TEMA (Triple EMA)
TEMA is the triple exponential moving average — three layers of EMA smoothing combined so that most of the lag the layering would normally add is cancelled out, giving a smooth line that still turns quickly.
Smoothing an EMA with another EMA reduces noise but compounds lag. TEMA's trick, due to Patrick Mulloy, is to combine the three layers as three times the single EMA, minus three times the double, plus the triple — an arrangement in which the lag terms largely cancel while the smoothing survives. The 20-period TEMA here needs roughly three periods' worth of history to settle, which is why its warmup is three times its length.
Traders use the 20-day TEMA where they would use a fast EMA but want fewer jitters: as the line a swing trade should stay on the right side of. On daily NSE bars a common pattern is price holding above a rising TEMA during a markup, with the first close back through it taken as the pullback's start. Screening for closes above it alongside a longer SMA separates fresh strength from noise around a flat line.
Its honest limitation is shared with every de-lagged average: the cancellation is an extrapolation, and extrapolations overshoot. At V-shaped turns TEMA can whip past the price it is tracking, and in a range it produces direction changes at nearly the rate of price itself. It also needs unusually long history to be trustworthy — early values after a listing or a long halt lean on too few bars.
Against the HMA, which pursues the same goal with weighted averages, TEMA tends to run marginally more nervous at the same period; against a plain EMA(20) it is visibly quicker to a turn. It is the right tool when the double-smoothed feel of an EMA appeals but its lag on exits has cost you — and the wrong one when the chart is going sideways.
In Sift
Written as tema(20). A working scan — stocks above their 20-day triple EMA while the long-term trend holds:
where close > tema(20) and close > sma(200)1
of the 500 most-traded NSE stocks match today, as of 20 Aug 2026
Common questions
What is the difference between TEMA and a triple-smoothed EMA?
A triple-smoothed EMA is just an EMA of an EMA of an EMA — very smooth and very late. TEMA combines those same three layers with weights chosen so the lag terms cancel: three times the first, minus three times the second, plus the third. Same ingredients, opposite temperament — TEMA is fast where naive triple smoothing is slow.
Is TEMA good for swing trading?
It suits the job it was designed for — tracking a trend closely with less noise than a fast EMA — which is a swing-trading job. Its weakness is sideways markets, where it flips direction constantly. Whether the speed pays for the extra false signals on NSE dailies is exactly the kind of claim the hit-rate replay exists to test.