Indicators¶

The technical-analysis functions you can call in conditions and expressions. qkt ships ~10 hand-implemented indicators — the most common ones, written from scratch with hand-computed tests for correctness.

Function call shape¶

Every indicator is a function call:

<indicator>(<stream_or_field>, <period>, [<extra_args>...])

The first argument is what to compute on. For most indicators that's <stream>.close (close price). For ATR it's the stream itself (uses high/low/close). For VWAP it's the stream too (uses ticks + volume).

Catalog¶

Moving averages¶

ema(<value>, <period>)        -- exponential moving average
sma(<value>, <period>)        -- simple moving average
wma(<value>, <period>)        -- weighted moving average

<value> is typically stream.close but can be any price expression. <period> is the lookback length in bars (not ticks).

ema(btc.close, 9)             -- 9-bar EMA of close
sma(btc.close, 200)           -- 200-bar SMA of close
sma((btc.high + btc.low) / 2, 20)  -- 20-bar SMA of midpoint

When to use which:

ema — reacts faster to recent prices. Most common for short-term signal generation.
sma — equal weighting; smoother but slower. Used for long-term filters (50, 100, 200 period).
wma — linearly weighted (recent bars count more). Less common; sometimes useful when you want EMA-like responsiveness with a discrete window.

Oscillators¶

rsi(<value>, <period>)        -- Relative Strength Index, 0-100

rsi(btc.close, 14)            -- standard 14-period RSI
rsi(btc.close, 2)             -- Connors-style mean-reversion RSI

RSI uses Wilder's smoothing. Bounded [0, 100]. Below 30 = oversold, above 70 = overbought are the conventional thresholds.

Volatility¶

atr(<stream>, <period>)       -- Average True Range

atr(btc, 14)                  -- standard 14-bar ATR on btc stream

ATR is Wilder's smoothed average of true range. Uses high/low/close — so you pass the stream, not stream.close. Used heavily in stop-loss sizing (STOP_LOSS BY atr(btc, 14) * 2).

MACD¶

macd(<value>, <fast>, <slow>, <signal>)

Default Connors-style values: (12, 26, 9). Returns the MACD line:

macd(btc.close, 12, 26, 9)

To compare against the signal line, qkt provides macd_signal and macd_hist:

WHEN macd(btc.close, 12, 26, 9) CROSSES ABOVE macd_signal(btc.close, 12, 26, 9)
THEN BUY btc SIZING 0.1

The three values share the same internal computation — the parser deduplicates.

Bollinger Bands¶

bollinger_upper(<value>, <period>, <stddev>)
bollinger_middle(<value>, <period>, <stddev>)    -- = SMA
bollinger_lower(<value>, <period>, <stddev>)

WHEN btc.close > bollinger_upper(btc.close, 20, 2.0)
THEN LOG INFO "above upper Bollinger"

<stddev> is the band width in standard deviations; the typical value is 2.0.

VWAP¶

vwap(<stream>, <period>)      -- rolling N-tick VWAP

Takes the stream because it needs both price and volume. The period is in ticks, not bars — VWAP is a tick-level indicator.

WHEN btc.close > vwap(btc, 1000)         -- price above 1000-tick VWAP
THEN BUY btc SIZING 0.1

If a tick has no volume, that tick contributes 0 (doesn't pollute the average).

Donchian (rolling extremes)¶

highest(<value>, <period>)    -- highest value in the last <period> bars
lowest(<value>, <period>)

WHEN btc.close > highest(btc.close, 20)     -- breakout above 20-bar high
THEN BUY btc SIZING 0.1

WHEN btc.close < lowest(btc.close, 10)      -- breakdown below 10-bar low
 AND POSITION.btc > 0
THEN CLOSE btc

highest(close, N) excludes the current bar. It looks at the last N prior closes. This matters for breakout strategies — otherwise close > highest(close, N) could never fire (the current bar can't exceed itself).

Math helpers¶

Available alongside indicators:

abs(<expr>)             -- absolute value
max(<a>, <b>)           -- maximum of two values
min(<a>, <b>)           -- minimum
sqrt(<expr>)            -- square root
log(<expr>)             -- natural log
exp(<expr>)             -- e^x
floor(<expr>)           -- floor
ceil(<expr>)            -- ceiling
round(<expr>)           -- round half-even
pow(<base>, <exp>)      -- exponentiation

LET vol = sqrt(252 * sum(pow(btc.close / btc.close[1] - 1, 2), 20))

Annualized 20-bar realized volatility from log returns. Composes the helpers and a 20-bar sum aggregate.

Aggregates¶

sum(<expr>, <period>)   -- rolling sum
avg(<expr>, <period>)   -- rolling mean (same as sma)
count(<predicate>, <period>)   -- rolling count of bars where predicate is true

LET upDays = count(btc.close > btc.close[1], 20)
WHEN upDays >= 15 THEN LOG INFO "trend confirmed: 15 of last 20 bars were up"

Warmup¶

Every indicator has a warmup period — bars needed before it produces a meaningful value.

Indicator	Warmup
`sma(value, N)`	N bars
`ema(value, N)`	N bars (seeds with SMA of first N)
`wma(value, N)`	N bars
`rsi(value, N)`	N+1 bars
`atr(stream, N)`	N bars
`macd(value, F, S, sig)`	S + sig bars
`bollinger_*(value, N, k)`	N bars
`vwap(stream, N)`	N ticks
`highest`/`lowest(value, N)`	N bars

During warmup the indicator returns null. Comparisons with null are false — your rule won't fire, but it won't crash either.

The DSL compiler automatically infers warmup requirements from your indicator calls and tells the engine to discard pre-warmup signals. To declare a custom warmup window explicitly:

STRATEGY my_strat VERSION 1
WARMUP 200 BARS

SYMBOLS ...

Useful when you want to ensure long-period indicators (200-bar SMA) are warm even on short backtest windows.

Composing indicators¶

Indicators return numbers; numbers compose freely. Common patterns:

Difference between indicators¶

LET emaSpread = ema(btc.close, 9) - ema(btc.close, 21)
WHEN emaSpread > 100 THEN LOG INFO "strong trend"

Ratio¶

LET ratio = ema(btc.close, 9) / ema(btc.close, 21)
WHEN ratio > 1.02 THEN LOG INFO "2% above slow MA"

Multiply ATR for stops¶

STOP_LOSS AT btc.close - atr(btc, 14) * 2     -- 2-ATR stop

Combine across streams¶

LET corr_indicator = ema(btc.close, 20) / ema(eth.close, 20)

When the compiler complains¶

"Unknown indicator" — typo, or you used a name not in the catalog. Check this page.
"Indicator requires Stream, got Number" — passing btc.close where btc was expected (ATR, VWAP). Pass the stream, not the field.
"Indicator requires Number, got Stream" — opposite — passing btc where btc.close was expected.
"Period must be positive integer" — you wrote ema(btc.close, -9) or ema(btc.close, 0).

Common gotchas¶

atr and vwap take a stream, not stream.close. They need OHLC / volume, not just close.
Periods are in bars, not ticks — except VWAP, which is ticks.
Indicators are recomputed per bar. Long-period indicators are computationally cheap (linear in period); don't worry.
No mutable state across rules. Each rule's indicator references compile to independent indicator objects (deduplicated where the period + value source match). State is internal — you can't read "the previous value" via [N] on an indicator call (ema(...)[1] is not valid). Use a LET to capture the current value, then on the next bar your LET evaluation is for the new bar.
VWAP needs volume. A tick feed with volume=null produces a VWAP of null. Most CSV/MT5 feeds have volume; some Bybit endpoints don't.

What this composes with¶

Conditions — every indicator can appear in WHEN clauses
Expressions — arithmetic on indicator values
SIZING — ATR is the canonical risk-sizing input
BRACKET — ATR-based stops and targets
LET — name reusable indicator combinations