Axiom MACD Osc

Axiom MACD Osc is a focused, three-slot version of the MACD Oscillator family. It takes the textbook MACD idea — a fast moving average chasing a slow one, smoothed into a signal line, with the gap between them drawn as a histogram — and lifts it into a bounded 0-to-100 pane so that three MACDs, running on three timeframes of your chart symbol, can sit on one axis without the scale tricks that normally make that picture lie.

Where this version sits

Axiom indicator families use a Base -> CTX -> STR progression when the full set exists. Base is the free, focused version: three context slots, chart-symbol only, limited filtering through the MA surface, and one global bar-close posture. CTX expands that same MACD Osc logic into broader context: up to ten slots, per-slot symbol and timing control, and the larger Extended MA surface. STR is the structure expansion at the end of the series: CTX-style per-slot controls with five slots instead of ten because the extra processing budget goes into structure on the blended MACD output itself.

This page covers Base. Use it when three MACD context slots are enough and you do not need cross-asset tickers, per-slot repaint control, Power User MA blocks, or blended-line structure. Reach for CTX when ten-slot context breadth is the job. Reach for STR when you want the more advanced structure read around the blended MACD and are willing to trade away five CTX slots to get it.

Why a bounded MACD pane exists at all

Stacked MACDs are one of the most common ways traders add multi-timeframe context to a momentum read. They are also one of the most commonly misread. A 5-minute MACD and a 60-minute MACD drawn on the same price-unit axis do not describe the same thing at the same magnitude — the 60-minute numbers are larger because the 60-minute bars are larger, not because the evidence is stronger. Stacking them pretends the comparison is clean when it is not.

The fix this pane uses is explicit. Each slot's raw MACD, raw signal, and raw histogram are divided by that slot's own ATR, scaled by a sensitivity dial, and pushed through a centered sigmoid that lands in 0 to 100. 50 is equilibrium for the series being mapped. On the normalized MACD line, 50 means raw MACD is zero: the fast MA and slow MA are equal. On the normalized signal line, 50 means the signal value is zero. On the histogram column, 50 means the raw histogram is zero: MACD and signal are equal. 0 and 100 are asymptotes that act as rails, not reversal zones, and the clamp that enforces them is a deliberate choice with a named cost: you trade absolute MACD magnitude for cross-timeframe comparability and a pane that stays put.

If you have been burned by a normalized oscillator that pinned at 100 and never explained why, the whole point of this trim is to put the knobs that cause that behavior in your hands and explain what they do. ATR is the yardstick. Sensitivity is the dial. The sigmoid is the shape. That is not everything, but it is enough of the shape to trust what the number is telling you.

What the pane shows on install

Default configuration, in one pass so you know what you are looking at:

• Three slots enabled — MACD 01 at 5m (teal), MACD 02 at 15m (aqua), MACD 03 at 60m (blue) — each drawing its ATR-normalized fast line, colored by whether that slot's fast sits above its own slow (full tone) or below (faded).

• A thicker blended fast line in lime when the blended fast sits above the blended slow, red when it sits below, with a blended slow line in gray beside it and a translucent fill between the two that carries the regime color.

• Blended histogram columns rooted at 50 in four states: bright green (above 50 and rising), faded green (above 50 and falling), bright red (below 50 and falling), faded red (below 50 and rising). That four-state color is the cheapest surface on the pane for reading whether the convergence story is accelerating or losing thrust.

• Five horizontal guides — green at 0, dashed gray at your oversold level (default 30), solid gray at the 50 midline, dashed gray at your overbought level (default 70), red at 100.

• A global On Bar Close? switch, on by default. One switch, three slots. All three obey the same choice in Base.

The one-paragraph trust boundary

This pane is a normalized convergence/divergence read, not a signal service, not an RSI, and not a trend classifier. Alerts describe state on confirmed chart bars; they do not fire on crossings, on the 70/30 guides, or on the histogram. Repaint is user-controlled — one global choice in this trim — and the indicator names that choice plainly rather than burying it. The three slots are not three independent votes unless you have deliberately made them three different slots; if they share source, lengths, and MA family and differ only in timeframe, the alignment is closer to one measurement sampled at three cadences than to three observations agreeing. In Base, with each of three slots carrying a third of the weight, that confusion is more expensive per slot than it would be on a ten-slot trim. This is the single most costly misread the tool produces, and the rest of the pack treats it that way.

Who this will serve well

• A discretionary or semi-systematic trader who already reads MACD as a convergence/divergence story and wants the 5m / 15m / 60m versions of that story on one bounded pane.

• A reader who has tried stacking MACDs by hand and felt the scale problem.

• A reader who wants the MA family and length pair to be deliberate choices with named costs — and who is comfortable that in Base the family surface is keyed to the Lite library, not the Pro library.

• A reader who will turn three slots into three different slots rather than three copies of the same slot on different timeframes.

Who this is likely to frustrate

• Anyone looking for buy and sell arrows. The pane reports readings; it does not produce entries.

• Anyone who wants to read the pane as RSI and trade the 30 and 70 guides as reversal triggers. The guides are reference zones. The oscillator does not fire on them.

• Anyone who needs cross-asset context slots, per-slot repaint control, or Power User parameter blocks for specific MA families. Those live on the CTX trim, not Base.

• Anyone who wants to enable three slots at identical defaults and read the resulting alignment as breadth. That misuse pattern is the single highest-damage habit this pack can form, and the Base trim's three-slot shape makes the per-slot cost of mishandling it larger, not smaller.

Where to go next

• First chart, defaults, under ten minutes — start at Quick Start.

• Knob-by-knob reference with the tradeoff attached to each choice — Settings.

• What every line, color, and reference level means, and how to read the pane headline-first — Visuals and Logic.

• If you have ever been confused by a higher-timeframe indicator quietly updating while its bar is still forming, read MTF and Repainting before you touch the default configuration.

• Ten alert conditions, bar-close gating, and the alerts the tool deliberately does not ship — Alerts.

• Named workflows with their named anti-patterns — Workflows.

• The alignment trap, boundary pinning, sensitivity drift, and the rest of the honest limits — Limitations and Trust Boundaries.

• When a slot will not plot, an alert will not fire, or a runtime error appears — Troubleshooting.

• The mental-model shape of the ATR-sigmoid transformation, explained without a formula and without a recipe — For the Geeks.

Every control on this pane is configurable, and most of them trade one good thing for another. The rest of this pack is where those trades get named.