The Chande Momentum Oscillator (CMO) was developed by Tushar Chande, who presented it in a co-written work with Stanley Kroll called “The New Technical Trader”. This indicator was designed to calculate what Chande refers to as “pure momentum”. The objective of this indicator is to detect trend variations of greater or lesser extent. The CMO is similar, although it is unique in itself, to other indicators oriented to momentum such as the Relative Strength Index (RSI), Stochastics, and Rate-of-Change.
The CMO uses data from both bullish days and bearish days in the numerator, directly measuring the momentum. The calculations are developed with non-smoothed data. This allows extreme short-term movements to be less hidden. However, smoothing can be implemented to the Chande Oscillator if desired. The scale of the indicator is between +100 and -100 allowing the user to clearly see changes in market momentum using level 0 as a balance point.