What is Chande MO?
The Chande Momentum Oscillator adds up the size of every up move and every down move over a window and expresses the difference as a share of all movement. It reads +100 when every bar in the window rose, -100 when every bar fell and 0 when gains and losses balance. Altrady Charts draws it in its own pane with a dashed zero line.
The Chande MO measures the balance of up and down moves. It does not show trend direction over longer horizons, and it is not smoothed, so it swings more sharply than oscillators built on averages.
How to use Chande MO
- Above or below zero. Above zero, the up moves in the window add up to more than the down moves; below zero, the reverse.
- Near +100 or -100. Almost every bar in the window moved the same way. Many traders treat around +50 and -50 as overbought and oversold, but the indicator draws no such levels.
- Compared with RSI. The idea is close to RSI, but it uses plain sums instead of smoothed averages, so it reacts faster and reaches its extremes more easily.
- Period length. A shorter length reaches the extremes more often; a longer one is calmer.
These are ways to read the line, not entry signals on their own.
Settings
| Setting | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 9 | Bars of up and down moves summed. Lower makes the line swing harder and more often; higher smooths it. Minimum 1. |
| Source | Close | Which price each bar's change is measured on. Open, high, low, hl2 and hlc3 are also available. |
Adjust the length and price source in the indicator settings. The zero line is fixed.
Calculation
Each bar's change is counted as an up move or a down move, both as positive numbers, summed over the window and compared:
change = close - previous close
up = change if change >= 0, otherwise 0
down = -change if change < 0, otherwise 0
CMO = 100 * (sum(up, 9) - sum(down, 9)) / (sum(up, 9) + sum(down, 9))An unchanged close counts as an up move of zero, so it adds nothing to either sum. The first bar has no previous close, so the window needs nine changes from the second bar on, and the first value appears on the 10th bar of loaded history.
If price does not change at all across the window, both sums are zero and there is no value for that bar.
Limitations
- It is unsmoothed. Each bar entering or leaving the window can move the line sharply, so it is noisy, especially at short lengths.
- No levels by default. Only a zero line is drawn, so overbought and oversold thresholds are a choice you make.
- Extremes do not mean reversal. In a steady trend the line can stay near +100 or -100.
- The live candle moves. The current bar's value changes until that bar closes.
- It depends on timeframe and length. The same market gives different readings on 15m and 1D, or at different lengths.
Frequently asked questions
The Chande Momentum Oscillator is a momentum indicator that compares the sum of recent up moves with the sum of recent down moves, as a share of all movement. It runs from -100, every bar down, to +100, every bar up.
Above zero means up moves have outweighed down moves over the window, below zero the reverse. Readings near the extremes mean nearly every bar went one way. Traders often pick their own thresholds, commonly around +50 and -50, since only the zero line is drawn.
Both compare gains with losses. RSI smooths them with Wilder's average and scales the result from 0 to 100. The Chande MO uses plain sums over the window and runs from -100 to +100, so it reacts faster and reaches its extremes more easily.
Yes. The indicator declares two inputs: Length, default 9 with a minimum of 1, and Source, default close. Open the indicator's settings on the chart to change them.
Values on bars that have already closed are not revised. The current candle's value moves while it is still live and settles when it closes. Each value uses only a fixed window of past bars, so loading older history does not change it.
Use the Add to chart button at the top of this page. It opens BTC/USDT on Binance in the Altrady Charts terminal with the built-in Chande Momentum Oscillator already applied. On any other market, open the indicator picker on the chart and choose Chande Momentum Oscillator from the Oscillator group.