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Every indicator, explained.

Plain-English guides to the indicators traders actually use — how each works, how it's read, its pitfalls, and a valid Pine v6 example. Education, not advice.

Momentum

RSI (Relative Strength Index)

A momentum oscillator that measures the speed and size of recent price changes on a 0-100 scale.

MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence)

A momentum indicator built from the difference between two moving averages, plus a signal line and histogram.

Stochastic Oscillator

A bounded momentum oscillator showing where the close sits within a recent high-low range.

Commodity Channel Index (CCI)

An oscillator that measures how far price has moved from its recent average, scaled by recent volatility.

Williams %R

A momentum oscillator that shows where the latest close sits within the recent high-low range.

Money Flow Index (MFI)

A volume-weighted momentum oscillator bounded between 0 and 100.

Awesome Oscillator (AO)

A momentum histogram that compares a short-term and a longer-term average of price.

Rate of Change (ROC)

A momentum oscillator that measures the percentage change in price over a set number of bars.

TRIX

A triple-smoothed momentum oscillator that measures the rate of change of a heavily filtered price series.

Elder-Ray Index

Splits price action into Bull Power and Bear Power around a moving-average baseline to describe buying and selling pressure.

Ultimate Oscillator

A momentum oscillator that blends three lookback periods into one 0-100 reading, aiming to reduce some of the false signals common in single-period oscillators.

Connors RSI (CRSI)

A three-part momentum oscillator that blends a short-term RSI, an RSI of price streaks, and a percentile rank of recent price change into one 0-100 line.

Stochastic RSI

An oscillator that applies the stochastic formula to RSI values instead of price, producing a faster but noisier 0-100 (or 0-1) momentum reading.

WaveTrend Oscillator

A community-famous momentum oscillator — essentially a smoothed, EMA-normalized cousin of the CCI — with two lines and overbought/oversold zones near ±60.

Percentage Price Oscillator (PPO)

MACD expressed as a percentage of price — the same two-EMA momentum measure, normalized so readings are comparable across symbols and across time.

QQE (Quantitative Qualitative Estimation)

A smoothed RSI wrapped in an ATR-style trailing band — a popular but often mystified momentum tool, demystified.

Fisher Transform

A statistical transform that reshapes bounded price position into a sharper, near-Gaussian oscillator.

Schaff Trend Cycle

MACD run through two rounds of stochastic normalization — faster-turning than MACD, at the cost of more whipsaw.

Momentum Indicator

The simplest oscillator there is: today's price minus the price N bars ago.

Chande Momentum Oscillator (CMO)

An RSI relative that uses the same up/down price changes but raw sums and a symmetric −100 to +100 scale.

Relative Vigor Index (RVI)

An oscillator comparing where bars close within their range, smoothed with symmetric weighting — not to be confused with the Relative Volatility Index.

DeMarker (DeM)

A MetaTrader-default oscillator that compares successive highs and lows — not closes — on a 0-to-1 scale.

Accelerator Oscillator (AC)

A Bill Williams histogram that measures whether momentum itself is speeding up or slowing down — momentum of momentum.

Traders Dynamic Index (TDI)

A forex-forum favorite that is really three familiar tools stacked on one RSI: a smoothed RSI, its signal line, and Bollinger Bands drawn on the RSI itself.

Stochastic Momentum Index (SMI)

A double-smoothed stochastic that measures where the close sits relative to the midpoint of the recent range, producing a centered oscillator from -100 to +100.

Trend

Moving Averages (SMA & EMA)

A smoothed line of average price that helps traders see the underlying trend through noisy candles.

ADX / DMI (Average Directional Index / Directional Movement)

A trend-strength gauge with two directional lines, built to measure how strong a move is rather than which way it goes.

Ichimoku Cloud (Ichimoku Kinko Hyo)

A multi-line system that aims to show trend direction, equilibrium, and potential support/resistance on a single chart.

Supertrend

An ATR-based trend-following overlay that plots a single line above or below price to track the prevailing direction.

Parabolic SAR

A trailing-stop and trend-direction tool that plots dots above or below price.

Heikin Ashi

A smoothed candlestick chart that averages price to make trends and pauses easier to see.

Aroon

Measures how recently price hit its highest high and lowest low to help describe whether a trend is present or absent.

Vortex Indicator (VI)

Two crossing lines that traders read to gauge whether upward or downward movement has been more dominant recently.

Hull Moving Average (HMA)

A weighted moving average designed to reduce lag while staying relatively smooth.

Arnaud Legoux Moving Average (ALMA)

A Gaussian-weighted moving average designed to reduce lag while keeping the line smooth.

ZigZag

A swing-mapping tool that connects significant highs and lows with straight lines — and the canonical example of an indicator that repaints by construction.

Williams Fractals

A five-bar swing pattern that marks local highs and lows — always confirmed two bars after the fact, which is where most implementations quietly cheat.

Fibonacci Extensions

A three-point projection tool that extends Fibonacci ratios beyond a completed swing to mark possible price objectives past the prior extreme.

Williams Alligator

Three forward-shifted smoothed moving averages — the Jaw, Teeth, and Lips — used to visualize when a market is trending versus 'sleeping'.

Gann Fan

A fan of straight lines projected from a pivot at fixed price-per-time slopes — deterministic geometry whose meaning depends entirely on a scale you must choose.

Linear Regression Channel

A best-fit straight line through recent price with parallel deviation bands — a legitimate statistical summary that refits, and therefore repaints, on every bar.

HalfTrend

A stateful trend-following overlay that ratchets a support/resistance line and flips between up and down states.

Range Filter

A recursive deadband filter that only moves when price closes further than its own smoothed typical range.

Andrews' Pitchfork

A three-pivot channel built from a median line and two parallels — deterministic geometry with subjective inputs.

Camarilla Pivots

Intraday reference levels spaced from the previous close by fixed fractions of yesterday's range.

Volatility

Bollinger Bands

A moving average wrapped in volatility-based bands that widen and narrow as price action calms or churns.

Average True Range (ATR)

A volatility gauge that measures how much price moves on average over a chosen period, expressed in price units.

Keltner Channels

A volatility-based envelope built around a moving average using the Average True Range.

Standard Deviation

A statistical measure of how far price has spread from its own moving average over a chosen lookback.

Choppiness Index

A 0-100 gauge of whether a market has been trending or chopping sideways — it describes the character of price movement, not its direction.

Moving Average Envelopes

Two bands set a fixed percentage above and below a moving average, framing how far price has drifted from its mean.

TTM Squeeze (Squeeze Momentum)

A volatility-compression detector — Bollinger Bands inside Keltner Channels — paired with a linear-regression momentum histogram; it flags coiling, not direction.

Chandelier Exit

An ATR-based trailing stop that hangs a fixed volatility distance below the highest high (or above the lowest low) and only ever ratchets in the trade's favor.

Bollinger %B

A single number that states where price sits relative to the Bollinger Bands: 1 at the upper band, 0 at the lower, and beyond either when price escapes the bands.

Bollinger BandWidth

A single line that turns 'the Bollinger Bands look tight' into a measurable number, so squeezes can be defined precisely instead of eyeballed.

ATR Bands

Volatility envelopes plotted a multiple of Average True Range above and below price, sized by how much the market has actually been moving.

Historical Volatility

The annualized standard deviation of logarithmic returns — the standard quantitative measure of how much an instrument has actually been moving.

Volatility Stop

The generic ATR flip-stop — a trailing line that ratchets behind price and switches sides when crossed, and the common ancestor of SuperTrend and the Chandelier Exit.

Volume

Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP)

The average price of an asset over a defined period, weighted by how much volume traded at each price.

On-Balance Volume (OBV)

A running total of volume that adds or subtracts each bar's volume based on whether price closed up or down.

Volume Profile

A horizontal histogram that shows how much volume traded at each price level over a chosen range.

Chaikin Money Flow (CMF)

A volume-weighted oscillator that gauges buying versus selling pressure over a set lookback, swinging between +1 and -1 around a zero line.

Force Index

Combines price direction, the size of the move, and volume into one line that oscillates around zero.

Accumulation/Distribution Line (A/D Line)

A running, volume-weighted tally of where price closes within each bar's range — used to study whether buying or selling pressure appears to be building.

Anchored VWAP

The volume-weighted average price accumulated from a specific starting bar you choose — an event, a swing point, or a session — rather than an automatic daily reset.

Relative Volume (RVOL)

A ratio comparing current volume to what is typical for that moment, so 'high volume' becomes a measured statement instead of a guess.

Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD)

A running sum of estimated buying minus selling volume — useful context, but only as good as the delta estimate underneath it.

Price Volume Trend (PVT)

A cumulative volume line that scales each bar's volume by the percentage price change, rather than adding all of it like OBV.

Chaikin Oscillator

The MACD of the Accumulation/Distribution line — a fast EMA minus a slow EMA of cumulative money flow.

Klinger Volume Oscillator

A fast-minus-slow EMA of signed volume force — an indicator whose published formulas genuinely disagree across platforms.

Volume Oscillator

The percentage gap between a fast and a slow moving average of volume — a measure of volume expansion or contraction, with no directional content.

VWAP Standard Deviation Bands

Bands plotted a chosen number of volume-weighted standard deviations above and below VWAP, showing how far price has stretched from the average traded price since the anchor.

Open Interest

The total number of derivative contracts currently outstanding — a count of open positions, which is a different thing from the volume traded.

Market Profile (TPO)

A charting method that organizes price by how much time the market spent at each level, building the familiar bell-shaped profile.

Support/Resistance

Fibonacci Retracement

A drawing tool that marks proportional levels between a chosen swing high and swing low.

Pivot Points

Price-derived horizontal levels that mark a central pivot plus support and resistance bands for the current period.

Donchian Channels

A channel built from the highest high and lowest low over a chosen lookback period.

Other

Detrended Price Oscillator (DPO)

Strips out the longer-term trend so shorter price cycles are easier to see.

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