As far as I know, when you offset a moving average, you are shifting the curve by the offset period mentioned.
For example, if you are plotting a 20ema with 0 offset value, you get the regular 20ema plotted.
But when you give an offset of say 5, it will shift your 20ema graph to 5 periods ahead. The value doesn't change, but the graph gets plotted ahead.
Similarly, for a negative offset value, the same graph gets plotted backwards.
Here,
RED line denotes 5ema with offset -5,
BLACK line denotes 5ema with offset 0
GREEN line denotes 5ema with offset 5.
