Momentum strength
Weighted price change over 3 to 50 bars: above 50 means net up, below 50 net down, 50 flat.
MomentumStrength takes the percent change of the close over the last 3, 7, 14, 21 and 50 bars. It averages those five changes with weights 3, 2.5, 2, 1.5 and 1, so the shortest window counts most, then maps the average onto a 0 to 100 scale. Each 0.1% of average change moves the score by one point, and 0 or 100 is reached only at a 5% average move. On one-minute SPY bars the average move is tiny, so the score sits in a narrow band around 50.
How to read it
- The line sits in its own pane below the price, with 50 as the flat reference.
- Above 50, the recent closes sit higher than the closes 3 to 50 bars back. Below 50, they sit lower.
- In the sample, 90 percent of bars sat between 49.2 and 50.8, so small wiggles are normal. Moves past 51 or below 49 are the unusual reads.
- Zeros at the start of the chart are warm-up, not a crash. Until 50 bars exist, the code returns 0 instead of a blank.
What it outputs
- Momentum score
- Weighted price change over 3 to 50 bars, scaled so 50 is flat, above 50 is up and below 50 is down, from 0 to 100.
Pitfalls
- The 0 to 100 scale reads like a strength meter, but it is a directional score. In the sample it peaked at 54.7, far from 100.
- Warm-up zeros at the start of a chart look like the sharpest down-move on screen. Ignore the first 50 bars.
- Lookbacks and weights are fixed in the code and the indicator has no parameters, so the chart cannot tune it.