TEMA Indicator: Formula, Settings and How to Read It
TEMA (triple exponential moving average, Patrick Mulloy, 1994) is a low-lag average built as 3·e1 - 3·e2 + e3, where e1 is an EMA of the close, e2 an EMA of e1 and e3 an EMA of e2. Senzoukria computes it with a period of 20 by default.
Senzoukria · Indicators · Updated September 2026
TEMA ships with the Senzoukria desktop app, in the Averages & volatility group of the indicator catalogue. It is drawn on the price chart.
What TEMA measures
TEMA is not an EMA applied three times. Smoothing introduces lag, and the combination 3·e1 - 3·e2 + e3 subtracts an estimate of that lag from the smoothed line instead of accepting it. The three stages follow the catalog EMA convention: each is seeded with a simple average of its first N samples, then updated with a smoothing factor of 2/(N+1). Because every stage has to warm up on the output of the previous one, the first value appears at index 3(N-1) of the series and nothing is drawn before it.
The formula, as implemented
This is not a description of how the indicator is usually defined elsewhere — it is what the shipped code computes, documented next to the implementation:
TEMA (Patrick Mulloy, 1994) : TEMA_N = 3·e1 − 3·e2 + e3 où e1 = EMA_N(close), e2 = EMA_N(e1), e3 = EMA_N(e2) Même convention EMA que DEMA (graine SMA, α = 2/(N+1)). Défini à partir de l'indice 3(N−1) — null avant. Défaut N=20.
How to read it
- Use TEMA when the turn of the average should arrive close to the turn of price; the trade-off is that it also turns on moves that do not continue.
- A TEMA that runs past a swing extreme is the expected behaviour of the correction terms, not a data error.
- Plot it against a plain EMA of the same period: the distance between the two shows how much lag correction is being applied at that moment.
- In a flat phase the correction has little to work on and TEMA behaves much like an ordinary average; the difference shows up in directional moves.
Parameters and defaults
Period defaults to 20 and accepts 1 to 500, and it drives all three stages at once, so raising it also pushes the first printed value to the right: at 20 the line starts at index 57, and at the maximum of 500 it would take 1,497 bars before anything is drawn. There is no source selector; the calculation uses the close.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Period | number | 20 | 1 – 500 |
What it does not show
Cutting lag means amplifying recent change, so TEMA is noisier than the EMA it is built from and can reverse on a single sharp bar. The correction terms make the line overshoot around swing highs and lows, far enough to sit outside the range of recent bars. The long warm-up leaves TEMA blank on short histories, and because the three stages are recursive, a history loaded from a different first bar does not reproduce exactly the same curve.
Using it in Senzoukria
Add it from the Indicators panel of any footprint chart or candle chart. It runs on futures data from Rithmic or Databento and on crypto pairs from Binance and Bybit, on the same engine — the calculation does not change with the venue, only the data feeding it does. Market data subscriptions are billed by the provider, separately from the app.
Related indicators
- WMA — Averages & volatility
- Hull MA — Averages & volatility
- ATR (Wilder) — Averages & volatility
- Bollinger — Averages & volatility
- Keltner — Averages & volatility
- Donchian — Averages & volatility
See the full indicator library, or start with the order flow guide if you are new to reading aggression, delta and absorption.
Frequently asked questions
- What is TEMA and how does it differ from an EMA?
- TEMA combines three nested exponential averages as 3·e1 - 3·e2 + e3 rather than simply smoothing three times. The tripled and negative terms remove a large part of the lag an EMA introduces, so TEMA tracks price more closely, at the cost of responding to moves that later reverse.
- How many bars does TEMA need before it prints a value?
- The first value lands at index 3(N-1) of the series, because each of the three exponential stages warms up on the output of the one before it. With the default period of 20 that is index 57, so the fifty-seven bars at the left edge of a loaded history carry no line at all.
- Does TEMA remove lag completely?
- No. It removes a large part of the lag that the underlying exponential averages introduce, but the value is still derived from past closes and can only turn once price has already begun to turn. What the correction adds in exchange is overshoot around swing extremes.