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Chaikin Oscillator — Volume, in its own panel below the chart.
What Chaikin Oscillator measures
Both averages are exponential with a simple-average seed, the convention used throughout the catalogue. The plotted value is the fast average minus the slow one: positive when recent accumulation outpaces the medium-term trend of the same line, negative when it falls behind. Because the underlying A/D line never contains holes — zero-range bars contribute zero rather than interrupting the series — both averages are defined continuously from their seed, and the first plotted value appears once the longer of the two periods has enough bars behind it.
The formula, as implemented
This is not how the indicator is usually defined elsewhere — it is what the shipped code computes, documented next to the implementation:
Chaikin Oscillator : osc = EMA_fast(A/D) − EMA_slow(A/D) (défauts 3 et 10) EMAs à GRAINE SMA (`helpers.emaSeries`, α = 2/(N+1)) — la convention du catalogue, parité TradingView/ATAS. POURQUOI : c'est un MACD appliqué à la ligne d'accumulation au lieu du prix. Il répond à « l'accumulation ACCÉLÈRE-t-elle ? » — un croisement au-dessus de zéro dit que le flux d'accumulation court terme dépasse le moyen terme, bien avant que le NIVEAU de l'A/D ne le montre. Défauts 3/10 : ceux de Chaikin. Warm-up : l'EMA lente domine — première valeur à l'indice max(fast, slow) − 1. L'A/D sous-jacent n'a JAMAIS de trou (contributions nulles, cf. sa doc), les deux EMAs sont donc définies exactement à partir de leur graine SMA.
How to read it
- Zero-line crossings are the primary event: the fast accumulation average overtaking the slow one happens before the level of the A/D line shows a visible turn.
- The oscillator's height is a rate, not a total. A falling positive value still means accumulation, only decelerating.
- Compare oscillator peaks with price peaks. A lower oscillator peak against a higher price high says the acceleration behind the move faded.
- On fast timeframes the 3/10 default changes sign often; check whether a crossing survives the following bars before treating it as anything.
- Because the scale depends on the instrument's volume, judge each reading against this chart's own recent range.
Parameters and defaults
Fast defaults to 3 and slow to 10, Chaikin's original pair. Widening the gap — 5 and 20, for instance — produces fewer sign changes and a later response, while narrowing it makes the pane react to nearly every bar. Fast accepts 1 to 200 and slow 1 to 500. Setting them equal flattens the oscillator onto zero, and setting the fast period longer than the slow one simply inverts the sign of everything it plots.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fast EMA | number | 3 | 1 – 200 |
| Slow EMA | number | 10 | 1 – 500 |
What it does not show
Whatever the A/D line cannot see, the oscillator cannot see either: it derives from the close's position in the range and total volume, never from the aggressor side. A difference of two smoothed series lags the events that produced it, and short settings trade that lag for false crossings. The oscillator has no fixed scale — its amplitude follows the instrument's volume, so levels cannot be carried from one symbol to another. Zero-range bars add nothing to the underlying line, which can flatten the oscillator during illiquid hours for purely mechanical reasons.
Related indicators
- Volume — Volume
- Buy/Sell Volume — Volume
- Average Trade Size — Volume
- Volume ROC % — Volume
- Relative Volume — Volume
- Trade Count — Volume
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Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between the Chaikin Oscillator and Chaikin Money Flow?
- Chaikin Money Flow normalises accumulation over a window and returns a bounded ratio, describing the level of pressure right now. The Chaikin Oscillator is the difference between two exponential averages of the cumulative A/D line, describing whether accumulation is accelerating. One is a level, the other a rate of change.
- What are the default settings for the Chaikin Oscillator?
- Fast 3 and slow 10, the pair Chaikin used, both exponential averages seeded with a simple average. Nothing is plotted until the longer of the two periods has enough bars behind it.
- Is the Chaikin Oscillator the same as MACD?
- It uses the same construction — a fast exponential average minus a slow one — but applies it to the Accumulation/Distribution line rather than to price. As a result its crossings describe the behaviour of volume-weighted closes, not of price itself, and its scale depends on the instrument's volume.