Moving average (MA)

Summary

Generic moving-average dispatcher that forwards the job to the MA implementation selected by optInMAType. Single uniform interface over all TA-Lib moving averages.

Formula

outReal = MA_of_type(optInMAType)(inReal, optInTimePeriod); default type = SMA

Notes

A period of 1 performs no smoothing for every MAType: the output is a copy of the input.
TA_MAType_DISABLED bypasses smoothing explicitly, for any period: the output is a copy of the input with a lookback of 0. Every function that takes an MAType parameter accepts it.
TA_MAType_DEFAULT selects the documented default of the parameter it is passed to — SMA here, EMA for APO, PPO and PVO. Every function that takes an MAType parameter accepts it.

Inputs

inReal — Series to average

Outputs

outReal — Selected moving average of the input

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Accepted values	Description
`optInTimePeriod`	integer	30	1–100000	Averaging window length
`optInMAType`	MAType	SMA (0)	any MAType	Which moving-average algorithm to dispatch to

MAType values: 0 SMA · 1 EMA · 2 WMA · 3 DEMA · 4 TEMA · 5 TRIMA · 6 KAMA · 7 MAMA · 8 T3 · 9 HMA · 10 DISABLED · 11 DEFAULT

Properties

Numerical Stability: Depends on MA Type — This function's default, SMA, is start-independent.


✅ Overlap Input i
☐ Independent Y-Axis
☐ Candlestick
☐ Can Output NaN or ±Inf
✅ Identity at Period 1 i

Implementation

TA-Lib Definition: ma.c · ma.yaml

Native	File
C	`ta_MA.c`
Rust	`ma.rs`
Java	`Core_MA.java`

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

Aliases

Moving Average, MovingAverage