KlingerOscillator — Klinger Oscillator

Volume signed by the direction of the typical price, smoothed fast and slow. Klinger’s aim was a long-term money-flow read that still turns quickly enough to trade — the fast/slow difference is what gives it both.

Signature

KlingerOscillator(fast, slow, signal_period, on=<source>)

Argument	Type	Required	Notes
fast	int Param or literal	Yes	Fast EMA of signed volume. Default 34, bounds 1–200.
slow	int Param or literal	Yes	Slow EMA of signed volume. Default 55, bounds 2–400.
signal_period	int Param or literal	Yes	EMA of the oscillator. Default 13, bounds 1–200.
on=	symbol	No	Source symbol. Defaults to the trade symbol. Reads high, low, close, volume.

Formula

$$ sv_t = V_t \cdot \text{sign}(TP_t - TP_{t-1}), \quad \text{KVO} = \text{EMA}(sv, f) - \text{EMA}(sv, s) $$

The trend sign persists when the typical price is unchanged.

Warmup

Roughly 3 × slow bars for the EMAs to converge.

Reading the value

kvo.kvo
kvo.signal
kvo.kvo > kvo.signal

Multi-value: cannot be chained onto or crossed.

Example

class KlingerCross(Strategy):
    """Trade the KVO/signal crossover in the direction of the trend."""
    trade = Symbol()
    sizing = FixedCapital()

    def execute(self):
        kvo = KlingerOscillator(34, 55, 13, on=self.trade)
        sma = SMA(50, on=self.trade)
        if kvo.kvo > kvo.signal and self.trade.close > sma.value and self.trade.is_flat:
            self.buy(self.trade, reason="Klinger cross up")
        if kvo.kvo < kvo.signal and self.trade.is_long:
            self.sell(self.trade, self.trade.position, reason="Klinger cross down")

Notes

• Stephen Klinger’s Volume Oscillator. Simplified: Klinger’s full volume force multiplies by a trend-dependent range term; this ships the widely-used signed-volume form, which tracks the same shape with less state. Stated because it is a deviation from the original paper.