Average (selectable) and change MA Type in its Inputs tab. The same line becomes an SMA, EMA, WMA, DEMA, TEMA, TRIMA, KAMA, MAMA or T3 without leaving the dialog.
4
Add a stop you can actually use
Add SuperTrend. It draws a band on one side of price and flips to the other side on a close through it. Widen Multiplier from 3 to 4 and watch how many flips disappear.
5
Use a moving average as the source for an oscillator
Leave one single-line average on the chart, add Relative Strength Index, open its gear and pick that average under On this chart in the Calculate on row. Only trend overlays with exactly one line can be chosen this way.

In detail

Every part, up close

The Chart page — 60 of these 67 draw on the candles themselves. Each part with a close-up of the real screen; the numbers match the dots on the picture.

The trend chip

Open fx and click trend, and the counter reads 69 of 276 — the only category that hands you a price rather than a score.

Lines over price

Averages, ribbons, bands, channels and trailing stops are all drawn across the candles, because each one outputs a level you can place an order against.

The catalogue

Every indicator in this category

Grouped into families, in the order they are explained. Each preview is the indicator computed on real NABIL daily bars by the same engine the chart runs — click one for a full-size picture and a line-by-line description of what it draws.

69 indicators

Moving averages, the classic family18

Eighteen entries that differ only in how they weight the bars in their window. Everything above SMA in this list is trying to reduce lag; everything below TRIMA is trying to reduce noise. All are overlays.

SN	Short name	Draws	What it measures
1	SMA	overlay	By Classical technical analysis The plain average of the last N closes, and the line price is most often measured against. Period 20
2	EMA	overlay	By Classical technical analysis Weights recent bars more heavily, so it turns sooner than an SMA of the same length. Period 20
3	WMA	overlay	By Classical technical analysis Weights fall off in a straight line from newest to oldest; faster than an SMA, steadier than an EMA. Period 20
4	DEMA	overlay	By Patrick Mulloy · S&C, January 1994 · source An EMA with its own lag subtracted back out, so it hugs price through a turn. Period 20
5	TEMA	overlay	By Patrick Mulloy · S&C, February 1994 · source The same correction applied again: faster than DEMA and correspondingly twitchier. Period 20
6	TRIMA	overlay	By Classical technical analysis Double-smoothed so the middle of the window dominates; the smoothest plain average, and the slowest. Period 20
7	T3	overlay	By Tim Tillson · S&C, January 1998 · source A cascade of exponential averages blended by a factor you set; unusually smooth for the lag it costs. Period 5, Volume Factor 0.7
8	LRMA	overlay	By Alan Hull · published as Hull Moving Average (HMA) · alanhull.com, 2005 · source Combines a half-length and a full-length weighted average to be fast and smooth at once. Period 9
9	VWMA	overlay	By Classical technical analysis An average that weights each bar by the volume traded in it, so heavy sessions pull it harder. Period 20
10	GWMA	overlay	By Arnaud Legoux & Dimitrios Kouzis-Loukas · published as Arnaud Legoux Moving Average (ALMA) · 24 November 2009 · source A bell-shaped weighting, which produces less edge noise than a linear one. Period 9
11	ZLEMA	overlay	By John F. Ehlers & Ric Way · S&C, November 2010 · source An EMA fed a lag-compensated price; most of the delay goes, at the cost of overshooting a sharp turn. Period 20
12	RMA	overlay	By J. Welles Wilder Jr. · New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems, 1978 · source The slow average that RSI, ATR and ADX are all built on; an RMA of 14 lags about like an EMA of 27. Length 14
13	SINWMA	overlay	By Kevin Johnson · Pandas TA (PyPI) · source Weights follow a half sine wave, peaking in the middle of the window and tapering to nothing at both ends. Length 14
14	PWMA	overlay	By Kevin Johnson · published as Pascal's Weighted Moving Average (PWMA) · Pandas TA (PyPI) · source Binomial weights, which are the discrete form of a bell curve. Length 10
15	FWMA	overlay	By Kevin Johnson · Pandas TA (PyPI) · source Fibonacci weights, so the newest bars count for far more than a linear weighting gives them. Length 10
16	SWMA	overlay	By Kevin Johnson · Pandas TA (PyPI) · source A fixed four-bar kernel that takes the edge off a series without shifting it forward or back.
17	MA	overlay	By Classical technical analysis One line whose type is a dropdown, covering SMA, EMA, WMA, DEMA, TEMA, TRIMA, KAMA, MAMA and T3 in a single entry. Period 30, MA Type 0
18	DMA	overlay	By Classical technical analysis A simple average shifted forward or backward in time, which turns an average into a projected level. Period 20, Displacement 5

Adaptive and filtered averages10

Ten entries that change their own speed as the market changes, rather than making you choose one length for every condition. All are overlays.

SN	Short name	Draws	What it measures
19	AMA	overlay	By Perry J. Kaufman · published as Kaufman's Adaptive Moving Average (KAMA) · Smarter Trading, 1995 · source Runs fast when price is moving in one direction and nearly stops in chop, judged by net move against total travel. ER Period 10
20	MAMA	overlay	By John F. Ehlers · Rocket Science for Traders, 2001 · Cybernetic Analysis, 2004 · source Two lines whose speed tracks the measured dominant cycle; MAMA leads and FAMA follows, and the crossing is the signal. Fast Limit 0.5, Slow Limit 0.05
21	Dynamic	overlay	By John R. McGinley · published as McGinley Dynamic · Journal of Technical Analysis, 1997 · source A self-correcting average that closes the gap to price quickly in a fast market and drifts in a slow one. Period 14
22	FRAMA	overlay	By John F. Ehlers · Rocket Science for Traders, 2001 · Cybernetic Analysis, 2004 · source Sets its own speed from how jagged the recent bars are, so it runs short in a trend and flattens in a range. Length 16, Slow Limit 200
23	VIDYA	overlay	By Tushar Chande · S&C, March 1992 · source Speeds up exactly when momentum is one-sided, by scaling its smoothing with a momentum reading. Length 14
24	TAMA	overlay	By Charles C. Holt & Peter R. Winters · published as Holt-Winters Moving Average (HWMA) · Holt-Winters smoothing, 1957 / 1960 · source Tracks a level, a speed and an acceleration together, so it bends into a turn instead of lagging through it. 3 parameters
25	SSF	overlay	By John F. Ehlers · Rocket Science for Traders, 2001 · Cybernetic Analysis, 2004 · source A low-pass filter that removes the bar-to-bar alternation an EMA passes straight through, for far less lag than an SMA of the same length. Length 20, Poles 0
26	Decycler	overlay	By John F. Ehlers · published as Ehlers Decycler · Rocket Science for Traders, 2001 · Cybernetic Analysis, 2004 · source Price with every cycle shorter than the cutoff subtracted out, leaving the trend and almost no lag. Cutoff Period 125
27	ITrend	overlay	By John F. Ehlers · Rocket Science for Traders, 2001 · Cybernetic Analysis, 2004 · source A trend line built to have no lag inside the dominant cycle, with a trigger line that leads it by two bars. Alpha 0.07
28	Recursive	overlay	By John F. Ehlers · published as Laguerre Filter · Rocket Science for Traders, 2001 · Cybernetic Analysis, 2004 · source Gets heavy smoothing out of very little price history; gamma nearer 1 is smoother and slower. Gamma 0.8

Regression and price-derived lines8

Eight entries that fit a straight line rather than take a mean, or that simply restate each bar as a price of their own.

SN	Short name	Draws	What it measures
29	LinReg	overlay	By Gauss & Legendre — least squares · Legendre 1805 · Gauss 1809 · source The end point of a best-fit straight line through the last N closes, redrawn bar by bar. Period 14
30	LinReg Slope	pane	By Gauss & Legendre — least squares · Legendre 1805 · Gauss 1809 · source How steep that best-fit line is; above zero it is rising, and the size is the rate. Period 14
31	TSF	overlay	By Gauss & Legendre — least squares · Legendre 1805 · Gauss 1809 · source The same fit extended one bar forward, so it sits slightly ahead of the regression curve. Period 14
32	Avg Price	overlay	By Classical technical analysis The mean of each bar open, high, low and close, as one line.
33	Weighted Close	overlay	By Classical technical analysis A per-bar price that counts the close twice, optionally smoothed. Smoothing Period 1
34	Midpoint	overlay	By Classical technical analysis The middle of the highest and lowest close over the lookback. Period 14
35	Midprice	overlay	By Classical technical analysis The middle of the highest high and lowest low over the lookback. Period 14
36	Smooth HA	overlay	By Dan Valcu — modern Heikin-Ashi form · S&C, February 2004 · source A Heikin Ashi bar — open, high, low and close each averaged rather than taken raw — with a moving average run over the input and again over the result, drawn as four lines rather than as candles. 4 parameters

Ribbons and multi-average reads7

Seven entries that plot or summarise several averages at once, so you read agreement rather than a single line.

SN	Short name	Draws	What it measures
37	MA Ribbon	overlay	By Classical technical analysis Four EMAs at 8, 13, 21 and 34 together; fanned out and in order is a trend, tangled is not.
38	MMA	overlay	By Daryl Guppy · published as Guppy Multiple Moving Average (GMMA) · Trend Trading · GuppyTraders.com · source Six short averages against six long ones, reduced to two lines; the gap between them is short-term traders disagreeing with long-term holders.
39	Rainbow	overlay	By Mel Widner · S&C, July 1997 · source Ten averages each smoothed from the one above; the band widens as a move accelerates and collapses at a turn. SMA Period 2
40	Alligator	overlay	By Bill Williams · Trading Chaos, 1995 · source Three shifted smoothed averages; intertwined the market is asleep, fanned out in order it is feeding. 6 parameters
41	Gator	pane	By Bill Williams · Trading Chaos, 1995 · source The Alligator jaws as two mirrored histograms; both bars shrinking is the trend going to sleep. 6 parameters
42	MAT	pane	By Kevin Johnson · published as Archer Moving Averages Trends (AMAT) · Pandas TA (PyPI) · source Reads +1 while a fast and a slow average are both rising and correctly stacked, -1 while both are falling, 0 when they disagree. Fast Length 8, Slow Length 21, Lookback 2
43	MAC	pane	By Classical technical analysis The spread of five averages as a percentage of price; near zero every average agrees and the market is coiled. Base Length 10, Step 10

Bands and channels9

Nine entries that wrap price between two edges, so the question becomes whether price is inside or outside rather than above or below.

SN	Short name	Draws	What it measures
44	Envelope	overlay	By Classical technical analysis A simple average with a fixed percentage band either side, drawn with the region between them tinted. Period 20, Percent 2.5
45	%Bands	overlay	By Classical technical analysis The same idea built around an EMA rather than an SMA. EMA Period 21, Percent 3
46	MA Band	overlay	By Classical technical analysis A percentage band whose centre line type you choose from SMA, EMA, WMA or RMA. Length 20, MA Type 0, Band % 2
47	MA Channel	overlay	By Classical technical analysis Averages of the highs and the lows as the two edges, with an average of the close down the middle. Period 20
48	Channel	overlay	By Richard Donchian · published as Donchian Channels · 1957 · four-week rule, 1960s · source The highest high and lowest low of the lookback with a midline, tinted between; a close outside it is a breakout by definition. Period 20
49	Fractal Chaos	overlay	By Bill Williams · Trading Chaos, 1995 · source Rolling highest high and lowest low, drawn as a band to contain price rather than as a breakout trigger. Period 14
50	RegTrend	overlay	By Gauss & Legendre — least squares · Legendre 1805 · Gauss 1809 · source One best-fit line over the last N bars with parallel bands set at a multiple of the scatter around it. Length 100, Deviation 2
51	SD Ch	overlay	By Gauss & Legendre — least squares · Legendre 1805 · Gauss 1809 · source The same construction recomputed every bar, so the channel walks forward instead of staying anchored. Length 100, Deviation 2
52	SSL	overlay	By Trading community · TradingView; commonly attributed to ErwinBeckers · source Two averages of the highs and the lows that swap roles when price closes through one, so the pair is always a stop line and a target line. Length 10

Trailing stops and trend followers8

Seven entries that follow price from one side only and flip when they are broken. These are the entries that give you a rule rather than a reading.

SN	Short name	Draws	What it measures
53	PSAR	overlay	By J. Welles Wilder Jr. · New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems, 1978 · source A stop that accelerates toward price and jumps to the other side when it is hit. Step 0.02, Max Step 0.2
54	SAREXT	overlay	By J. Welles Wilder Jr. · New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems, 1978 · source The same with separate long and short acceleration settings and a reversal offset. 8 parameters
55	SuperTrend	overlay	By Olivier Seban · no primary publication; date contested · source A volatility-width band that tracks one side of price and flips on a close through it; the flip is the whole indicator. ATR Period 10, Multiplier 3
56	Vol Stop	overlay	By Tushar Chande & Stanley Kroll · published as Chande Kroll Stop · The New Technical Trader, 1994 · source Separate trailing stops for a long and a short position, set a volatility multiple away from the recent extreme. ATR Period 10, Stop Period 9, ATR Multiplier 1
57	CE	overlay	By Chuck LeBeau · LeBeau's exit research, 1990s · source A stop hung a volatility multiple below the highest high of the lookback, which only ever ratchets toward price and never away. Length 22, ATR Multiplier 3, ATR Length 22
58	ZigZag	overlay	By Classical technical analysis Joins the swing highs and lows that reversed by more than the set percentage and hides everything smaller. Deviation % 5
59	ZZS	overlay	By Classical technical analysis Marks confirmed swing highs and swing lows from the bar highs and lows, reported as two separate series so the side of each pivot is known. Deviation % 5, Depth 3
60	TTM	pane	By John F. Carter · Mastering the Trade, 2005 · source +1 while the close is above the average midpoint of the last N bars and -1 below; two opposite readings in a row is the signal. Length 6

Pivot ladders4

Four entries that compute a fixed set of support and resistance levels once per period from the previous period. They do not move during the period, which is what makes them worth writing down before the open. All four share the same display settings: Pivots Timeframe 0, Number of Pivots Back 15, Show Labels on, Labels Position 0, Show Prices off.

SN	Short name	Draws	What it measures
61	Pivots	overlay	By Floor-trader practice · variants credit Ken Wood, Nick Scott and Tom DeMark The whole pivot family behind one Type dropdown, covering Standard, Fibonacci, Weighted, Camarilla and Conditional levels. 6 parameters
62	Pivots C	overlay	By Floor-trader practice The classic ladder on its own, with the third support and resistance set two full ranges from the pivot. 5 parameters
63	CPR	overlay	By Mark B. Fisher; popularised by Frank Ochoa · The Logical Trader, 2002 · source The narrow three-line zone around the pivot; a tight range going into a session argues for a trending day rather than a range one. 5 parameters
64	CPR Fib	overlay	By Mark B. Fisher; popularised by Frank Ochoa · The Logical Trader, 2002 · source The central range plus Fibonacci supports and resistances at 0.382, 0.618 and 1.0 of the previous range. 5 parameters

Ichimoku2

Two entries, one a cut-down version of the other.

SN	Preview	Indicator	Short name	Draws	What it measures
65			Ichimoku TK	overlay	By Goichi Hosoda · developed 1930s–50s, published August 1969 · source Just the two fast lines, Tenkan and Kijun, for readers who want the crossing without the cloud. Conversion Period 9, Base Period 26
66			Ichimoku	overlay	By Goichi Hosoda · developed 1930s–50s, published August 1969 · source The complete system, with both leading spans shaded into a cloud and the lagging span plotted behind price. The cloud is the one fill on the chart whose colour carries meaning: green where the leading span is on top, red where it is not, split exactly at the crossing. 4 parameters

Trend state as a number2

Two panes that reduce a whole trend judgement to one value.

SN	Preview	Indicator	Short name	Draws	What it measures
67			ASI	pane	By J. Welles Wilder Jr. · New Concepts in Technical Trading Systems, 1978 · source A running total that weighs each close against the previous close, open and range; its own swing points confirm or reject the ones on the price chart. Limit Move 3
68			Impulse	pane	By Dr. Alexander Elder · published as Elder Impulse System · Trading for a Living, 1993 · source +1 when an average and a MACD histogram are both rising, -1 when both are falling, 0 when they disagree. Built as a permission filter rather than an entry signal. 4 parameters

The in-house band1

One overlay written for this app rather than taken from the standard catalogue.

SN	Preview	Indicator	Short name	Draws	What it measures
69			karela_band	overlay	By Amrit Shrestha — NChart Pro An in-house band around price, used to judge whether price is stretched away from normal. Count 20

Honest limits

What it does not do

Every entry on this page lags, without exception. An average of the last twenty bars cannot know anything about the twenty-first, and the adaptive family reduces that lag rather than removing it.
Two averages crossing is not evidence about the future. In a range it happens constantly and means nothing; the same crossing in a trend is worth acting on. That is why a trend indicator is normally paired with something that tells you which of the two you are in.
Fractal Chaos Bands are a simplified variant. The catalog entry computes a rolling highest high and lowest low rather than gating on confirmed fractals, so it is a band, not the classic breakout indicator of that name.
Multiple Moving Average is a simplification too: it plots the mean of the six short averages against the mean of the six long ones rather than all twelve lines.
Parabolic SAR is drawn as a line here rather than as the dotted trail it is usually shown with. The values are the same; only the rendering differs.
The Ichimoku leading spans are displaced forward by 26 bars, so the part that would project past the last candle is not drawn.

FAQ

Questions people ask

Which moving average is best?

None of them, and the question hides the one that matters. Length dominates type: a 9 period and a 50 period line behave completely differently, while an EMA and a WMA of the same length behave almost identically. Choose the length from your holding period, then pick a type and stop changing it.

Why do some averages have Period and others have Length?

The label is whatever the calculation declares, and the two families were written at different times. They mean the same thing: how many bars go into the window.

What is MA Type 0 in the dropdown?

The types are numbered rather than named, because the underlying calculation declares a range and no labels. Zero is the first in the list, which for Moving Average (selectable) is the simple average.

Why does the Price Channel look shaded but the Moving Average Channel does not?

Only four bands are conventionally drawn filled, and those four are the ones tinted here: Bollinger Bands, ATR Channels, the Price Channel and the Moving Average Envelope. The rest are left as lines rather than given a fill nobody expects.

Can I compute a trend overlay on something other than the close?

No. The Calculate on row appears only on indicators that draw in their own pane, and almost everything here is an overlay. That restriction is what makes it impossible to build a loop, since overlays are the only things that can be a source.