Triple Coppock Curve

The Coppock Curve is a zero-centered momentum oscillator that relies primarily on rate of change calculations. The Coppock Curve in its most basic form is already a great indicator, especially for spotting shifts in momentum. But, we wanted to see how we could modify it to get some better performance out of it.

As the ‘cop’ function demonstrates, the Coppock Curve has a pretty simple calculation. The first step is to calculate the rate of change at a longer and shorter window length. Next, the sum of the two rate of change values is calculated and finally a weighted moving average of a user defined length is calculated(this is the Coppock Curve).

The ‘cop()’ function set the foundation to allow us to implement our modifications. As you can see in the graph, there are 3 different lines (2 histogram and 1 normal line) comprising the Coppock values based on the rate of change of high, low, and closing prices. We liked this layout because it allows traders to easily identify the curve’s pivots and the balance of negative vs. positive momentum.

The Coppock Curve based on high prices is plotted as the teal histogram, wile the pink histogram represents the Coppock Curve of low prices. The curve based on closing prices is the red and green alternating line plotted on top of the two histograms.

We included some notes on the chart to help with interpreting the three curves.

There are two common approaches traders can take when trading with the indicator:
1. Trade based on closing price curve: Go long when line changes from bearish(red) to bullish(green). Then, go short when same line changes from bullish to bearish.
2. Trade based on crossings of the zero-line. This could be based on the high, low, or closing price curves, but closing price is the safest bet. So, go long when it crosses from negative into positive territory and short when it crosses under the zero line from positive into negative territory.