# Qstick A Momentum & Oscillators concept (Classic single-name oscillators) in the LuxAlgo Library, with 1 indicator implementation. ## What is Qstick? Qstick is Tushar Chande's candle-body average: a simple moving average of close minus open over a short lookback. The name reflects its purpose, quantifying candlesticks: instead of eyeballing whether recent candles are mostly bullish or bearish bodies, Qstick collapses the bodies into one line. Above zero, closes have on balance been above opens, net buying during the bar; below zero, the reverse. Gaps between bars are ignored entirely, and there is no universal default length, though short lookbacks such as 8 bars are common in published examples. Chande presented Qstick in The New Technical Trader (1994), the book he co-authored with Stanley Kroll that also covered VIDYA and other indicators. The premise borrows from Japanese candlestick reading: the body, open to close, is where a session's directional conviction lives, while the wicks record excursions that failed to hold. Averaging the bodies turns that qualitative candle judgment into a plottable [momentum](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/momentum/) line. It reads as a simple bias line. The zero cross marks the flip between net-bullish and net-bearish bodies, unusually high or low readings mark one-sided stretches, and [divergence](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/regular-bullish-bearish-divergence/) against price warns that a trend's candles are hollowing out even as price extends. Because Qstick is unbounded and scales with the instrument's price, its extremes have no fixed thresholds; they are judged against that market's own history. What distinguishes Qstick from most momentum tools is the differencing it uses. [ROC](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/roc/) and the classic momentum line compare closes across bars, so overnight gaps flow straight into them; Qstick compares each bar's close with its own open, isolating intrabar pressure. Related body-based measures make other choices: Balance of Power divides each body by its bar's high-low range, so every bar contributes a normalized score and a single wide-range bar that would move Qstick substantially barely registers there; the Intraday Momentum Index feeds the same bodies through an [RSI](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/rsi/)-style ratio, producing a bounded 0-100 line with overbought and oversold bands. Qstick keeps raw, price-scaled bodies, which preserves magnitude but makes cross-market comparison meaningless. ## How to identify Qstick signals on a chart Qstick plots in a lower pane as a single line oscillating around zero, sometimes with a moving-average signal line added on top. 1. Add a Qstick or candle-body-momentum indicator and set the lookback; around 8 bars is the common short setting, while longer lookbacks smooth it into a bias filter. 2. Locate the zero line: readings above it mean recent candles have mostly closed above their opens, readings below mean the opposite. 3. Compare the line's level with its own recent history to judge stretch, since Qstick has no fixed overbought or oversold bounds. 4. Check the candles themselves when the line rolls over: shrinking bodies at new price highs are the pattern behind most of its warnings. 5. If a signal line is plotted, note crossings between Qstick and its average as the faster trigger. ## How traders use it - Zero-line crosses as a body-bias trigger: a cross above zero after a stretch of net-bearish candles says intrabar buying has taken over; some implementations add a moving-average signal line on Qstick for earlier crossovers, echoing the [MACD](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/macd/) signal-line convention. - As candlestick confirmation: a bullish reversal pattern carries more weight when Qstick is already rising or above zero, because the average body agrees with the pattern's story. - As a divergence check: price pressing to new highs while Qstick fades toward zero shows shrinking bullish bodies, the same caution read other momentum divergences give. - In gap-prone markets as a cross-check: when close-to-close momentum is strong but Qstick stays flat, the advance is living on gaps rather than intrabar buying, a distinction session traders care about. - As a higher-timeframe trend filter: a weekly Qstick holding one side of zero sets the bias within which faster signals from a [Stochastic Oscillator](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/stochastic-oscillator/) or similar tool are taken. ## Qstick vs other momentum measures - **Momentum** (https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/momentum/): The classic momentum line is close minus the close N bars ago, one differencing across bars; Qstick averages close minus open within each bar. Momentum captures everything including gaps and drift, Qstick captures only what happened between a bar's open and its close. - **ROC** (https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/roc/): ROC expresses close-to-close change as a percentage, making it comparable across instruments. Qstick stays in raw price units of body size, so its scale is instrument-specific, but it isolates the intrabar direction that ROC blends together with overnight moves. - **RSI** (https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/rsi/): RSI feeds close-to-close changes through a gain/loss ratio into a bounded 0-100 scale with conventional 30/70 bands. Qstick is unbounded around zero with no standard bands, trading RSI's comparability for a direct reading of candle bodies. ## FAQ ### What does the Qstick indicator measure? The average candle body: close minus open, averaged over the lookback. Positive values mean bars have mostly closed above their opens (net intrabar buying); negative values mean the reverse. It ignores gaps between bars and has no fixed bounds, so the zero line is the main reference and extremes are relative. ### What is a good Qstick length? There is no single standard. Shorter lookbacks (published examples often use around 8 bars) keep it responsive for timing, while longer ones smooth it into a bias filter. As with any lookback choice, a setting that fit one market's history may not fit the next regime, so it deserves the same skepticism as any tuned parameter. ### Who created the Qstick indicator? Tushar Chande, the engineer and author behind several adaptive indicators. Qstick appears in The New Technical Trader (1994), written with Stanley Kroll, as a way to quantify candlestick bodies. The name is shorthand for quantified candlesticks, and implementations differ mainly in lookback length and whether a signal line is added. ### How is Qstick different from the Momentum indicator? Momentum differences closes across bars, so it includes gaps and multi-bar drift. Qstick differences within bars, close minus open, then averages. A market that gaps up overnight and sells off all session shows positive close-to-close momentum but a negative Qstick; that disagreement is exactly the information the indicator adds. ### Does Qstick have overbought and oversold levels? No fixed ones. Because it averages raw price differences, its scale depends on the instrument and era: a Qstick of 2 is enormous on a $30 stock and trivial on an index future. Traders judge [overbought/oversold](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/overbought-oversold/) stretch against the line's own recent range, or normalize the calculation first. ### Can Qstick be used on its own? It is better treated as a confirmation tool. The line says what candle bodies have been doing, not where structure, volume, or higher-timeframe trend sit. Its common roles are confirming candlestick reversal patterns and cross-checking other momentum signals; most published treatments, including Chande's, frame it alongside other evidence rather than as a standalone system. ## Implementations in the Library - Qstick (LuxAlgo): https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/qstick/ ## Related concepts - Balance of Power: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/balance-of-power/ - CCI: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/cci/ - Williams %R: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/williams-percent-r/ - Ultimate Oscillator: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/ultimate-oscillator/ - True Strength Index: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/true-strength-index/ - Relative Vigor Index: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/relative-vigor-index/ - Awesome Oscillator: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/awesome-oscillator/ - Accelerator Oscillator: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/accelerator-oscillator/ - Gator Oscillator: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/gator-oscillator/ - Elder Ray: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/elder-ray/ --- Source: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/qstick/ (LuxAlgo Library, the encyclopedia of trading & technical analysis). Free to use with attribution: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/license/