ADX of VortexHow to Trade
> Rising ADX of Vortex from 10 to 15 is trend building area to be noticed.
> If ADX of Vortex is falling but above 10 and below 15 avoid trade in such case because even if signal is generated by cross over of Vi-Plus and VI-Minus it may not give good profit.
> Once the position is taken and Price is steady but ADX of Vortex is falling then keep eye on cross over of Vi-Plus and VI-Minus to exit from trade.
> ADX rising above 15 is strong trending signal.
Recherche dans les scripts pour "机械革命无界15+时不时闪屏"
Rainbow Trend IndicatorThis is an indicator based on the MA rainbow concept. It is possible to choose between 15 or 20 MA's and if all 15 MA's is picked, the calculation will be calculated on 15 MA's and if 20 is picked the calculation is calculated on 20 MA's. The indicator will then be a line which is assigned a value from the calculation based on the MA's. If the line is above the dashed zero line, meaning the line's last value is a positive value, the price is in a uptrend and if the line is below the dashed zero line, meaning the line's last value is a negative value, the price is in a downtrend.
In short
If the line is green, the price is in a uptrend. If the line is red, the price is in a downtrend.
Day start top and bottomThis code is modified to draw the first 15 minutes(variable in setting by default 15m is set) of the high and lows through out the day.
It will work on time frames less than than or equal to 1st input. Hope this code helps you all.
IMPORTANT SETTING DETAILS:
1.Res = input(title="Starting X minutes lines to be Displayed",defval="15", type=input.resolution)
2.Day_start_15m=input("0915-0930",title="your country's Trading session time (starting X minutes)")
make sure to enter the starting 15 min of your country trading time in the input in 2nd input
both the above input 1 and 2 must be equal in time i.e "0915-0930"=15min and first one is also 15m
you need to make sure that the input settings are correct. It is By default set For INDIAs trading start time, you have to set start time according to your country.
mForex - Keltner channel + EMA Scalping systemTransaction setup parameters
Time frame: M5, M15
Currency pair: EUR / USD , GPB / USD
Transaction: London, USA
Number of orders / day: 10 - 15 orders
Trading strategies
=== BUY ===
Candles close on the upper Keltner
EMA10 crosses the upper Keltner range from below
Stop loss in the middle band or up to 12 pips
Profit target: 15-25 pips
=== SELL ===
Candles close below Keltner below
EMA10 crosses the Keltner range below from above
Stop loss in the middle band or up to 12 pips
Profit target: 15-25 pips
ADD for SPX intraday (NYSE Adv-Decl) -Tom1traderThis is the NYSE Advancers - decliners which the SPX pretty much follows. You can chart it like any index (ADD -NYSE $ADV MINUS $DECL) but I find it more useful in a separate panel with colors for direction.
The level gives an idea of days move (example: plus or minus 500 is not much movement through the session) but I follow the direction as when more stocks advance (green) or decline (red) the index tends to track it pretty closely.
On SPX, SPY and correlateds - very useful for intra-day trading (Scalping or 0DTE option trades) but not for higher time frames at all. If you chart the ADD in a chart and compare 5 minute to daily you will see what I mean.
I left it at 5 minutes timeframe which displays well on any intraday chart. You can change it by changing the "5" in the security function on line 13 to what you want ("1" 1 minute, "15" 15 minutes) or change it to timeframe.period (no quotes) so that it will follow the timeframe of the current chart. I like 5 min as it displays better on higher timeframes i.e. 15 min. or hour.
A simple moving average with a length of 10 is added to help gauge momemtum.
Hope this helps with trading or scripting ideas, questions or feed back welcome. Keep Smiling.
Bar Balance [LucF]Bar Balance extracts the number of up, down and neutral intrabars contained in each chart bar, revealing information on the strength of price movement. It can display stacked columns representing raw up/down/neutral intrabar counts, or an up/down balance line which can be calculated and visualized in many different ways.
WARNING: This is an analysis tool that works on historical bars only. It does not show any realtime information, and thus cannot be used to issue alerts or for automated trading. When realtime bars elapse, the indicator will require a browser refresh, a change to its Inputs or to the chart's timeframe/symbol to recalculate and display information on those elapsed bars. Once a trader understands this, the indicator can be used advantageously to make discretionary trading decisions.
Traders used to work with my Delta Volume Columns Pro will feel right at home in this indicator's Inputs . It has lots of options, allowing it to be used in many different ways. If you value the bar balance information this indicator mines, I hope you will find the time required to master the use of Bar Balance well worth the investment.
█ OVERVIEW
The indicator has two modes: Columns and Line .
Columns
• In Columns mode you can display stacked Up/Down/Neutral columns.
• The "Up" section represents the count of intrabars where `close > open`, "Down" where `close < open` and "Neutral" where `close = open`.
• The Up section always appears above the centerline, the Down section below. The Neutral section overlaps the centerline, split halfway above and below it.
The Up and Down sections start where the Neutral section ends, when there is one.
• The Up and Down sections can be colored independently using 7 different methods.
• The signal line plotted in Line mode can also be displayed in Columns mode.
Line
• Displays a single balance line using a zero centerline.
• A variable number of independent methods can be used to calculate the line (6), determine its color (5), and color the fill (5).
You can thus evaluate the state of 3 different components with this single line.
• A "Divergence Levels" feature will use the line to automatically draw expanding levels on divergence events.
Features available in both modes
• The color of all components can be selected from 15 base colors, with 16 gradient levels used for each base color in the indicator's gradients.
• A zero line can show a 6-state aggregate value of the three main volume balance modes.
• The background can be colored using any of 5 different methods.
• Chart bars can be colored using 5 different methods.
• Divergence and large neutral count ratio events can be shown in either Columns or Line mode, calculated in one of 4 different methods.
• Markers on 6 different conditions can be displayed.
█ CONCEPTS
Intrabar inspection
Intrabar inspection means the indicator looks at lower timeframe bars ( intrabars ) making up a given chart bar to gather its information. If your chart is on a 1-hour timeframe and the intrabar resolution determined by the indicator is 5 minutes, then 12 intrabars will be analyzed for each chart bar and the count of up/down/neutral intrabars among those will be tallied.
Bar Balances and calculation methods
The indicator uses a variety of methods to evaluate bar balance and to derive other calculations from them:
1. Balance on Bar : Uses the relative importance of instant Up and Down counts on the bar.
2. Balance Averages : Uses the difference between the EMAs of Up and Down counts.
3. Balance Momentum : Starts by calculating, separately for both Up and Down counts, the difference between the same EMAs used in Balance Averages and an SMA of double the period used for the EMAs. These differences are then aggregated and finally, a bounded momentum of that aggregate is calculated using RSI.
4. Markers Bias : It sums the bull/bear occurrences of the four previous markers over a user-defined period (the default is 14).
5. Combined Balances : This is the aggregate of the instant bull/bear bias of the three main bar balances.
6. Dual Up/Down Averages : This is a display mode showing the EMA calculated for each of the Up and Down counts.
Interpretation of neutral intrabars
What do neutral intrabars mean? When price does not change during a bar, it can be because there is simply no interest in the market, or because of a perfect balance between buyers and sellers. The latter being more improbable, Bar Balance assumes that neutral bars reveal a lack of interest, which entails uncertainty. That is the reason why the option is provided to interpret ratios of neutral intrabars greater than 50% as divergences. It is also the rationale behind the option to dampen signal lines on the inverse ratio of neutral intrabars, so that zero intrabars do not affect the signal, and progressively larger proportions of neutral intrabars will reduce the signal's amplitude, as the balance calcs using the up/down counts lose significance. The impact of the dampening will vary with markets. Weaker markets such as cryptos will often contain greater numbers of neutral intrabars, so dampening the Line in that sector will have a greater impact than in more liquid markets.
█ FEATURES
1 — Columns
• While the size of the Up/Down columns always represents their respective importance on the bar, their coloring mode is independent. The default setup uses a standard coloring mode where the Up/Down columns over/under the zero line are always in the bull/bear color with a higher intensity for the winning side. Six other coloring modes allow you to pack more information in the columns. When choosing to color the top columns using a bull/bear gradient on Balance Averages, for example, you will end up with bull/bear colored tops. In order for the color of the bottom columns to continue to show the instant bar balance, you can then choose the "Up/Down Ratio on Bar — Dual Solid Colors" coloring mode to make those bars the color of the winning side for that bar.
• Line mode shows only the line, but Columns mode allows displaying the line along with it. If the scale of the line is different than that of the scale of the columns, the line will often appear flat. Traders may find even a flat line useful as its bull/bear colors will be easily distinguishable.
2 — Line
• The default setup for Line mode uses a calculation on "Balance Momentum", with a fill on the longer-term "Balance Averages" and a line color based on the "Markers Bias". With the background set on "Line vs Divergence Levels" and the zero line on the hard-coded "Combined Bar Balances", you have access to five distinct sources of information at a glance, to which you can add divergences, divergences levels and chart bar coloring. This provides powerful potential in displaying bar balance information.
• When no columns are displayed, Line mode can show the full scale of whichever line you choose to calculate because the columns' scale no longer interferes with the line's scale.
• Note that when "Balance on Bar" is selected, the Neutral count is also displayed as a ratio of the balance line. This is the only instance where the Neutral count is displayed in Line mode.
• The "Dual Up/Down Averages" is an exception as it displays two lines: one average for the Up counts and another for the Down counts. This mode will be most useful when Columns are also displayed, as it provides a reference for the top and bottom columns.
3 — Zero Line
The zero line can be colored using two methods, both based on the Combined Balances, i.e., the aggregate of the instant bull/bear bias of the three main bar balances.
• In "Six-state Dual Color Gradient" mode, a dot appears on every bar. Its color reflects the bull/bear state of the Combined Balances, and the dot's brightness reflects the tally of balance biases.
• In "Dual Solid Colors (All Bull/All Bear Only)" a dot only appears when all three balances are either bullish or bearish. The resulting pattern is identical to that of Marker 1.
4 — Divergences
• Divergences are displayed as a small circle at the top of the scale. Four different types of divergence events can be detected. Divergences occur whenever the bull/bear bias of the method used diverges with the bar's price direction.
• An option allows you to include in divergence events instances where the count of neutral intrabars exceeds 50% of the total intrabar count.
• The divergence levels are dynamic levels that automatically build from the line's values on divergence events. On consecutive divergences, the levels will expand, creating a channel. This implementation of the divergence levels corresponds to my view that divergences indicate anomalies, hesitations, points of uncertainty if you will. It excludes any association of a pre-determined bullish/bearish bias to divergences. Accordingly, the levels merely take note of divergence events and mark those points in time with levels. Traders then have a reference point from which they can evaluate further movement. The bull/bear/neutral colors used to plot the levels are also congruent with this view in that they are determined by price's position relative to the levels, which is how I think divergences can be put to the most effective use.
5 — Background
• The background can show a bull/bear gradient on four different calculations. You can adjust its brightness to make its visual importance proportional to how you use it in your analysis.
6 — Chart bars
• Chart bars can be colored using five different methods.
• You have the option of emptying the body of bars where volume does not increase, as does my TLD indicator, the idea behind this being that movement on bars where volume does not increase is less relevant.
7 — Intrabar Resolution
You can choose between three modes. Two of them are automatic and one is manual:
a) Fast, Longer history, Auto-Steps (~12 intrabars) : Optimized for speed and deeper history. Uses an average minimum of 12 intrabars.
b) More Precise, Shorter History Auto-Steps (~24 intrabars) : Uses finer intrabar resolution. It is slower and provides less history. Uses an average minimum of 24 intrabars.
c) Fixed : Uses the fixed resolution of your choice.
Auto-Steps calculations vary for 24/7 and conventional markets in order to achieve the proper target of minimum intrabars.
You can choose to view the intrabar resolution currently used to calculate delta volume. It is the default.
The proper selection of the intrabar resolution is important. It must achieve maximal granularity to produce precise results while not unduly slowing down calculations, or worse, causing runtime errors.
8 — Markers
Six markers are available:
1. Combined Balances Agreement : All three Bar Balances are either bullish or bearish.
2. Up or Down % Agrees With Bar : An up marker will appear when the percentage of up intrabars in an up chart bar is greater than the specified percentage. Conditions mirror to down bars.
3. Divergence confirmations By Price : One of the four types of balance calculations can be used to detect divergences with price. Confirmations occur when the bar following the divergence confirms the balance bias. Note that the divergence events used here do not include neutral intrabar events.
4. Balance Transitions : Bull/bear transitions of the selected balance.
5. Markers Bias Transitions : Bull/bear transitions of the Markers Bias.
6. Divergence Confirmations By Line : Marks points where the line first breaches a divergence level.
Markers appear when the condition is detected, without delay. Since nothing is plotted in realtime, markers do not appear on the realtime bar.
9 — Settings
• Two modes can be selected to dampen the line on the ratio of neutral intrabars.
• A distinct weight can be attributed to the count of the latter half of intrabars, on the assumption that later intrabars may be more important in determining the outcome of chart bars.
• Allows control over the periods of the different moving averages used in calculations.
• The default periods used for the various calculations define the following hierarchy from slow to fast:
Balance Averages: 50,
Balance Momentum: 20,
Dual Up/Down Averages: 20,
Marker Bias: 10.
█ LIMITATIONS
• This script uses a special characteristic of the `security()` function allowing the inspection of intrabars—which is not officially supported by TradingView.
• The method used does not work on the realtime bar—only on historical bars.
• The indicator only works on some chart resolutions: 3, 5, 10, 15 and 30 minutes, 1, 2, 4, 6, and 12 hours, 1 day, 1 week and 1 month. The script’s code can be modified to run on other resolutions, but chart resolutions must be divisible by the lower resolution used for intrabars and the stepping mechanism could require adaptation.
• When using the "Line vs Divergence Levels — Dual Color Gradient" color mode to fill the line, background or chart bars, keep in mind that a line calculation mode must be defined for it to work, as it determines gradients on the movement of the line relative to divergence levels. If the line is hidden, it will not work.
• When the difference between the chart’s resolution and the intrabar resolution is too great, runtime errors will occur. The Auto-Steps selection mechanisms should avoid this.
• Alerts do not work reliably when `security()` is used at intrabar resolutions. Accordingly, no alerts are configured in the indicator.
• The color model used in the indicator provides for fancy visuals that come at a price; when you change values in Inputs , it can take 20 seconds for the changes to materialize. Luckily, once your color setup is complete, the color model does not have a large performance impact, as in normal operation the `security()` calls will become the most important factor in determining response time. Also, once in a while a runtime error will occur when you change inputs. Just making another change will usually bring the indicator back up.
█ RAMBLINGS
Is this thing useful?
I'll let you decide. Bar Balance acts somewhat like an X-Ray on bars. The intrabars it analyzes are no secret; one can simply change the chart's resolution to see the same intrabars the indicator uses. What the indicator brings to traders is the precise count of up/down/neutral intrabars and, more importantly, the calculations it derives from them to present the information in a way that can make it easier to use in trading decisions.
How reliable is Bar Balance information?
By the same token that an up bar does not guarantee that more up bars will follow, future price movements cannot be inferred from the mere count of up/down/neutral intrabars. Price movement during any chart bar for which, let's say, 12 intrabars are analyzed, could be due to only one of those intrabars. One can thus easily see how only relying on bar balance information could be very misleading. The rationale behind Bar Balance is that when the information mined for multiple chart bars is aggregated, it can provide insight into the history behind chart bars, and thus some bias as to the strength of movements. An up chart bar where 11/12 intrabars are also up is assumed to be stronger than the same up bar where only 2/12 intrabars are up. This logic is not bulletproof, and sometimes Bar Balance will stray. Also, keep in mind that balance lines do not represent price momentum as RSI would. Bar Balance calculations have no idea where price is. Their perspective, like that of any historian, is very limited, constrained that it is to the narrow universe of up/down/neutral intrabar counts. You will thus see instances where price is moving up while Balance Momentum, for example, is moving down. When Bar Balance performs as intended, this indicates that the rally is weakening, which does necessarily imply that price will reverse. Occasionally, price will merrily continue to advance on weakening strength.
Divergences
Most of the divergence detection methods used here rely on a difference between the bias of a calculation involving a multi-bar average and a given bar's price direction. When using "Bar Balance on Bar" however, only the bar's balance and price movement are used. This is the default mode.
As usual, divergences are points of interest because they reveal imbalances, which may or may not become turning points. I do not share the overwhelming enthusiasm traders have for the purported ability of bullish/bearish divergences to indicate imminent reversals.
Superfluity
In "The Bed of Procrustes", Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes: To bankrupt a fool, give him information . Bar Balance can display lots of information. While learning to use a new indicator inevitably requires an adaptation period where we put it through its paces and try out all its options, once you have become used to Bar Balance and decide to adopt it, rigorously eliminate the components you don't use and configure the remaining ones so their visual prominence reflects their relative importance in your analysis. I tried to provide flexible options for traders to control this indicator's visuals for that exact reason—not for window dressing.
█ NOTES
For traders
• To avoid misleading traders who don't read script descriptions, the indicator shows nothing in the realtime bar.
• The Data Window shows key values for the indicator.
• All gradients used in this indicator determine their brightness intensities using advances/declines in the signal—not their relative position in a fixed scale.
• Note that because of the way gradients are optimized internally, changing their brightness will sometimes require bringing down the value a few steps before you see an impact.
• Because this indicator does not use volume, it will work on all markets.
For coders
• For those interested in gradients, this script uses an advanced version of the Advance/Decline gradient function from the PineCoders Color Gradient (16 colors) Framework . It allows more precise control over the range, steps and min/max values of the gradients.
• I use the PineCoders Coding Conventions for Pine to write my scripts.
• I used functions modified from the PineCoders MTF Selection Framework for the selection of timeframes.
█ THANKS TO:
— alexgrover who helped me think through the dampening method used to attenuate signal lines on high ratios of neutral intrabars.
— A guy called Kuan who commented on a Backtest Rookies presentation of their Volume Profile indicator . The technique I use to inspect intrabars is derived from Kuan's code.
— theheirophant , my partner in the exploration of the sometimes weird abysses of `security()`’s behavior at intrabar resolutions.
— midtownsk8rguy , my brilliant companion in mining the depths of Pine graphics. He is also the co-author of the PineCoders Color Gradient Frameworks .
(JS)DMI BarsAlright - so this is my own version of John Carter's "10x Bars"... I have done multiple things that are different from his version so they are slightly different..
So first of all the main indicator is based off of the ADX and the DMI;
For those who aren't familiar with it, Directional Movement is what you'd pull up under "built-in's" from the indicators tab (if you want to check it out).
The standard interpretation of this however, is when the ADX is above 20 that suggests the trend is strong, whereas under 20 suggests it is weak.
Also, when the D+ is above the D- that suggests a bullish trend, and D- above D+ suggests a bearish trend.
These bars take away the need to have it at the bottom of your screen, and places the data on the bars on your chart instead.
=========================================================================================================================================
So here's what the colors stand for -
Yellow - The ADX is under 20, no strength in trend
Shades of green occur when the ADX is above 20 and there's a bullish trend (D+ higher than D-)
Bright Green (Lime) - Bullish trend, D+ above 30
Green - Bullish Trend
Yellow Green - Bullish trend, D+ below 15
Shades of red occur when the ADX is above 20 and there's a bearish trend (D- higher than D+)
Bright Red - Bearish trend, D- above 30
Red - Bearish Trend
Orange - Bearish trend, D- below 15
=========================================================================================================================================
I have also added multiple time frame labels (label script used is the one created by Ricardo Santos)
These labels are color coded the same as the bars/candles, and they appear off to the right of your screen using every built in time increment from TradingView.
The purpose is to show you in real time, and on any chart resolution, what the current trend is on every individual time frame.
So using just one single chart you'll see your current resolutions candles, but also on the labels you'll see:
1 Minute
3 Minute
5 Minute
15 Minute
30 Minute
45 Minute
1 Hour
2 Hour
3 Hour
4 Hour
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
There is an input I added that allows you to adjust where your labels appear on the side of your screen as well!
=========================================================================================================================================
Now onto the volume spike portion of the indicator. This will plot a blue dot under each bar that has a spike in volume which meets your specified criteria.
I have 500% as the default setting.
What that means is that this indicator looks back and gets the 50 bar volume average and then applies dots where volume is 500% above average.
=========================================================================================================================================
Now finally, the reversal arrows. This is another simple to understand concept that I first read in John Carter's book "Mastering the Trade" that he calls "HOLP/LOHP".
I have added the ability to change the look back period you'd like the indicator to watch for highs and lows on.
What that stands for is 'High of Low Period' and 'Low of High Period', and it is used like this-
Whenever a bar makes a new high the indicator watches the low on that highest bar. Then when a bar afterwards makes a lower low then the one on the high bar,
a reversal arrow is given. Apply this same concept in the other direction in for the highs on the lowest bars.
=========================================================================================================================================
Now, I didn't want to make a "set" or have a bunch of different indicators out there that are all intended for the same package, so I took the time to put them together,
and if there's a part of it you don't care for they can easily be turned off in the settings.
Enjoy!
Delta Volume Columns [LucF]Displays delta volume columns using intrabar volume information. Each volume column is divided into three sections: buying, selling and neutral volume. Volume for each section is determined from the volume and price movement of each intrabar at a user-selected lower resolution.
Features include:
- Choice of color themes for either dark or light chart backgrounds
- Delta volume columns
- Volume Balance displayed as the difference between the MAs of buying and selling volume
- Display of divergences between a bar’s volume balance and the bar’s price movement (example: buying volume > selling volume but close < open). Divergences can be shown in 2 different color schemes (including green/red showing a tentative direction), on volume columns and/or on chart bars
- Display of bar by bar volume balance with highlighting of above average volume
- Display of the usual total volume MA
- Choice of the lower resolution used to retrieve intrabar information
- Alerts configurable on any combination of the markers, with control over long/short direction
- Choice of 3 different markers:
1. Double bumps: two consecutive bars where buying or selling volume is in the same direction and where volume > volume MA
2. Divergence confirmations: direction of the price bar following a price/volume balance divergence
3. Volume balance shifts: zero level crossings of the volume balance MA delta
The chart shows the two main modes of display:
- Top pane : shows the stacked volume columns with divergences in orange and the flattened volume balance MAs delta at the bottom of the volume columns. This volume balance is the same shown in the bottom pane. The top pane also shows the instant volume balance strip above the volume columns. The strip’s colors show which of the buying or selling volume was greater, and colors are brighter if the total volume was above the total volume MA.
- Bottom pane : shows the volume balance MAs delta with markers 1 and 2. Given that this graphic has no price momentum component, I find quite eerie how it often looks like a momentum-based signal.
The default 5 minute intrabar resolution is used in combination with the weekly chart, which is excessive.
This script uses a special characteristic of the security() function’s behavior when it is sent to a resolution lower than the chart’s resolution. Details are given in the script’s comments. This method has the advantage of working under more circumstances than some of the other loop-based methods, but it also has its limits.
IMPORTANT
This is what you need to know:
- The method used does not work on the realtime bar—only on historical bars. Consequently, the volume column shown on the realtime bar is a normal volume column plotted in green or red, following price movement. The column will only show delta volume information after it closes and becomes a historical bar.
- The indicator only works on some chart resolutions: 5, 10, 15 and 30 minutes, 1, 2, 4, 6, and 12 hours, 1 day, 1 week and 1 month. The script’s code can be modified to run on other resolutions, but chart resolutions must be divisible by the lower resolution used for intrabars.
- Intrabar resolutions can be selected from 1, 5, 15, 30, 45 minutes, 1, 2, 3, 4 hours, 1 day, 1 week and 1 month. The intrabar resolution must of course be smaller than the chart’s resolution.
- Contrary to my other indicators where alerts must be configured to trigger “Once Per Bar Close” in order to avoid false triggers (or repainting), all this indicator’s alerts are designed to trigger using previous bar information since the indicator’s calculations in the realtime bar are not exact. Markers are not plotted with a negative offset; they appear at the beginning of the realtime bar following confirmation of the marker’s condition on the previous bar. Alerts for this indicator should thus be configured to trigger “Once Per Bar” so they trigger at the beginning of the realtime bar. Note that the penalty is not that great, as it is simply the instant between the close of the previous realtime bar and the opening of the next. The advantage of using this technique is that the indicator does not repaint; a marker that appears at the beginning of the realtime bar will never disappear.
- The script only plots information that is reliable in the realtime bar, i.e., total volume and markers. All other plots are set to n/a to prevent misleading traders.
- When the difference between the chart’s resolution and the lower resolution is too important, volume columns will not calculate for all bars in the dataset.
On Delta Volume
Buying or selling volume are misnomers, as every unit of volume transacted is both bought and sold by 2 different traders. There is no such thing as “buy only” or “sell only” volume, but trader lingo is riddled with original fabulations.
Without access to order book information, traders work with the assumption that when price moves up during a bar, there was more buying pressure than selling pressure. The built-in volume indicator available on TradingView uses this logic to color the volume columns green or red. While this script’s numbers are more precise because it analyses a number of intrabars to calculate its information, it uses the exact same imperfect logic to calculate its buying/selling/neutral sections.
Until Pine scripts can have access to how much volume was transacted at the bid/ask prices, our so-called buying/selling volume information will always be a mere proxy.
Divergences
You may wonder how there can be divergences between buying/selling volume information and price movement. This will sometimes be due to the methodology’s shortcomings we have just discussed, but divergences may also occur in instances where because of order book structure, it takes less volume to increase the price of an asset than it takes to decrease it.
As usual, divergences are points of interest because they reveal imbalances, which may or may not become turning points. I do not share the overwhelming enthusiasm traders have for divergences. To your pattern-hungry brain, the orange bars this indicator shows on chart will—as divergences on other indicators do–appear to often indicate turnarounds. My opinion is that reality is generally quite sobering, as many who have tried building automated rules based on divergences will tell you. I do not have hard numbers on the lack of performance of divergences—only many failed attempts to make them perform, which a few experienced strategy modelers I know share with me. Please don’t try to read too much into them. While they look great on past data, I find they are often difficult to use in realtime to make bets with good odds.
Thanks to:
- A guy called Kuan who commented on a Backtest Rookies presentation of an intrabar delta volume indicator using a for loop. The heart of “my” indicator is code borrowed from Kuan; I just built a hopefully useful wrapper around it.
- @theheirophant, my partner in the exploration of the sometimes weird abysses of security() ’s behavior at lower resolutions.
Divergences for many indicators v2.0A gift from me to all.
This script is developed to find Divergences for many indicators. it analyses divergences and then draws line on the graph. red for negatif, lime for positive divergences.
Currently script checks divergence for RSI, MACD, MACD Histogram, Stochastic, CCI, Momentum, OBV, Diosc, VWMACD and CMF indicators. You can use some or all of these indicators to check divergences as you wish by choosing them on the menu. Also you can add/remove many other indicators to the script to check if there is divergence.
The script first calculates tops/bottoms by using higher time frame zig zag and then finds divergences.
Higher Time Frames are
if currend period 1 min => HTF = 5 mins
if currend period 3 mins => HTF = 15 mins
if currend period 5 mins => HTF = 15 mins
if currend period 15 mins => HTF = 1 hour
if currend period 30 mins => HTF = 1 hour
if currend period 45 mins => HTF = 1 hour
if currend period 1 hour => HTF = 4 hours
if currend period 2 hours => HTF = 4 hours
if currend period 3 hours => HTF = 4 hours
if currend period 4 hours => HTF = 1 day
if currend period 1 day => HTF = 1 week
if currend period 1 week => HTF = 1 week
future plan : script finds regular divergences, soon I will add hidden divergences and also I plan to add alert ;)
lsi (study about length and MTF) Here in this example I took lazy bear famous momentum squeeze indicator . the problem that there is lagging in the indicator so the buy and sell will be late . So instead the KC length that the original script had we put
int1=input(30)
int2=input(60)
lengthKC=isintraday and interval >= int1 ? int2/interval * 7 : isintraday and interval < 60 ? 60/interval * 24 * 7 : 7
this allow us to create a time and length related function to indicator and result in better output with no lagging
The second and most important thing is the ability to create indicator with time function as MTF without the security function that create repaint
all you need to do is to change int2 (to the time min of your choice ) and you can create an indicator with MTF function without the security function .And by this hopefully avoid the repainting issue
when you use this indicator change the setting of int1 and int 2 according to time frame that you use
lets say 15 min graph
make the int1 <15 min and the int2 at 15 min. if you want to see it as MTF just increase the int2 to the time set of your choice and play little with int1 to best setting
Mby_VolumeThis indicator added some options.
bases 15 SMA.
50SMA
100SMA
120SMA
Now you Can Check not only 15SMA Volume But also other period SMA.
지표의 옵션을 추가했습니다.
기본 15이동평균선.
50, 100, 120.
여러분들은 이제 15 볼륨 이평선 뿐만 아니라 다른 기간의 이평선 까지 확인 가능하실 겁니다.
감사합니다.
Simple TrenderOriginates from:
I was reading some Impulse Trading literature by A. Elder.. In it, someone named Kerry Lovvorn proposed "An End of Day Trend Following System" for someone lazy.
Originally it is just price closing above an 8 ema (low) for long. Exit when price closes below an 8 ema (low). The opposite for a short position.
Conditions: Buy when price closed below ema (low) for two bars or more, then closes above. Opposite for a short position. I do not follow this condition. Though it may help with whipsaw.
My condition is when price closes above the 26 ema (low) (works the best for me) I place orders above the initial crossing bars high. Opposite for lows.
I look for stocks that are low in price to go long on. I want the run from 2's to 15's
I look for stocks that are mid-teens/20's in price to go short on. I want the run from 20's to 2's
I look for stock with news and earnings that are already running (up or down) to play the pullback.
These conditions can easily be scanned for on thinkorswim
From first glance, the system looks like CMsling shotsystem. Although, I plagiarized some parts of the codes, because I am inept when it comes to that shit, it differs as it is not a moving average crossover system.
It is a price crossing over concept. A moving average VWAP is used for best entries on pullbacks.
Purpose:
--To catch the majority of a trend/wave/run.
--To identify pullback areas to go long or short while in midst of trend. To catch pullbacks off news and earning runners.
--To catch the initial start of trend with clear rules to enter
--Clear rules to exit
Issues
--possibilities of getting ninja sliced the fuck up. Can be mitigated by entering stocks with decent average volume. And also only going long above 200 ema and short below it. ADX won't work, at the initial start of the trend it will show not trending. Can look at blow off volume at the bottom followed by increase in buying for long and vice versa for short.
--Can give some huge gains away through gap ups or gap downs from news or earnings during trend. However, can get huge gain on gaps from news or earning. Nature of the game.
--Need some brass balls and a supply of pepto to stomach through some of the pullbacks. Gut wrenching seeing big gains dwindle. But they all even out at the end, you hope. (see NBEV and IGC, and CRON and others. shit don't go in straight lines, homie)
Pros
--It's simple and easy. Overall, you profit
--works with any security
Cons
--It can be stressful.
--does not work well on lower time frames. Do not recommend going below 15 minutes
--Possibility of working on 5 minutes with a time frame breakout strategy (15,30 min).
Couple it with LazyBear "Weis Wave Volume" indicator. Works well for pullback entries.
Enjoy. Ride some waves.
Physics MACD double// Physics MACD double 12, 26 and 5, 15
// with rsi and cci rise green on bottom
// with macd 15 rising above 0 with macd 26 below 0 green on top
// with macd 15 below 0 and macd 26 above 0 red on top
// CCI low and increasing lime bottom
// low and high volume change red green bottom circle
// use with Physics Bollinger Bands
90009If( MDI(14)>40 AND ADX(14)>40 AND PDI(14)<15 AND RSI(14)<30,1,0)
;If( MDI(14)<15 AND ADX(14)<15 AND PDI(14)>40 AND RSI(14)>70,-1,0)
VWAP forex Yesterday Hi/Low update fix This script is an updte fix of an earlier script that stopped functioning when TradingView updated Pine script. This script plots Forex (24 hour session) VWAP, yesterday's high, low, open and close (HLOC),
the day before's HLOC -
Also plots higher timeframe 20 emas
1 minute 5, 15, 60 period 20 ema
5 minute 15, 60 period 20 ema
15 minute 60, 120 , 240 period 20 ema
60 minute 120, 240 period 20 ema
120 minute 240, D period 20 ema
240 minute D period 20 ema
Also signals inside bars (high is less than or equal to the previous bar's high and the low is greater than or equal to the previous low) the : true inside bars have a maroon triangle below the bar as well as a ">" above the bar.
If subsequest bars are inside the last bar before the last true inside bar they also are marked with an ">"
This is probably a slight variation from the way Leaf_West plots the inside bars.
It appears that he marks all bars that are inside the original bar until one a bar has a high or low
outside the original bar. But I would need to see an example on his charts.
The Time Session Glitch and the Fix FX_IDC, COINBASE and BITSTAMP:
The script will correctly default to 1700 hrs to 1700hrs EDT/EST session for FXCM.
Strangely some securities appear to erroneously start their session at 1200 hrs ie. My guess is that they are somehow tied to GMT+0 instead of New York time (GMT+5). See this for yourself by selecting EURUSD using the FXCM exchange (FX:EURUSD) and then EURUSD from the IDC exchange (FX_IDC:EURUSD). The FX-IDC session opening range starts 5 hours before it actually should at 1700 hrs EDT/EST. To correct for this I have implemented an automatic fix (default) and a user selected "5 hour time shift adjust. ment needed on some securities".
There is also a 4 hour time shift button which might be necessary when New York reverts from Eastern Standard Time to Eastern Daylight Time (1 hour difference) in March (and then back again in November). In the default auto adjust mode you will need to select the 1 hour time shift. That is if this glitch still exists at that time.
I have looked at other scripts, other than my own and where the script is available, that need to use information about the opening bar and all have the same time shift issue
COINBASE and BITSTAMP open at 0000 hours GMT. Since I use lines instead of circles or crosses I had to make a small adjustment to plot the lines correctly.
If it needs work let me know.
Jayy
VWAP forex Yesterday Hi/Low switchThis script plots VWAP, yesterday's high, low, open and close (HLOC), the day before's HLOC -
Also plots higher timeframe 20 emas including:
1 minute 5, 15, 60 period 20 ema
5 minute 15, 60 period 20 ema
15 minute 60, 120 , 240 period 20 ema
60 minute 120, 240 period 20 ema
120 minute 240, D period 20 ema
240 minute D period 20 ema
Also signals inside bars (high is less than or equal to the previous
bar's high and the low is greater than or equal to the previous low) the : true inside bars have a maroon triangle below the bar as well as a ">" above the bar.
If subsequent bars are inside the last bar before the last true inside bar they also are marked with an ">"
If you have suggestions let me know.
Jayy
[Bitcoin] Lastbattle's nose pickerI've been working on a top and bottom picker script over the past couple of weeks, based on RSI of multiple timeframe closing price. It've been a pretty good trading system that's tested over the last meteoric rise from 220~270 and back down to 230 right now, and I think it should be released to the community.
Sure, I'm not worried about this strategy not working anymore after it is being used by the majority. Everyone have a different view of the market, and this is more towards psychology. It'll likely to hold for as long as there are still humans trading Bitcoins. Bitcoin market is full of emotions, you'll never run out of it.
So why does it work?
If you take a look at the live charts offered by Bitcoinwisdom and Cryptowatch, they only offer 1, 3, 5, and 15 minute timeframe by default with no other option to switch.
Naturally more traders will look at these levels for oversold and overbought condition.
The same indicator does not work for the broader commodities market such as Gold and Silver.
How does it work?
As long as the RSI levels of 1, 3, 5, and 15 minute fulfills the oversold/overbought level, a signal will be given.
The overbought/oversold level gets compensated the higher volatility the market is in.
Note: **
-This is only for exit strategy. If you're on long, consider reducing or exiting your position when it displays a red. On the other hand if you're short, consider reducing or covering your shorts if it shows a green.
-It may give false signal in a trending market, use your trading experience and judgement to filter them out. (eg: uptrend usually have more than 1 legs AND after a long consolidation, RSI gets to oversold/overbought easily... the market will tend to test the support/resistance again.)
-This is tuned for the 15m interval, the script won't work beyond this. I use it for scalping futures. Feel free to change or remove this line 'plot(interval == 15 and '
-Even if it shows a signal, it may not be the true top/bottom. Sometimes there may be a weak diverged leg aka 'last fart', so that's one reason I dont use this for entry until more confirmation is given via other indicators.
** If your chart is zooming all the way down to 0, right click on the price at the right and select 'Scale price only'
Go ahead and try this out with willy, etc and see what works better :D
Credits:
-LazyBear for the volatility switcher script
vdubus BinaryPro - Indicators 1 & 2For both scripts - Go to 'MAKE IT MINE'
Modified scripts for Binary trading 1- 3 min charts / 5 -15 min intervals
vdubus BinaryPro 1
Vdubus BinaryPro 2
------------------------------
Vdubus BinaryPro Money Management Strategy: $10 - $50,000 in 15 trades
Tip * break consecutive trades down to lots of 5 compounded / repeat to build up a solid equity foundation., then move on the the next 5 x 3 = 15
if you lose one trade out of the 5, restart the proses. You only ever lose the initial trade size you started with * DOUBLE YOUR WINNINGS NOT YOUR LOSSES !
If you struggle to win 5 compounded trades in a row, compound 2 or 3 trades at a time
drive.google.com
COT IndexTHE HIDDEN INTELLIGENCE IN FUTURES MARKETS
What if you could see what the smartest players in the futures markets are doing before the crowd catches on? While retail traders chase momentum indicators and moving averages, obsess over Japanese candlestick patterns, and debate whether the RSI should be set to fourteen or twenty-one periods, institutional players leave footprints in the sand through their mandatory reporting to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. These footprints, published weekly in the Commitment of Traders reports, have been hiding in plain sight for decades, available to anyone with an internet connection, yet remarkably few traders understand how to interpret them correctly. The COT Index indicator transforms this raw institutional positioning data into actionable trading signals, bringing Wall Street intelligence to your trading screen without requiring expensive Bloomberg terminals or insider connections.
The uncomfortable truth is this: Most retail traders operate in a binary world. Long or short. Buy or sell. They apply technical analysis to individual positions, constrained by limited capital that forces them to concentrate risk in single directional bets. Meanwhile, institutional traders operate in an entirely different dimension. They manage portfolios dynamically weighted across multiple markets, adjusting exposure based on evolving market conditions, correlation shifts, and risk assessments that retail traders never see. A hedge fund might be simultaneously long gold, short oil, neutral on copper, and overweight agricultural commodities, with position sizes calibrated to volatility and portfolio Greeks. When they increase gold exposure from five percent to eight percent of portfolio allocation, this rebalancing decision reflects sophisticated analysis of opportunity cost, risk parity, and cross-market dynamics that no individual chart pattern can capture.
This portfolio reweighting activity, multiplied across hundreds of institutional participants, manifests in the aggregate positioning data published weekly by the CFTC. The Commitment of Traders report does not show individual trades or strategies. It shows the collective footprint of how actual commercial hedgers and large speculators have allocated their capital across different markets. When mining companies collectively increase forward gold sales to hedge thirty percent more production than last quarter, they are not reacting to a moving average crossover. They are making strategic allocation decisions based on production forecasts, cost structures, and price expectations derived from operational realities invisible to outside observers. This is portfolio management in action, revealed through positioning data rather than price charts.
If you want to understand how institutional capital actually flows, how sophisticated traders genuinely position themselves across market cycles, the COT report provides a rare window into that hidden world. But understand what you are getting into. This is not a tool for scalpers seeking confirmation of the next five-minute move. This is not an oscillator that flashes oversold at market bottoms with convenient precision. COT analysis operates on a timescale measured in weeks and months, revealing positioning shifts that precede major market turns but offer no precision timing. The data arrives three days stale, published only once per week, capturing strategic positioning rather than tactical entries.
If you need instant gratification, if you trade intraday moves, if you demand mechanical signals with ninety percent accuracy, close this document now. COT analysis rewards patience, position sizing discipline, and tolerance for being early. It punishes impatience, overleveraging, and the expectation that any single indicator can substitute for market understanding.
The premise is deceptively simple. Every Tuesday, large traders in futures markets must report their positions to the CFTC. By Friday afternoon, this data becomes public. Academic research spanning three decades has consistently shown that not all market participants are created equal. Some traders consistently profit while others consistently lose. Some anticipate major turning points while others chase trends into exhaustion. Bessembinder and Chan (1992) demonstrated in their seminal study that commercial hedgers, those with actual exposure to the underlying commodity or financial instrument, possess superior forecasting ability compared to speculators. Their research, published in the Journal of Finance, found statistically significant predictive power in commercial positioning, particularly at extreme levels. This finding challenged the efficient market hypothesis and opened the door to a new approach to market analysis based on positioning rather than price alone.
Think about what this means. Every week, the government publishes a report showing you exactly how the most informed market participants are positioned. Not their opinions. Not their predictions. Their actual money at risk. When agricultural producers collectively hold their largest short hedge in five years, they are not making idle speculation. They are locking in prices for crops they will harvest, informed by private knowledge of weather conditions, soil quality, inventory levels, and demand expectations invisible to outside observers. When energy companies aggressively hedge forward production at current prices, they reveal information about expected supply that no analyst report can capture. This is not technical analysis based on past prices. This is not fundamental analysis based on publicly available data. This is behavioral analysis based on how the smartest money is actually positioned, how institutions allocate capital across portfolios, and how those allocation decisions shift as market conditions evolve.
WHY SOME TRADERS KNOW MORE THAN OTHERS
Building on this foundation, Sanders, Boris and Manfredo (2004) conducted extensive research examining the behaviour patterns of different trader categories. Their work, which analyzed over a decade of COT data across multiple commodity markets, revealed a fascinating dynamic that challenges much of what retail traders are taught. Commercial hedgers consistently positioned themselves against market extremes, buying when speculators were most bearish and selling when speculators reached peak bullishness. The contrarian positioning of commercials was not random noise but rather reflected their superior information about supply and demand fundamentals. Meanwhile, large speculators, primarily hedge funds and commodity trading advisors, exhibited strong trend-following behaviour that often amplified market moves beyond fundamental values. Small traders, the retail participants, consistently entered positions late in trends, frequently near turning points, making them reliable contrary indicators.
Wang (2003) extended this research by demonstrating that the predictive power of commercial positioning varies significantly across different commodity sectors. His analysis of agricultural commodities showed particularly strong forecasting ability, with commercial net positions explaining up to fifteen percent of return variance in subsequent weeks. This finding suggests that the informational advantages of hedgers are most pronounced in markets where physical supply and demand fundamentals dominate, as opposed to purely financial markets where information asymmetries are smaller. When a corn farmer hedges six months of expected harvest, that decision incorporates private observations about rainfall patterns, crop health, pest pressure, and local storage capacity that no distant analyst can match. When an oil refinery hedges crude oil purchases and gasoline sales simultaneously, the spread relationships reveal expectations about refining margins that reflect operational realities invisible in public data.
The theoretical mechanism underlying these empirical patterns relates to information asymmetry and different participant motivations. Commercial hedgers engage in futures markets not for speculative profit but to manage business risks. An agricultural producer selling forward six months of expected harvest is not making a bet on price direction but rather locking in revenue to facilitate financial planning and ensure business viability. However, this hedging activity necessarily incorporates private information about expected supply, inventory levels, weather conditions, and demand trends that the hedger observes through their commercial operations (Irwin and Sanders, 2012). When aggregated across many participants, this private information manifests in collective positioning.
Consider a gold mining company deciding how much forward production to hedge. Management must estimate ore grades, recovery rates, production costs, equipment reliability, labor availability, and dozens of other operational variables that determine whether locking in prices at current levels makes business sense. If the industry collectively hedges more aggressively than usual, it suggests either exceptional production expectations or concern about sustaining current price levels or combination of both. Either way, this positioning reveals information unavailable to speculators analyzing price charts and economic data. The hedger sees the physical reality behind the financial abstraction.
Large speculators operate under entirely different incentives and constraints. Commodity Trading Advisors managing billions in assets typically employ systematic, trend-following strategies that respond to price momentum rather than fundamental supply and demand. When crude oil rallies from sixty dollars to seventy dollars per barrel, these systems generate buy signals. As the rally continues to eighty dollars, position sizes increase. The strategy works brilliantly during sustained trends but becomes a liability at reversals. By the time oil reaches ninety dollars, trend-following funds are maximally long, having accumulated positions progressively throughout the rally. At this point, they represent not smart money anticipating further gains but rather crowded money vulnerable to reversal. Sanders, Boris and Manfredo (2004) documented this pattern across multiple energy markets, showing that extreme speculator positioning typically marked late-stage trend exhaustion rather than early-stage trend development.
Small traders, the retail participants who fall below reporting thresholds, display the weakest forecasting ability. Wang (2003) found that small trader positioning exhibited negative correlation with subsequent returns, meaning their aggregate positioning served as a reliable contrary indicator. The explanation combines several factors. Retail traders often lack the capital reserves to weather normal market volatility, leading to premature exits from positions that would eventually prove profitable. They tend to receive information through slower channels, entering trends after mainstream media coverage when institutional participants are preparing to exit. Perhaps most importantly, they trade with emotion, buying into euphoria and selling into panic at precisely the wrong times.
At major turning points, the three groups often position opposite each other with commercials extremely bearish, large speculators extremely bullish, and small traders piling into longs at the last moment. These high-divergence environments frequently precede increased volatility and trend reversals. The insiders with business exposure quietly exit as the momentum traders hit maximum capacity and retail enthusiasm peaks. Within weeks, the reversal begins, and positions unwind in the opposite sequence.
FROM RAW DATA TO ACTIONABLE SIGNALS
The COT Index indicator operationalizes these academic findings into a practical trading tool accessible through TradingView. At its core, the indicator normalizes net positioning data onto a zero to one hundred scale, creating what we call the COT Index. This normalization is critical because absolute position sizes vary dramatically across different futures contracts and over time. A commercial trader holding fifty thousand contracts net long in crude oil might be extremely bullish by historical standards, or it might be quite neutral depending on the context of total market size and historical ranges. Raw position numbers mean nothing without context. The COT Index solves this problem by calculating where current positioning stands relative to its range over a specified lookback period, typically two hundred fifty-two weeks or approximately five years of weekly data.
The mathematical transformation follows the methodology originally popularized by legendary trader Larry Williams, though the underlying concept appears in statistical normalization techniques across many fields. For any given trader category, we calculate the highest and lowest net position values over the lookback period, establishing the historical range for that specific market and trader group. Current positioning is then expressed as a percentage of this range, where zero represents the most bearish positioning ever seen in the lookback window and one hundred represents the most bullish extreme. A reading of fifty indicates positioning exactly in the middle of the historical range, suggesting neither extreme optimism nor pessimism relative to recent history (Williams and Noseworthy, 2009).
This index-based approach allows for meaningful comparison across different markets and time periods, overcoming the scaling problems inherent in analyzing raw position data. A commercial index reading of eighty-five in gold carries the same interpretive meaning as an eighty-five reading in wheat or crude oil, even though the absolute position sizes differ by orders of magnitude. This standardization enables systematic analysis across entire futures portfolios rather than requiring market-specific expertise for each contract.
The lookback period selection involves a fundamental tradeoff between responsiveness and stability. Shorter lookback periods, perhaps one hundred twenty-six weeks or approximately two and a half years, make the index more sensitive to recent positioning changes. However, it also increases noise and produces more false signals. Longer lookback periods, perhaps five hundred weeks or approximately ten years, create smoother readings that filter short-term noise but become slower to recognize regime changes. The indicator settings allow users to adjust this parameter based on their trading timeframe, risk tolerance, and market characteristics.
UNDERSTANDING CFTC DATA STRUCTURES
The indicator supports both Legacy and Disaggregated COT report formats, reflecting the evolution of CFTC reporting standards over decades of market development. Legacy reports categorize market participants into three broad groups: commercial traders (hedgers with underlying business exposure), non-commercial traders (large speculators seeking profit without commercial interest), and non-reportable traders (small speculators below reporting thresholds). Each category brings distinct motivations and information advantages to the market (CFTC, 2020).
The Disaggregated reports, introduced in September 2009 for physical commodity markets, provide finer granularity by splitting participants into five categories (CFTC, 2009). Producer and merchant positions capture those actually producing, processing, or merchandising the physical commodity. Swap dealers represent financial intermediaries facilitating derivative transactions for clients. Managed money includes commodity trading advisors and hedge funds executing systematic or discretionary strategies. Other reportables encompasses diverse participants not fitting the main categories. Small traders remain as the fifth group, representing retail participation.
This enhanced categorization reveals nuances invisible in Legacy reports, particularly distinguishing between different types of institutional capital and their distinct behavioural patterns. The indicator automatically detects which report type is appropriate for each futures contract and adjusts the display accordingly.
Importantly, Disaggregated reports exist only for physical commodity futures. Agricultural commodities like corn, wheat, and soybeans have Disaggregated reports because clear producer, merchant, and swap dealer categories exist. Energy commodities like crude oil and natural gas similarly have well-defined commercial hedger categories. Metals including gold, silver, and copper also receive Disaggregated treatment (CFTC, 2009). However, financial futures such as equity index futures, Treasury bond futures, and currency futures remain available only in Legacy format. The CFTC has indicated no plans to extend Disaggregated reporting to financial futures due to different market structures and participant categories in these instruments (CFTC, 2020).
THE BEHAVIORAL FOUNDATION
Understanding which trader perspective to follow requires appreciation of their distinct trading styles, success rates, and psychological profiles. Commercial hedgers exhibit anticyclical behaviour rooted in their fundamental knowledge and business imperatives. When agricultural producers hedge forward sales during harvest season, they are not speculating on price direction but rather locking in revenue for crops they will harvest. Their business requires converting volatile commodity exposure into predictable cash flows to facilitate planning and ensure survival through difficult periods. Yet their aggregate positioning reveals valuable information because these hedging decisions incorporate private information about supply conditions, inventory levels, weather observations, and demand expectations that hedgers observe through their commercial operations (Bessembinder and Chan, 1992).
Consider a practical example from energy markets. Major oil companies continuously hedge portions of forward production based on price levels, operational costs, and financial planning needs. When crude oil trades at ninety dollars per barrel, they might aggressively hedge the next twelve months of production, locking in prices that provide comfortable profit margins above their extraction costs. This hedging appears as short positioning in COT reports. If oil rallies further to one hundred dollars, they hedge even more aggressively, viewing these prices as exceptional opportunities to secure revenue. Their short positioning grows increasingly extreme. To an outside observer watching only price charts, the rally suggests bullishness. But the commercial positioning reveals that the actual producers of oil find these prices attractive enough to lock in years of sales, suggesting skepticism about sustaining even higher levels. When the eventual reversal occurs and oil declines back to eighty dollars, the commercials who hedged at ninety and one hundred dollars profit while speculators who chased the rally suffer losses.
Large speculators or managed money traders operate under entirely different incentives and constraints. Their systematic, momentum-driven strategies mean they amplify existing trends rather than anticipate reversals. Trend-following systems, the most common approach among large speculators, by definition require confirmation of trend through price momentum before entering positions (Sanders, Boris and Manfredo, 2004). When crude oil rallies from sixty dollars to eighty dollars per barrel over several months, trend-following algorithms generate buy signals based on moving average crossovers, breakouts, and other momentum indicators. As the rally continues, position sizes increase according to the systematic rules.
However, this approach becomes a liability at turning points. By the time oil reaches ninety dollars after a sustained rally, trend-following funds are maximally long, having accumulated positions progressively throughout the move. At this point, their positioning does not predict continued strength. Rather, it often marks late-stage trend exhaustion. The psychological and mechanical explanation is straightforward. Trend followers by definition chase price momentum, entering positions after trends establish rather than anticipating them. Eventually, they become fully invested just as the trend nears completion, leaving no incremental buying power to sustain the rally. When the first signs of reversal appear, systematic stops trigger, creating a cascade of selling that accelerates the downturn.
Small traders consistently display the weakest track record across academic studies. Wang (2003) found that small trader positioning exhibited negative correlation with subsequent returns in his analysis across multiple commodity markets. This result means that whatever small traders collectively do, the opposite typically proves profitable. The explanation for small trader underperformance combines several factors documented in behavioral finance literature. Retail traders often lack the capital reserves to weather normal market volatility, leading to premature exits from positions that would eventually prove profitable. They tend to receive information through slower channels, learning about commodity trends through mainstream media coverage that arrives after institutional participants have already positioned. Perhaps most importantly, retail traders are more susceptible to emotional decision-making, buying into euphoria and selling into panic at precisely the wrong times (Tharp, 2008).
SETTINGS, THRESHOLDS, AND SIGNAL GENERATION
The practical implementation of the COT Index requires understanding several key features and settings that users can adjust to match their trading style, timeframe, and risk tolerance. The lookback period determines the time window for calculating historical ranges. The default setting of two hundred fifty-two bars represents approximately one year on daily charts or five years on weekly charts, balancing responsiveness with stability. Conservative traders seeking only the most extreme, highest-probability signals might extend the lookback to five hundred bars or more. Aggressive traders seeking earlier entry and willing to accept more false positives might reduce it to one hundred twenty-six bars or even less for shorter-term applications.
The bullish and bearish thresholds define signal generation levels. Default settings of eighty and twenty respectively reflect academic research suggesting meaningful information content at these extremes. Readings above eighty indicate positioning in the top quintile of the historical range, representing genuine extremes rather than temporary fluctuations. Conversely, readings below twenty occupy the bottom quintile, indicating unusually bearish positioning (Briese, 2008).
However, traders must recognize that appropriate thresholds vary by market, trader category, and personal risk tolerance. Some futures markets exhibit wider positioning swings than others due to seasonal patterns, volatility characteristics, or participant behavior. Conservative traders seeking high-probability setups with fewer signals might raise thresholds to eighty-five and fifteen. Aggressive traders willing to accept more false positives for earlier entry could lower them to seventy-five and twenty-five.
The key is maintaining meaningful differentiation between bullish, neutral, and bearish zones. The default settings of eighty and twenty create a clear three-zone structure. Readings from zero to twenty represent bearish territory where the selected trader group holds unusually bearish positions. Readings from twenty to eighty represent neutral territory where positioning falls within normal historical ranges. Readings from eighty to one hundred represent bullish territory where the selected trader group holds unusually bullish positions.
The trading perspective selection determines which participant group the indicator follows, fundamentally shaping interpretation and signal meaning. For counter-trend traders seeking reversal opportunities, monitoring commercial positioning makes intuitive sense based on the academic research discussed earlier. When commercials reach extreme bearish readings below twenty, indicating unprecedented short positioning relative to recent history, they are effectively betting against the crowd. Given their informational advantages demonstrated by Bessembinder and Chan (1992), this contrarian stance often precedes major bottoms.
Trend followers might instead monitor large speculator positioning, but with inverted logic compared to commercials. When managed money reaches extreme bullish readings above eighty, the trend may be exhausting rather than accelerating. This seeming paradox reflects their late-cycle participation documented by Sanders, Boris and Manfredo (2004). Sophisticated traders thus use speculator extremes as fade signals, entering positions opposite to speculator consensus.
Small trader monitoring serves primarily as a contrary indicator for all trading styles. Extreme small trader bullishness above seventy-five or eighty typically warns of retail FOMO at market tops. Extreme small trader bearishness below twenty or twenty-five often marks capitulation bottoms where the last weak hands have sold.
VISUALIZATION AND USER INTERFACE
The visual design incorporates multiple elements working together to facilitate decision-making and maintain situational awareness during active trading. The primary COT Index line plots in bold with adjustable line width, defaulting to two pixels for clear visibility against busy price charts. An optional glow effect, controlled by a simple toggle, adds additional visual prominence through multiple plot layers with progressively increasing transparency and width.
A twenty-one period exponential moving average overlays the index line, providing trend context for positioning changes. When the index crosses above its moving average, it signals accelerating bullish sentiment among the selected trader group regardless of whether absolute positioning is extreme. Conversely, when the index crosses below its moving average, it signals deteriorating sentiment and potentially the beginning of a reversal in positioning trends.
The EMA provides a dynamic reference line for assessing positioning momentum. When the index trades far above its EMA, positioning is not only extreme in absolute terms but also building with momentum. When the index trades far below its EMA, positioning is contracting or reversing, which may indicate weakening conviction even if absolute levels remain elevated.
The data table positioned at the top right of the chart displays eleven metrics for each trader category, transforming the indicator from a simple index calculation into an analytical dashboard providing multidimensional market intelligence. Beyond the COT Index itself, users can monitor positioning extremity, which measures how unusual current levels are compared to historical norms using statistical techniques. The extremity metric clarifies whether a reading represents the ninety-fifth or ninety-ninth percentile, with values above two standard deviations indicating genuinely exceptional positioning.
Market power quantifies each group's influence on total open interest. This metric expresses each trader category's net position as a percentage of total market open interest. A commercial entity holding forty percent of total open interest commands significantly more influence than one holding five percent, making their positioning signals more meaningful.
Momentum and rate of change metrics reveal whether positions are building or contracting, providing early warning of potential regime shifts. Position velocity measures the rate of change in positioning changes, effectively a second derivative providing even earlier insight into inflection points.
Sentiment divergence highlights disagreements between commercial and speculative positioning. This metric calculates the absolute difference between normalized commercial and large speculator index values. Wang (2003) found that these high-divergence environments frequently preceded increased volatility and reversals.
The table also displays concentration metrics when available, showing how positioning is distributed among the largest handful of traders in each category. High concentration indicates a few dominant players controlling most of the positioning, while low concentration suggests broad-based participation across many traders.
THE ALERT SYSTEM AND MONITORING
The alert system, comprising five distinct alert conditions, enables systematic monitoring of dozens of futures markets without constant screen watching. The bullish and bearish COT signal alerts trigger when the index crosses user-defined thresholds, indicating the selected trader group has reached extreme positioning worthy of attention. These alerts fire in real-time as new weekly COT data publishes, typically Friday afternoon following the Tuesday measurement date.
Extreme positioning alerts fire at ninety and ten index levels, representing the top and bottom ten percent of the historical range, warning of particularly stretched readings that historically precede reversals with high probability. When commercials reach a COT Index reading below ten, they are expressing their most bearish stance in the entire lookback period.
The data staleness alert notifies users when COT reports have not updated for more than ten days, preventing reliance on outdated information for trading decisions. Government shutdowns or federal holidays can interrupt the normal Friday publication schedule. Using stale signals while believing them current creates dangerous false confidence.
The indicator's watermark information display positioned in the bottom right corner provides essential context at a glance. This persistent display shows the symbol and timeframe, the COT report date timestamp, days since last update, and the current signal state. A trader analyzing a potential short entry in crude oil can glance at the watermark to instantly confirm positioning context without interrupting analysis flow.
LIMITATIONS AND REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
Practical application requires understanding both the indicator's considerable strengths and inherent limitations. COT data inherently lags price action by three days, as Tuesday positions are not published until Friday afternoon. This delay means the indicator cannot catch rapid intraday reversals or respond to surprise news events. Traders using the COT Index for timing entries must accept this latency and focus on swing trading and position trading timeframes where three-day lags matter less than in day trading or scalping.
The weekly publication schedule similarly makes the indicator unsuitable for short-term trading strategies requiring immediate feedback. The COT Index works best for traders operating on weekly or longer timeframes, where positioning shifts measured in weeks and months align with trading horizon.
Extreme COT readings can persist far longer than typical technical indicators suggest, testing the patience and capital reserves of traders attempting to fade them. When crude oil enters a sustained bull market driven by genuine supply disruptions, commercial hedgers may maintain bearish positioning for many months as prices grind higher. A commercial COT Index reading of fifteen indicating extreme bearishness might persist for three months while prices continue rallying before finally reversing. Traders without sufficient capital and risk tolerance to weather such drawdowns will exit prematurely, precisely when the signal is about to work (Irwin and Sanders, 2012).
Position sizing discipline becomes paramount when implementing COT-based strategies. Rather than risking large percentages of capital on individual signals, successful COT traders typically allocate modest position sizes across multiple signals, allowing some to take time to mature while others work more quickly.
The indicator also cannot overcome fundamental regime changes that alter the structural drivers of markets. If gold enters a true secular bull market driven by monetary debasement, commercial hedgers may remain persistently bearish as mining companies sell forward years of production at what they perceive as favorable prices. Their positioning indicates valuation concerns from a production cost perspective, but cannot stop prices from rising if investment demand overwhelms physical supply-demand balance.
Similarly, structural changes in market participation can alter the meaning of positioning extremes. The growth of commodity index investing in the two thousands brought massive passive long-only capital into futures markets, fundamentally changing typical positioning ranges. Traders relying on COT signals without recognizing this regime change would have generated numerous false bearish signals during the commodity supercycle from 2003 to 2008.
The research foundation supporting COT analysis derives primarily from commodity markets where the commercial hedger information advantage is most pronounced. Studies specifically examining financial futures like equity indices and bonds show weaker but still present effects. Traders should calibrate expectations accordingly, recognizing that COT analysis likely works better for crude oil, natural gas, corn, and wheat than for the S&P 500, Treasury bonds, or currency futures.
Another important limitation involves the reporting threshold structure. Not all market participants appear in COT data, only those holding positions above specified minimums. In markets dominated by a few large players, concentration metrics become critical for proper interpretation. A single large trader accounting for thirty percent of commercial positioning might skew the entire category if their individual circumstances are idiosyncratic rather than representative.
GOLD FUTURES DURING A HYPOTHETICAL MARKET CYCLE
Consider a practical example using gold futures during a hypothetical but realistic market scenario that illustrates how the COT Index indicator guides trading decisions through a complete market cycle. Suppose gold has rallied from fifteen hundred to nineteen hundred dollars per ounce over six months, driven by inflation concerns following aggressive monetary expansion, geopolitical uncertainty, and sustained buying by Asian central banks for reserve diversification.
Large speculators, operating primarily trend-following strategies, have accumulated increasingly bullish positions throughout this rally. Their COT Index has climbed progressively from forty-five to eighty-five. The table display shows that large speculators now hold net long positions representing thirty-two percent of total open interest, their highest in four years. Momentum indicators show positive readings, indicating positions are still building though at a decelerating rate. Position velocity has turned negative, suggesting the pace of position building is slowing.
Meanwhile, commercial hedgers have responded to the rally by aggressively selling forward production and inventory. Their COT Index has moved inversely to price, declining from fifty-five to twenty. This bearish commercial positioning represents mining companies locking in forward sales at prices they view as attractive relative to production costs. The table shows commercials now hold net short positions representing twenty-nine percent of total open interest, their most bearish stance in five years. Concentration metrics indicate this positioning is broadly distributed across many commercial entities, suggesting the bearish stance reflects collective industry view rather than idiosyncratic positioning by a single firm.
Small traders, attracted by mainstream financial media coverage of gold's impressive rally, have recently piled into long positions. Their COT Index has jumped from forty-five to seventy-eight as retail investors chase the trend. Television financial networks feature frequent segments on gold with bullish guests. Internet forums and social media show surging retail interest. This retail enthusiasm historically marks late-stage trend development rather than early opportunity.
The COT Index indicator, configured to monitor commercial positioning from a contrarian perspective, displays a clear bearish signal given the extreme commercial short positioning. The table displays multiple confirming metrics: positioning extremity shows commercials at the ninety-sixth percentile of bearishness, market power indicates they control twenty-nine percent of open interest, and sentiment divergence registers sixty-five, indicating massive disagreement between commercial hedgers and large speculators. This divergence, the highest in three years, places the market in the historically high-risk category for reversals.
The interpretation requires nuance and consideration of context beyond just COT data. Commercials are not necessarily predicting an imminent crash. Rather, they are hedging business operations at what they collectively view as favorable price levels. However, the data reveals they have sold unusually large quantities of forward production, suggesting either exceptional production expectations for the year ahead or concern about sustaining current price levels or combination of both. Combined with extreme speculator positioning indicating a crowded long trade, and small trader enthusiasm confirming retail FOMO, the confluence suggests elevated reversal risk even if the precise timing remains uncertain.
A prudent trader analyzing this situation might take several actions based on COT Index signals. Existing long positions could be tightened with closer stop losses. Profit-taking on a portion of long exposure could lock in gains while maintaining some participation. Some traders might initiate modest short positions as portfolio hedges, sizing them appropriately for the inherent uncertainty in timing reversals. Others might simply move to the sidelines, avoiding new long entries until positioning normalizes.
The key lesson from case study analysis is that COT signals provide probabilistic edges rather than deterministic predictions. They work over many observations by identifying higher-probability configurations, not by generating perfect calls on individual trades. A fifty-five percent win rate with proper risk management produces substantial profits over time, yet still means forty-five percent of signals will be premature or wrong. Traders must embrace this probabilistic reality rather than seeking the impossible goal of perfect accuracy.
INTEGRATION WITH TRADING SYSTEMS
Integration with existing trading systems represents a natural and powerful use case for COT analysis, adding a positioning dimension to price-based technical approaches or fundamental analytical frameworks. Few traders rely exclusively on a single indicator or methodology. Rather, they build systems that synthesize multiple information sources, with each component addressing different aspects of market behavior.
Trend followers might use COT extremes as regime filters, modifying position sizing or avoiding new trend entries when positioning reaches levels historically associated with reversals. Consider a classic trend-following system based on moving average crossovers and momentum breakouts. Integration of COT analysis adds nuance. When large speculator positioning exceeds ninety or commercial positioning falls below ten, the regime filter recognizes elevated reversal risk. The system might reduce position sizing by fifty percent for new signals during these high-risk periods (Kaufman, 2013).
Mean reversion traders might require COT signal confluence before fading extended moves. When crude oil becomes technically overbought and large speculators show extreme long positioning above eighty-five, both signals confirm. If only technical indicators show extremes while positioning remains neutral, the potential short signal is rejected, avoiding fades of trends with underlying institutional support (Kaufman, 2013).
Discretionary traders can monitor the indicator as a continuous awareness tool, informing bias and position sizing without dictating mechanical entries and exits. A discretionary trader might notice commercial positioning shifting from neutral to progressively more bullish over several months. This trend informs growing positive bias even without triggering mechanical signals.
Multi-timeframe analysis represents another powerful integration approach. A trader might use daily charts for trade execution and timing while monitoring weekly COT positioning for strategic context. When both timeframes align, highest-probability opportunities emerge.
Portfolio construction for futures traders can incorporate COT signals as an additional selection criterion. Markets showing strong technical setups AND favorable COT positioning receive highest allocations. Markets with strong technicals but neutral or unfavorable positioning receive reduced allocations.
ADVANCED METRICS AND INTERPRETATION
The metrics table transforms simple positioning data into multidimensional market intelligence. Position extremity, calculated as the absolute deviation from the historical mean normalized by standard deviation, helps identify truly unusual readings versus routine fluctuations. A reading above two standard deviations indicates ninety-fifth percentile or higher extremity. Above three standard deviations indicates ninety-ninth percentile or higher, genuinely rare positioning that historically precedes major events with high probability.
Market power, expressed as a percentage of total open interest, reveals whose positioning matters most from a mechanical market impact perspective. Consider two scenarios in gold futures. In scenario one, commercials show a COT Index reading of fifteen while their market power metric shows they hold net shorts representing thirty-five percent of open interest. This is a high-confidence bearish signal. In scenario two, commercials also show a reading of fifteen, but market power shows only eight percent. While positioning is extreme relative to this category's normal range, their limited market share means less mechanical influence on price.
The rate of change and momentum metrics highlight whether positions are accelerating or decelerating, often providing earlier warnings than absolute levels alone. A COT Index reading of seventy-five with rapidly building momentum suggests continued movement toward extremes. Conversely, a reading of eighty-five with decelerating or negative momentum indicates the positioning trend is exhausting.
Position velocity measures the rate of change in positioning changes, effectively a second derivative. When velocity shifts from positive to negative, it indicates that while positioning may still be growing, the pace of growth is slowing. This deceleration often precedes actual reversal in positioning direction by several weeks.
Sentiment divergence calculates the absolute difference between normalized commercial and large speculator index values. When commercials show extreme bearish positioning at twenty while large speculators show extreme bullish positioning at eighty, the divergence reaches sixty, representing near-maximum disagreement. Wang (2003) found that these high-divergence environments frequently preceded increased volatility and reversals. The mechanism is intuitive. Extreme divergence indicates the informed hedgers and momentum-following speculators have positioned opposite each other with conviction. One group will prove correct and profit while the other proves incorrect and suffers losses. The resolution of this disagreement through price movement often involves volatility.
The table also displays concentration metrics when available. High concentration indicates a few dominant players controlling most of the positioning within a category, while low concentration suggests broad-based participation. Broad-based positioning more reliably reflects collective market intelligence and industry consensus. If mining companies globally all independently decide to hedge aggressively at similar price levels, it suggests genuine industry-wide view about price valuations rather than circumstances specific to one firm.
DATA QUALITY AND RELIABILITY
The CFTC has maintained COT reporting in various forms since the nineteen twenties, providing nearly a century of positioning data across multiple market cycles. However, data quality and reporting standards have evolved substantially over this long period. Modern electronic reporting implemented in the late nineteen nineties and early two thousands significantly improved accuracy and timeliness compared to earlier paper-based systems.
Traders should understand that COT reports capture positions as of Tuesday's close each week. Markets remain open three additional days before publication on Friday afternoon, meaning the reported data is three days stale when received. During periods of rapid market movement or major news events, this lag can be significant. The indicator addresses this limitation by including timestamp information and staleness warnings.
The three-day lag creates particular challenges during extreme volatility episodes. Flash crashes, surprise central bank interventions, geopolitical shocks, and other high-impact events can completely transform market positioning within hours. Traders must exercise judgment about whether reported positioning remains relevant given intervening events.
Reporting thresholds also mean that not all market participants appear in disaggregated COT data. Traders holding positions below specified minimums aggregate into the non-reportable or small trader category. This aggregation affects different markets differently. In highly liquid contracts like crude oil with thousands of participants, reportable traders might represent seventy to eighty percent of open interest. In thinly traded contracts with only dozens of active participants, a few large reportable positions might represent ninety-five percent of open interest.
Another data quality consideration involves trader classification into categories. The CFTC assigns traders to commercial or non-commercial categories based on reported business purpose and activities. However, this process is not perfect. Some entities engage in both commercial and speculative activities, creating ambiguity about proper classification. The transition to Disaggregated reports attempted to address some of these ambiguities by creating more granular categories.
COMPARISON WITH ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES
Several alternative approaches to COT analysis exist in the trading community beyond the normalization methodology employed by this indicator. Some analysts focus on absolute position changes week-over-week rather than index-based normalization. This approach calculates the change in net positioning from one week to the next. The emphasis falls on momentum in positioning changes rather than absolute levels relative to history. This method potentially identifies regime shifts earlier but sacrifices cross-market comparability (Briese, 2008).
Other practitioners employ more complex statistical transformations including percentile rankings, z-score standardization, and machine learning classification algorithms. Ruan and Zhang (2018) demonstrated that machine learning models applied to COT data could achieve modest improvements in forecasting accuracy compared to simple threshold-based approaches. However, these gains came at the cost of interpretability and implementation complexity.
The COT Index indicator intentionally employs a relatively straightforward normalization methodology for several important reasons. First, transparency enhances user understanding and trust. Traders can verify calculations manually and develop intuitive feel for what different readings mean. Second, academic research suggests that most of the predictive power in COT data comes from extreme positioning levels rather than subtle patterns requiring complex statistical methods to detect. Third, robust methods that work consistently across many markets and time periods tend to be simpler rather than more complex, reducing the risk of overfitting to historical data. Fourth, the complexity costs of implementation matter for retail traders without programming teams or computational infrastructure.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF COT TRADING
Trading based on COT data requires psychological fortitude that differs from momentum-based approaches. Contrarian positioning signals inherently mean betting against prevailing market sentiment and recent price action. When commercials reach extreme bearish positioning, prices have typically been rising, sometimes for extended periods. The price chart looks bullish, momentum indicators confirm strength, moving averages align positively. The COT signal says bet against all of this. This psychological difficulty explains why COT analysis remains underutilized relative to trend-following methods.
Human psychology strongly predisposes us toward extrapolation and recency bias. When prices rally for months, our pattern-matching brains naturally expect continued rally. The recent price action dominates our perception, overwhelming rational analysis about positioning extremes and historical probabilities. The COT signal asking us to sell requires overriding these powerful psychological impulses.
The indicator design attempts to support the required psychological discipline through several features. Clear threshold markers and signal states reduce ambiguity about when signals trigger. When the commercial index crosses below twenty, the signal is explicit and unambiguous. The background shifts to red, the signal label displays bearish, and alerts fire. This explicitness helps traders act on signals rather than waiting for additional confirmation that may never arrive.
The metrics table provides analytical justification for contrarian positions, helping traders maintain conviction during inevitable periods of adverse price movement. When a trader enters short positions based on extreme commercial bearish positioning but prices continue rallying for several weeks, doubt naturally emerges. The table display provides reassurance. Commercial positioning remains extremely bearish. Divergence remains high. The positioning thesis remains intact even though price action has not yet confirmed.
Alert functionality ensures traders do not miss signals due to inattention while also not requiring constant monitoring that can lead to emotional decision-making. Setting alerts for COT extremes enables a healthier relationship with markets. When meaningful signals occur, alerts notify them. They can then calmly assess the situation and execute planned responses.
However, no indicator design can completely overcome the psychological difficulty of contrarian trading. Some traders simply cannot maintain short positions while prices rally. For these traders, COT analysis might be better employed as an exit signal for long positions rather than an entry signal for shorts.
Ultimately, successful COT trading requires developing comfort with probabilistic thinking rather than certainty-seeking. The signals work over many observations by identifying higher-probability configurations, not by generating perfect calls on individual trades. A fifty-five or sixty percent win rate with proper risk management produces substantial profits over years, yet still means forty to forty-five percent of signals will be premature or wrong. COT analysis provides genuine edge, but edge means probability advantage, not elimination of losing trades.
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES AND CONTINUOUS LEARNING
The indicator provides extensive built-in educational resources through its documentation, detailed tooltips, and transparent calculations. However, mastering COT analysis requires study beyond any single tool or resource. Several excellent resources provide valuable extensions of the concepts covered in this guide.
Books and practitioner-focused monographs offer accessible entry points. Stephen Briese published The Commitments of Traders Bible in two thousand eight, offering detailed breakdowns of how different markets and trader categories behave (Briese, 2008). Briese's work stands out for its empirical focus and market-specific insights. Jack Schwager includes discussion of COT analysis within the broader context of market behavior in his book Market Sense and Nonsense (Schwager, 2012). Perry Kaufman's Trading Systems and Methods represents perhaps the most rigorous practitioner-focused text on systematic trading approaches including COT analysis (Kaufman, 2013).
Academic journal articles provide the rigorous statistical foundation underlying COT analysis. The Journal of Futures Markets regularly publishes research on positioning data and its predictive properties. Bessembinder and Chan's earlier work on systematic risk, hedging pressure, and risk premiums in futures markets provides theoretical foundation (Bessembinder, 1992). Chang's examination of speculator returns provides historical context (Chang, 1985). Irwin and Sanders provide essential skeptical perspective in their two thousand twelve article (Irwin and Sanders, 2012). Wang's two thousand three article provides one of the most empirical analyses of COT data across multiple commodity markets (Wang, 2003).
Online resources extend beyond academic and book-length treatments. The CFTC website provides free access to current and historical COT reports in multiple formats. The explanatory materials section offers detailed documentation of report construction, category definitions, and historical methodology changes. Traders serious about COT analysis should read these official CFTC documents to understand exactly what they are analyzing.
Commercial COT data services such as Barchart provide enhanced visualization and analysis tools beyond raw CFTC data. TradingView's educational materials, published scripts library, and user community provide additional resources for exploring different approaches to COT analysis.
The key to mastering COT analysis lies not in finding a single definitive source but rather in building understanding through multiple perspectives and information sources. Academic research provides rigorous empirical foundation. Practitioner-focused books offer practical implementation insights. Direct engagement with data through systematic backtesting develops intuition about how positioning dynamics manifest across different market conditions.
SYNTHESIZING KNOWLEDGE INTO PRACTICE
The COT Index indicator represents the synthesis of academic research, trading experience, and software engineering into a practical tool accessible to retail traders equipped with nothing more than a TradingView account and willingness to learn. What once required expensive data subscriptions, custom programming capabilities, statistical software, and institutional resources now appears as a straightforward indicator requiring only basic parameter selection and modest study to understand. This democratization of institutional-grade analysis tools represents a broader trend in financial markets over recent decades.
Yet technology and data access alone provide no edge without understanding and discipline. Markets remain relentlessly efficient at eliminating edges that become too widely known and mechanically exploited. The COT Index indicator succeeds only when users invest time learning the underlying concepts, understand the limitations and probability distributions involved, and integrate signals thoughtfully into trading plans rather than applying them mechanically.
The academic research demonstrates conclusively that institutional positioning contains genuine information about future price movements, particularly at extremes where commercial hedgers are maximally bearish or bullish relative to historical norms. This informational content is neither perfect nor deterministic but rather probabilistic, providing edge over many observations through identification of higher-probability configurations. Bessembinder and Chan's finding that commercial positioning explained modest but significant variance in future returns illustrates this probabilistic nature perfectly (Bessembinder and Chan, 1992). The effect is real and statistically significant, yet it explains perhaps ten to fifteen percent of return variance rather than most variance. Much of price movement remains unpredictable even with positioning intelligence.
The practical implication is that COT analysis works best as one component of a trading system rather than a standalone oracle. It provides the positioning dimension, revealing where the smart money has positioned and where the crowd has followed, but price action analysis provides the timing dimension. Fundamental analysis provides the catalyst dimension. Risk management provides the survival dimension. These components work together synergistically.
The indicator's design philosophy prioritizes transparency and education over black-box complexity, empowering traders to understand exactly what they are analyzing and why. Every calculation is documented and user-adjustable. The threshold markers, background coloring, tables, and clear signal states provide multiple reinforcing channels for conveying the same information.
This educational approach reflects a conviction that sustainable trading success comes from genuine understanding rather than mechanical system-following. Traders who understand why commercial positioning matters, how different trader categories behave, what positioning extremes signify, and where signals fit within probability distributions can adapt when market conditions change. Traders mechanically following black-box signals without comprehension abandon systems after normal losing streaks.
The research foundation supporting COT analysis comes primarily from commodity markets where commercial hedger informational advantages are most pronounced. Agricultural producers hedging crops know more about supply conditions than distant speculators. Energy companies hedging production know more about operating costs than financial traders. Metals miners hedging output know more about ore grades than index funds. Financial futures markets show weaker but still present effects.
The journey from reading this documentation to profitable trading based on COT analysis involves several stages that cannot be rushed. Initial reading and basic understanding represents the first stage. Historical study represents the second stage, reviewing past market cycles to observe how positioning extremes preceded major turning points. Paper trading or small-size real trading represents the third stage to experience the psychological challenges. Refinement based on results and personal psychology represents the fourth stage.
Markets will continue evolving. New participant categories will emerge. Regulatory structures will change. Technology will advance. Yet the fundamental dynamics driving COT analysis, that different market participants have different information, different motivations, and different forecasting abilities that manifest in their positioning, will persist as long as futures markets exist. While specific thresholds or optimal parameters may shift over time, the core logic remains sound and adaptable.
The trader equipped with this indicator, understanding of the theory and evidence behind COT analysis, realistic expectations about probability rather than certainty, discipline to maintain positions through adverse volatility, and patience to allow signals time to develop possesses genuine edge in markets. The edge is not enormous, markets cannot allow large persistent inefficiencies without arbitraging them away, but it is real, measurable, and exploitable by those willing to invest in learning and disciplined application.
REFERENCES
Bessembinder, H. (1992) Systematic risk, hedging pressure, and risk premiums in futures markets, Review of Financial Studies, 5(4), pp. 637-667.
Bessembinder, H. and Chan, K. (1992) The profitability of technical trading rules in the Asian stock markets, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, 3(2-3), pp. 257-284.
Briese, S. (2008) The Commitments of Traders Bible: How to Profit from Insider Market Intelligence. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Chang, E.C. (1985) Returns to speculators and the theory of normal backwardation, Journal of Finance, 40(1), pp. 193-208.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) (2009) Explanatory Notes: Disaggregated Commitments of Traders Report. Available at: www.cftc.gov (Accessed: 15 January 2025).
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) (2020) Commitments of Traders: About the Report. Available at: www.cftc.gov (Accessed: 15 January 2025).
Irwin, S.H. and Sanders, D.R. (2012) Testing the Masters Hypothesis in commodity futures markets, Energy Economics, 34(1), pp. 256-269.
Kaufman, P.J. (2013) Trading Systems and Methods. 5th edn. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Ruan, Y. and Zhang, Y. (2018) Forecasting commodity futures prices using machine learning: Evidence from the Chinese commodity futures market, Applied Economics Letters, 25(12), pp. 845-849.
Sanders, D.R., Boris, K. and Manfredo, M. (2004) Hedgers, funds, and small speculators in the energy futures markets: an analysis of the CFTC's Commitments of Traders reports, Energy Economics, 26(3), pp. 425-445.
Schwager, J.D. (2012) Market Sense and Nonsense: How the Markets Really Work and How They Don't. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Tharp, V.K. (2008) Super Trader: Make Consistent Profits in Good and Bad Markets. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Wang, C. (2003) The behavior and performance of major types of futures traders, Journal of Futures Markets, 23(1), pp. 1-31.
Williams, L.R. and Noseworthy, M. (2009) The Right Stock at the Right Time: Prospering in the Coming Good Years. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
FURTHER READING
For traders seeking to deepen their understanding of COT analysis and futures market positioning beyond this documentation, the following resources provide valuable extensions:
Academic Journal Articles:
Fishe, R.P.H. and Smith, A. (2012) Do speculators drive commodity prices away from supply and demand fundamentals?, Journal of Commodity Markets, 1(1), pp. 1-16.
Haigh, M.S., Hranaiova, J. and Overdahl, J.A. (2007) Hedge funds, volatility, and liquidity provision in energy futures markets, Journal of Alternative Investments, 9(4), pp. 10-38.
Kocagil, A.E. (1997) Does futures speculation stabilize spot prices? Evidence from metals markets, Applied Financial Economics, 7(1), pp. 115-125.
Sanders, D.R. and Irwin, S.H. (2011) The impact of index funds in commodity futures markets: A systems approach, Journal of Alternative Investments, 14(1), pp. 40-49.
Books and Practitioner Resources:
Murphy, J.J. (1999) Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets: A Guide to Trading Methods and Applications. New York: New York Institute of Finance.
Pring, M.J. (2002) Technical Analysis Explained: The Investor's Guide to Spotting Investment Trends and Turning Points. 4th edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Federal Reserve and Research Institution Publications:
Federal Reserve Banks regularly publish working papers examining commodity markets, futures positioning, and price discovery mechanisms. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City maintain active research programs in this area.
Online Resources:
The CFTC website provides free access to current and historical COT reports, explanatory materials, and regulatory documentation.
Barchart offers enhanced COT data visualization and screening tools.
TradingView's community library contains numerous published scripts and educational materials exploring different approaches to positioning analysis.
DayFlow VWAP Relay Forex Majors StrategySummary in one paragraph
DayFlow VWAP Relay is a day-trading strategy for major FX pairs on intraday timeframes, demonstrated on EURUSD 15 minutes. It waits for alignment between a daily anchored VWAP regime check, residual percentiles, and lower-timeframe micro flow before suggesting trades. The originality is the fusion of daily VWAP residual percentiles with a live micro-flow score from 1 minute data to switch between fade and breakout behavior inside the same session. Add it to a clean chart and use the markers and alerts.
Scope and intent
• Markets: Major FX pairs such as EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, AUDUSD, USDCHF, USDCAD
• Timeframes: One minute to one hour
• Default demo in this publication: EURUSD on 15 minutes
• Purpose: Reduce false starts by acting only when context, location and micro flow agree
• Limits: This is a strategy. Orders are simulated on standard candles only
Originality and usefulness
• Core novelty: Residual percentiles to daily anchored VWAP decide “balanced versus expanding day”. A separate 1 minute micro-flow score confirms direction, so the same model fades extremes in balance and rides range breaks in expansion
• Failure modes addressed: Chop fakeouts and unconfirmed breakouts are filtered by the expansion gate and micro-flow threshold
• Testability: Every input is exposed. Bands, background regime color, and markers show why a suggestion appears
• Portable yardstick: Stops and targets are ATR multiples converted to ticks, which transfer across symbols
• Open source status: No reused third-party code that requires attribution
Method overview in plain language
The day is anchored with a VWAP that updates from the daily session start. Price minus VWAP is the residual. Percentiles of that residual measured over a rolling window define location extremes for the current day. A regime score compares residual volatility to price volatility. When expansion is low, the day is treated as balanced and the model fades residual extremes if 1 minute micro flow points back to VWAP. When expansion is high, the model trades breakouts outside the VWAP bands if slope and micro flow agree with the move.
Base measures
• Range basis: True Range smoothed by ATR for stops and targets, length 14
• Return basis: Not required for signals; residuals are absolute price distance to VWAP
Components
• Daily Anchor VWAP Bands. VWAP with standard-deviation bands. Slope sign is used for trend confirmation on breakouts
• Residual Percentiles. Rolling percentiles of close minus VWAP over Signal length. Identify location extremes inside the day
• Expansion Ratio. Standard deviation of residuals divided by standard deviation of price over Signal length. Classifies balanced versus expanding day
• Micro Flow. Net up minus down closes from 1 minute data across a short span, normalized to −1..+1. Confirms direction and avoids fades against pressure
• Session Window optional. Restricts trading to your configured hours to avoid thin periods
• Cooldown optional. Bars to wait after a position closes to prevent immediate re-entry
Fusion rule
Gating rather than weighting. First choose regime by Expansion Ratio versus the Expansion gate. Inside each regime all listed conditions must be true: location test plus micro-flow threshold plus session window plus cooldown. Breakouts also require VWAP slope alignment.
Signal rule
• Long suggestion on balanced day: residual at or below the lower percentile and micro flow positive above the gate while inside session and cooldown is satisfied
• Short suggestion on balanced day: residual at or above the upper percentile and micro flow negative below the gate while inside session and cooldown is satisfied
• Long suggestion on expanding day: close above the upper VWAP band, VWAP slope positive, micro flow positive, session and cooldown satisfied
• Short suggestion on expanding day: close below the lower VWAP band, VWAP slope negative, micro flow negative, session and cooldown satisfied
• Positions flip on opposite suggestions or exit by brackets
What you will see on the chart
• Markers on suggestion bars: L for long, S for short
• Exit occurs on reverse signal or when a bracket order is filled
• Reference lines: daily anchored VWAP with upper and lower bands
• Optional background: teal for balanced day, orange for expanding day
Inputs with guidance
Setup
• Signal length. Residual and regime window. Typical 40 to 100. Higher smooths, lower reacts faster
Micro Flow
• Micro TF. Lower timeframe used for micro flow, default 1 minute
• Micro span bars. Count of lower-TF bars. Typical 5 to 20
• Micro flow gate 0..1. Minimum absolute flow. Raising it demands stronger confirmation and reduces trade count
VWAP Bands
• VWAP stdev multiplier. Band width. Typical 0.8 to 1.6. Wider bands reduce breakout frequency and increase fade distance
• Expansion gate 0..3. Threshold to switch from fades to breakouts. Raising it favors fades, lowering it favors breakouts
Sessions
• Use session filter. Enable to trade only inside your window
• Trade window UTC. Default 07:00 to 17:00
Risk
• ATR length. Stop and target basis. Typical 10 to 21
• Stop ATR x. Initial stop distance in ATR multiples
• Target ATR x. Profit target distance in ATR multiples
• Cooldown bars after close. Wait bars before a new entry
• Side. Both, long only, or short only
View
• Show VWAP and bands
• Color bars by residual regime
Properties visible in this publication
• Initial capital 10000
• Base currency Default
• request.security uses lookahead off everywhere
• Strategy: Percent of equity with value 3. Pyramiding 0. Commission cash per order 0.0001 USD. Slippage 3 ticks. Process orders on close ON. Bar magnifier ON. Recalculate after order is filled OFF. Calc on every tick OFF. Using standard OHLC fills ON.
Realism and responsible publication
No performance claims. Past results never guarantee future outcomes. Fills and slippage vary by venue. Shapes can move while a bar forms and settle on close. Strategies must run on standard candles for signals and orders.
Honest limitations and failure modes
High impact news, session opens, and thin liquidity can invalidate assumptions. Very quiet days can reduce contrast between residuals and price volatility. Session windows use the chart exchange time. If both stop and target are touched within a single bar, TradingView’s standard OHLC price-movement model decides the outcome.
Expect different behavior on illiquid pairs or during holidays. The model is sensitive to session definitions and feed time. Past results never guarantee future outcomes.
Legal
Education and research only. Not investment advice. You are responsible for your decisions. Test on historical data and in simulation before any live use. Use realistic costs.
Enhanced SMA RibbonThe "Enhanced SMA Ribbon" indicator, implemented in TradingView's Pine Script, is a technical analysis tool that overlays multiple Simple Moving Averages (SMAs) on a price chart to help traders identify trends, potential reversals, and the overall market direction. Here's a detailed explanation of what it does:
What It Does
Calculates Multiple SMAs:
The indicator calculates 13 SMAs with different periods: 5, 6, 8, 10, 15, 20, 30, 50, 75, 100, 150, 200, and 300 bars.
Each SMA is based on the closing price (close) of the chart's data, smoothing out price fluctuations over the specified number of periods to reveal underlying trends.
Creates a Ribbon Effect:
These SMAs are plotted as lines on the chart, forming a "ribbon" where the lines spread out or converge based on the price action.
Shorter-period SMAs (e.g., 5, 6, 8) react quickly to price changes, while longer-period SMAs (e.g., 200, 300) move more slowly, creating a visual gradient of trend strength.
Visualizes Trend Direction:
When the ribbon fans out and all SMAs slope upward (e.g., shorter SMAs above longer ones), it indicates a strong uptrend.
When the ribbon compresses and slopes downward (e.g., shorter SMAs below longer ones), it suggests a downtrend.
A flat or converging ribbon can signal a consolidation phase or potential reversal.
Uses Distinct Colors:
Each SMA is assigned a unique color using RGB values, transitioning from red (short-term, e.g., SMA 5) to gray (long-term, e.g., SMA 300). The colors are:
SMA 5: Red (#FF0000)
SMA 6: OrangeRed (#FF4500)
SMA 8: Orange (#FFA500)
SMA 10: Yellow (#FFFF00)
SMA 15: GreenYellow (#ADFF2F)
SMA 20: Green (#00FF00)
SMA 30: Cyan (#00FFFF)
SMA 50: DodgerBlue (#1E90FF)
SMA 75: Blue (#0000FF)
SMA 100: Purple (#800080)
SMA 150: Magenta (#FF00FF)
SMA 200: DarkTurquoise (#00CED1)
SMA 300: Gray (#808080)
This color gradient helps traders quickly distinguish between short-, medium-, and long-term trends.
Overlays on Price Chart:
The indicator is set to overlay=true, meaning it plots directly on the price chart (e.g., candlesticks or bars) rather than in a separate pane, allowing for direct comparison with price movements.
How Traders Use It
Trend Confirmation: A widening ribbon with upward-sloping SMAs confirms a bullish trend, while a narrowing ribbon with downward-sloping SMAs confirms a bearish trend.
Crossover Signals: Crossovers between shorter and longer SMAs (e.g., SMA 5 crossing SMA 50) can indicate potential buy or sell signals, though this requires additional logic (not included here).
Support and Resistance: Longer SMAs (e.g., 200, 300) often act as dynamic support or resistance levels.
Market Context: The ribbon provides a multi-timeframe view, combining short-term reactions with long-term trends, useful for swing traders or those analyzing market cycles.
Example Behavior
In an uptrend, the price might stay above the ribbon, with shorter SMAs (e.g., 5, 10) leading the upward movement, followed by longer SMAs (e.g., 200, 300) catching up.
In a downtrend, the price might fall below the ribbon, with shorter SMAs dropping first, creating a red-dominated lower section.
During consolidation, the SMAs might bunch together, forming a tight ribbon with minimal slope.
Limitations
The indicator can become cluttered on lower timeframes (e.g., 1-minute charts) due to the number of lines.
It’s a lagging indicator since SMAs are based on past data, so it’s best used with other tools (e.g., RSI, MACD) for confirmation.
Momentum Flow Build w/ FVG v2Good day.
The Momentum Flow Build w/ FVG v2 indicator
shows the previous session levels of Asia and London,
and the 5 min NY open levels (for 15 min go to 15 min chart).
The indicator also shows the FVGs.
The idea is that if price reaches a key level, we then
watch the level for whether price respects FVGs with a
retracement and engulfing candle at the FVG, or whether
price inverts the FVG (IFVG).
Cool. Be encouraged. Peace
Dual ORB (EU/US) + VWAP + Filters (Retest/EMA/ATR/RVOL)Release Notes — Dual ORB (EU & US) + Color VWAP
Summary
This script plots two configurable Opening Range Breakouts (ORB)—one for the European open and one for the US open—along with a color-adaptive VWAP (green above price, red below). It’s designed for M5/M15 intraday trading on indices (e.g., US100) and metals (e.g., XAUUSD), with clean visuals, optional history retention, and simple breakout cues.
New & Key Features
Dual ORB Sessions
EU ORB (default 07:00) and US ORB (default 14:00).
Each session’s start time and duration are configurable (15/30/45/60 min).
Automatic OR box that tracks the session high/low and freezes at the end of the window.
Configurable Time Zone
Choose a specific UTC offset or an IANA time zone (e.g., Europe/Paris, America/New_York) for precise session timing.
“Exchange” option mirrors the chart’s exchange time when available.
Targets (1× Range by default)
First upside/downside target plotted as a step line once the OR closes (based on a % of the OR width).
Separate % settings per session (EU/US).
Breakout Signals
Optional ▲ / ▼ markers when price crosses ORH/ORL after the OR window closes.
Adjustable signal size and colors.
Color-Adaptive VWAP
VWAP plotted for the whole session; green when price ≥ VWAP, red when price < VWAP.
Single slider for VWAP line thickness and a toggle to show/hide.
Clean Visuals & History Control
Option to preserve historical boxes/lines/labels, or auto-clean previous sessions when a new OR starts.
Per-session colors for the OR lines, fills, labels.
Configuration
General
Show History: Keep OR drawings from prior sessions or clear them automatically.
Time Zone: Pick Exchange or a specific UTC/IANA zone.
ORB Europe / ORB US
Start Time (HH:MM)
Duration: 15 / 30 / 45 / 60 minutes.
Target %: Distance for the first target as a % of the OR range.
Colors: Line and fill per session.
Signals
Enable Breakout Signals
Up/Down Colors
Text Size: Tiny → Huge.
VWAP
Show/Hide
Line Width
Visual Elements
OR Box: Semi-transparent fill during the window; locks at end.
OR Levels: ORH / ORL solid lines; ORM dashed.
Target Lines: Step lines above/below after OR closes.
Signal Labels: ▲ at ORL (bull break), ▼ at ORH (bear break).
VWAP Line: Turns green/red with price relation.
Alerts (baseline)
Signal labels visually indicate ORH/ORL breaks. (You can add alertconditions to match these crossings if you want audible/Push alerts.)
Performance & Compatibility
Pine v6.
Intraday only (< 1D). The script aborts on daily or higher timeframes to avoid misleading OR timing.
Efficient drawing & clean-up to reduce line/label count.
Known Limitations
The script relies on bar timestamps; exact alignment depends on chart data and your chosen time zone
If your broker/exchange applies session gaps or custom trading hours, verify that your time zone and session align with the instrument.
Suggested Workflow
Pick your time zone.
Set EU/US start times and durations to match your plan (e.g., EU 07:00 30m, US 14:00 30m).
Choose whether to keep history.
Toggle signals and VWAP as desired.
Use ORH/ORL and the first target as decision levels; combine with your filter (trend MA, RSI, market structure, etc.).
Changelog (high-level)
v1.
Added dual configurable ORB (EU & US).
Added per-session targets (percent of OR width).
Added color-adaptive VWAP + width control.
Added breakout signals with customizable size and colors.
Added time zone selector (Exchange, UTC, IANA).
Added history on/off option and improved object lifecycle (clean-up vs persist).
Ported to Pine v6 and hardened against repainting artifacts at session edges.
