EMA

Summary

Exponential moving average that weights recent prices more heavily via a recursive smoothing factor. A core building block seeding or composing many other indicators. Reacts faster than SMA; price above/below EMA suggests up/down trend.

Formula

k = 2 / (period + 1); EMA_t = (price_t - EMA_{t-1}) * k + EMA_{t-1}. Seed: EMA = SMA of first period bars.

Notes

A period of 1 performs no smoothing: the output is a copy of the input. Allowed since 0.6.5 (issues #48/#59).

Inputs

inReal — price/data series to smooth

Outputs

outReal — the exponential moving average

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Accepted values	Description
`optInTimePeriod`	integer	30	1–100000	Number of bars in the average; sets smoothing k = 2/(period+1)

Properties

Numerical Stability: Initial Unstable Period

Display Flags
✅ Overlap Input i
☐ Independent Y-Axis
☐ Candlestick

Implementation

TA-Lib Definition: ema.c · ema.yaml

Native	File
C	`ta_EMA.c`
Rust	`ema.rs`
Java	`Core_EMA.java`

TA-Lib is also available for Python, R and more using a wrapper.

Aliases

Exponential Moving Average, Exponentially Weighted Moving Average, EWMA