Direct Answer
A moving average that is smoothed twice: a simple moving average of a simple moving average. The effect is a weighting that peaks in the middle of the window, giving a very smooth line. Read like other averages: price above a rising TMA indicates an uptrend.
Triangular Moving Average: Formula, Meaning, Signals, Examples and How to Use It
How Is Triangular Moving Average Calculated?
A moving average that is smoothed twice: a simple moving average of a simple moving average. The effect is a weighting that peaks in the middle of the window, giving a very smooth line.
Formula: TMA(n) = SMA(SMA(Price, m), m), with m = (n + 1) / 2 for odd n, or m = n/2 + 1 for even n
Inputs:
- Prices
- Overall period n
- Sub-period m used for each SMA
Worked example. For an overall period of 9, each of the two simple averages uses 5 bars. The inputs are illustrative numbers, not market data.
Reading it. Read like other averages: price above a rising TMA indicates an uptrend. The heavy weighting of middle prices produces a smooth curve that filters short-lived noise.
Limits. Because the largest weights fall on the middle of the window rather than the latest bars, it lags more than an EMA or WMA of similar smoothness. It is slow to reflect turning points.
What is Triangular Moving Average?
A moving average that is smoothed twice: a simple moving average of a simple moving average. The effect is a weighting that peaks in the middle of the window, giving a very smooth line.
How to use Triangular Moving Average
Read like other averages: price above a rising TMA indicates an uptrend. The heavy weighting of middle prices produces a smooth curve that filters short-lived noise. 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 an average gives weights that taper to zero at both ends of the window, so entering and leaving bars cause only small changes.
- With the second window m at about half of n, the computation is just two simple averages chained.
- Reproducible when the formula and data convention are fixed.
Weaknesses and limitations
- Even-length windows use m = n/2 + 1 while odd ones use (n+1)/2, so the nominal length n does not map uniformly onto the effective weights.
- The weights are symmetric around the middle, so the line's lag is about half the window length, similar to a simple average.
- 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 Triangular Moving Average a buy or sell signal?
No. Read like other averages: price above a rising TMA indicates an uptrend. Because the largest weights fall on the middle of the window rather than the latest bars, it lags more than an EMA or WMA of similar smoothness. 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 Triangular Moving Average?
Triangular Moving Average takes these inputs: prices; overall period n; sub-period m used for each SMA. 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 Triangular Moving Average be used by itself?
Because the largest weights fall on the middle of the window rather than the latest bars, it lags more than an EMA or WMA of similar smoothness. It is slow to reflect turning points. For that reason it is read next to measures of direction, participation, valuation, liquidity and risk, not alone.
Does Triangular Moving Average work on every timeframe?
The calculation (TMA(n) = SMA(SMA(Price, m), m), with m = (n + 1) / 2 for odd n, or m = n/2 + 1 for even 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 Triangular Moving Average give false signals?
Even-length windows use m = n/2 + 1 while odd ones use (n+1)/2, so the nominal length n does not map uniformly onto the effective weights. The weights are symmetric around the middle, so the line's lag is about half the window length, similar to a simple average. Lag, noise and regime changes add to this, because market participants react to new information after the reading is calculated.
How should Triangular Moving Average be backtested?
Rebuild Triangular Moving Average from prices 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.