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Trader Profile · The Mid-Century Masters

Chester W. Keltner

1909–1998 · Grain trader & author; namesake of the Keltner Channel

The commodities author whose simple moving-average band became, decades later, a popular volatility channel.

Keltner ChannelMoving-average bandsCommodities
Chester W. Keltner portrait
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Chester W. Keltner

1 The Story

A modest idea that took his name

Chester Keltner described a simple ten-day moving-average trading band in 1960 — and explicitly claimed no originality for it. Others later named the modern channel after him.

Keltner was a Chicago grain trader and author. In his 1960 book How To Make Money in Commodities he laid out what he called the “ten-day moving average trading rule” — a band around an average. Decades later, Linda Raschke popularised a modern version using an EMA midline and bands based on ATR, and the tool became known as the Keltner Channel.1

2 The Big Idea

What they gave the markets

A band around a moving average — the seed of a volatility channel.

Keltner’s original was a simple average with a band; the enduring contribution was the framing that later became an ATR-based channel.1

3 The Method & Contribution

What he originated

The original band

A 10-day moving average with a band derived from price range.1

No claim to originality

Keltner himself said the idea wasn’t his invention.1

The modern version

Raschke’s EMA + ATR channel is what most traders use today.1

4 See It On This Site

Go deeper

On this site

Our Keltner & Supertrend deep dive covers the modern ATR channel, the Bollinger comparison, and honest limits.

5 The Work

How To Make Money in Commodities

How To Make Money in Commodities

Chester W. Keltner · 1960
  • Introduced the moving-average band that became the Keltner Channel.
  • A practical commodities trading manual of its era.

6 Read More

Go deeper

§ Sources

  1. Chester W. Keltner & the Keltner channel (1960) — Wikipedia.