Direct Answer
Tushar Chande's Qstick is a moving average of the candle body, close minus open, over a recent window. It summarizes whether recent bars have tended to close above or below their opens. Positive values mean closes have mostly finished above opens, indicating buying pressure, and negative values selling pressure.
Qstick: Formula, Meaning, Signals, Examples and How to Use It
How Is Qstick Calculated?
Tushar Chande's Qstick is a moving average of the candle body, close minus open, over a recent window. It summarizes whether recent bars have tended to close above or below their opens.
Formula: Qstick = MA(Close - Open, n)
Inputs:
- Open and close of each bar
- Averaging period n
- Moving average type, commonly simple
Worked example. Four bars with bodies of 1.0, -0.5, 2.0 and 0.5 give a 4-bar Qstick of 0.75. The inputs are illustrative numbers, not market data.
Reading it. Positive values mean closes have mostly finished above opens, indicating buying pressure, and negative values selling pressure. Zero-line crosses are the main events observed.
Limits. It ignores gaps between bars and the length of the wicks. Values are in price units and not comparable across instruments, and the choice of window changes sensitivity.
What is Qstick?
Tushar Chande's Qstick is a moving average of the candle body, close minus open, over a recent window. It summarizes whether recent bars have tended to close above or below their opens.
How to use Qstick
Positive values mean closes have mostly finished above opens, indicating buying pressure, and negative values selling pressure. Zero-line crosses are the main events observed. A reading alone is never a buy or sell signal; it needs context from price structure, volume, volatility and the broader market regime.
Strengths
- Averaging close minus open measures candle bodies directly, so the intrabar direction of each bar is part of the reading.
- Zero is a natural dividing line: positive means bars closed above their opens on average and negative means below.
- Reproducible when the formula and data convention are fixed.
Weaknesses and limitations
- A single very large candle body can dominate a short window, then cause a sudden change when it leaves the average.
- A doji and a small body are both near zero, so indecision and quiet closes are not told apart.
- Correlated indicators can create false confidence by repeating the same underlying information.
Editorial and risk note
This page is educational content, not individualized investment advice. It should not imply guaranteed prediction, accuracy or outperformance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Qstick a buy or sell signal?
No. Positive values mean closes have mostly finished above opens, indicating buying pressure, and negative values selling pressure. It ignores gaps between bars and the length of the wicks. A trade built on it still needs a trigger, an invalidation rule, a position size and realistic execution assumptions.
What is the best setting for Qstick?
Qstick takes these inputs: open and close of each bar; averaging period n; moving average type, commonly simple. There is no universal best setting for the tunable ones, so test them across instruments, regimes and out-of-sample periods and favor stable parameter regions over one historical winner.
Can Qstick be used by itself?
It ignores gaps between bars and the length of the wicks. Values are in price units and not comparable across instruments, and the choice of window changes sensitivity. For that reason it is read next to measures of direction, participation, valuation, liquidity and risk, not alone.
Does Qstick work on every timeframe?
The calculation (Qstick = MA(Close - Open, n)) can be run on any bar size, but behavior is not portable: a reading on a five-minute chart describes a very different market window from the same reading on a daily chart. Validate the exact timeframe before relying on it.
Why does Qstick give false signals?
A single very large candle body can dominate a short window, then cause a sudden change when it leaves the average. A doji and a small body are both near zero, so indecision and quiet closes are not told apart. Lag, noise and regime changes add to this, because market participants react to new information after the reading is calculated.
How should Qstick be backtested?
Rebuild Qstick from open and close of each bar using point-in-time data, write the rules before testing, include delisted securities where relevant, model realistic fills and costs, reserve a validation sample and compare with a simpler baseline.