The Relative Strength (RS) line is something many investors are familiar with. It is used to measure a stocks performance versus the S&P 500 and is typically calculated by dividing the closing price of the stock by the closing price of the S&P. This means if a stock moves up and the S&P moves down or the stock moves up more than the S&P the RS line will increase, if the stock moves down while the S&P moves up the line will decrease.
While the standard RS line is a powerful tool, Mike Webster recently discussed how he has made changes to the standard RS line and also uses a 21 exponential moving average of the RS line to help guide his decision making. This script puts those new twists on the standard RS line, by first calculating the RS line using the low of both the security and the S&P rather than the closing prices. Next it measures the 21-day exponential moving average of the RS line and plots the distance between the two as a histogram.
A strong trending stock that is out performing the market will see an extended period of a positive blue histogram signifying the RS line is above the 21-ema.
While on the other hand a stock in a downtrend that is underperforming will see a negative red histogram a red histogram signifying the RS line is below the 21-ema.
On top of all of that, the indicator also keeps 3 & 13 exponential moving average of the distance between the RS line and the 21 ema to help identify shorter term relative strength and capture more immediate shifts in momentum. Both of those are plotted on the histogram as well and will change color as they rise and fall making it easy to spot the direction.
Indicator options include:
Choose symbol to measure performance against
Change histogram colors
Choose ema line width
* Note this indicator does not plot the actual RS line, it is the histogram representing the distance between the RS line calculated using the lows and the 21 ema, as well as the two ema's of the relationship.