Financial Formulas

This section lists the financial formulas the Chart control supports. For more information, see Applying Formulas.

In This Section

  • Accumulation Distribution Formula
    Calculates a cumulative total of prices and volumes.

  • Average True Range Formula
    Records the maximum values of the following three differences, and calculates the moving average of the resulting data series.

  • Bollinger Bands Formula
    Calculates the standard deviation above and below a simple moving average of the data. Since standard deviation is a measure of volatility, a large standard deviation indicates a volatile market, and a smaller standard deviation indicates a calmer market.

  • Chaikin Oscillator Formula
    Useful for monitoring volume flow in a market. It applies the Accumulation Distribution Formula on the input, calculates the exponential moving average of the result for a short period and a long period, and then outputs the difference between the two.

  • Commodity Channel Index Formula
    Calculates the mean deviation of the daily average price from the moving average. A value above 100 indicates that the commodity is overbought, and a value below -100 indicates that the commodity is oversold.

  • Detrended Price Oscillator Formula
    Calculates the difference between the daily price and the moving average. This is useful for identifying cycles and overbought and oversold price levels.

  • Ease of Movement Formula
    Uses the close price and volume to measure the strength of the price trend. A value close to zero indicates that prices are not moving easily, while a high positive value indicates that prices are going up easily and a high negative value indicates that prices are going down easily.

  • Envelopes Formula
    Calculates bounding envelopes above and below a moving average using a specified percentage as the shift. The envelopes indicator is used to create signals for buying and selling. You can specify the percentage the formula uses to calculate the envelopes.

  • Forecasting Formula
    Fits the historical data to a regression function and forecasts future values of the data based on the best fit.

  • Mass Index Formula
    Predicts trend reversals by calculating the range between high and low prices for each period. A bulge in the index line signals a possible trend reversal. You can use a 9-day Exponential Moving Average Formula to determine whether the bulge is a buy or sell signal.

  • Money Flow Formula
    Compares upward changes and downward changes of volume-weighted typical prices. It can be used to identify market tops and bottoms.

  • Moving Average Convergence/Divergence Formula
    Compares a short period moving average and a long period moving average of prices. This formula is typically used with a 9-day exponential moving average as a signal that identifies buying or selling moments.

  • Moving Averages
    Describes the moving average formulas.

  • Negative Volume Index Formula
    Helps identify a bull market. When the negative volume index is above its moving average there is higher probability for a bull market. The probability for a bull market is much lower when the negative volume index is below its moving average.

  • On Balance Volume Formula
    Measures positive and negative volume flows.

  • Performance Formula
    Calculates the rate of price change compared with historical data. It differs from the Rate of Change Formula in that it calculates rate of change against the first available data. The output is in percentage.

  • Positive Volume Index Formula
    Helps identify a bear market. When the positive volume index is below its moving average there is higher probability for a bear market. The probability for a bear market is much lower when the positive volume index is above its moving average.

  • Price Indicators
    Describes the price indicator formulas.

  • Price Volume Trend Formula
    Calculates a cumulative volume total using relative changes of the close price. A bullish divergence between the price volume trend indicator and the price indicates that the market is at the bottom. A bearish divergence between the price volume trend indicator and the price indicates that the market is at the top.

  • Rate of Change Formula
    Calculates the rate of price change compared with historical data. It differs from the Performance Formula in that it calculates the rate of change against a period of days prior to the current price. The output is a percentage.

  • Relative Strength Index Formula
    A momentum oscillator formula that compares upward movements of the close price with downward movements, and outputs values from 0 to 100. A value close to 100 indicates that the price is about to move downward, and a value close to 0 indicates that the price is about to move upward.

  • Standard Deviation Formula
    Used to indicate volatility. It calculates the difference between values like the close price and their moving average. A higher standard deviation indicates higher volatility.

  • Stochastic Indicator Formula
    Calculates the simple stochastic indicator (%K) and the smoothed stochastic indicator (%D). %D is a moving average of %K. The output is a percentage. A value more than 80% indicates that the current price is close to the price high, and a value less than 20% indicates that the current price is close to the price low.

  • Volatility Chaikins Formula
    Calculates the exponential moving average of the difference between daily high and low prices, then calculates the rate of change of the exponential moving average.

  • Volume Oscillator Formula
    Measures the difference between a short period moving average of volume and a long period moving average of volume. A positive value indicates a strong trend, and a negative value indicates a weak trend.

  • William's %R Formula
    A momentum indicator, and is used to measure over-bought or oversold levels. This indicator is very similar to the stochastic %K indicator, except that the Williams %R formula calculates a negative value between 0 and -100 and does not smooth the data.

See Also

Reference

System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Charting

System.Web.UI.DataVisualization.Charting

Concepts

Formulas

Other Resources

Data Binding and Manipulation