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The Kairi Relative Index (KRI) is a momentum oscillator that measures how far an asset's current price has moved away from its simple moving average, expressed as a percentage. When the KRI is significantly above zero, the asset is overbought and traders interpret it as a signal to sell. When it is significantly below zero, the asset is oversold and it signals a potential buy. The further the reading is from zero, the stronger the momentum in that direction.
The KRI originated in Japan and was historically popular in forex markets before more sophisticated oscillators became available.
KRI = ((Current Price - SMA) / SMA) x 100
You subtract the simple moving average from the current price, divide the result by the SMA, then multiply by 100 to get a percentage. If the current price is $110 and the 14-day SMA is $100, the KRI is 10. The price is 10% above its moving average, which qualifies as overbought territory under most interpretations.
Most traders use a 10 to 20 day SMA as the basis for the KRI. A shorter period makes the index more sensitive to recent price changes, generating more signals but also more false positives. A longer period smooths out short-term noise and produces fewer, more reliable signals for medium-term trend analysis.
Corporate Finance Institute notes that the KRI is effective at showing momentum because it measures deviation from an average rather than from a fixed point, allowing it to adjust dynamically as price levels change over time.
The KRI oscillates around zero. The signal logic is based on mean reversion: if the current price has moved far enough above the moving average, a correction back toward the average is probable. The reverse holds when the price has fallen far below the average.
Think of the SMA as the center of a rubber band: the further the current price stretches away from it, the stronger the pull back toward center becomes.
TraderEvolution's guide notes that a sufficiently high positive KRI indicates a sell signal, while a large negative KRI indicates a buy signal. The definition of "sufficiently high" depends on the asset, the time period, and the trader's risk tolerance.
The Relative Strength Index (RSI), developed by J. Welles Wilder in 1978, uses a more sophisticated formula that bounds its output between 0 and 100. The KRI is unbounded and can theoretically reach any positive or negative value. This makes the RSI easier to interpret consistently across different assets and timeframes.
The KRI remains in use primarily among traders who prefer simpler calculations and who want a direct percentage measure of deviation from the moving average rather than a normalized scale.
With deep roots in traditional finance and the digital asset industry, Acquire.Fi operates as a specialist M&A advisory firm. Coverage spans M&A, secondaries, OTC, and capital markets advisory across digital assets and frontier tech. Our team has decades of combined experience across every stage of the deal lifecycle.
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