Psychological Levels- Rounding Numbers Psychological Levels Indicator
Overview:
The Psychological Levels Indicator automatically identifies and plots significant price levels based on psychological thresholds, which are key areas where market participants often focus their attention. These levels act as potential support or resistance zones due to human behavioral tendencies to round off numbers. This indicator dynamically adjusts the levels based on the stock's price range and ensures seamless visibility across the chart.
Key Features:
Dynamic Step Sizes:
The indicator adjusts the levels dynamically based on the stock price:
For prices below 500: Levels are spaced at 10.
For prices between 500 and 3000: Levels are spaced at 50, 100, and 1000.
For prices between 3000 and 10,000: Levels are spaced at 100 and 1000.
For prices above 10,000: Levels are spaced at 500 and 1000.
Extended Visibility:
The plotted levels are extended across the entire chart for improved visualization, ensuring traders can easily monitor these critical zones over time.
Customization Options:
Line Color: Choose the color for the levels to suit your charting style.
Line Style: Select from solid, dashed, or dotted lines.
Line Width: Adjust the thickness of the lines for better clarity.
Clean and Efficient Design:
The indicator only plots levels relevant to the visible chart range, avoiding unnecessary clutter and ensuring a clean workspace.
How It Works:
It calculates the relevant step sizes based on the price:
Smaller step sizes for lower-priced stocks.
Larger step sizes for higher-priced stocks.
Primary, secondary, and (if applicable) tertiary levels are plotted dynamically:
Primary Levels: The most granular levels based on the stock price.
Secondary Levels: Higher-order levels for broader significance.
Tertiary Levels: Additional levels for lower-priced stocks to enhance detail.
These levels are plotted across the chart, allowing traders to visualize key psychological areas effortlessly.
Use Cases:
Day Trading: Identify potential intraday support and resistance levels.
Swing Trading: Recognize key price zones where trends may pause or reverse.
Long-Term Investing: Gain insights into significant price zones for entry or exit strategies.
Psychologicalroundnumber
Rounded Grid Levels🟩 Rounded Grid Levels is a visual tool that helps traders quickly identify key psychological price levels on any chart. By dynamically adapting to the user's visible screen area, it provides consistent, easy-to-read round number grids that align with price action. The indicator offers a traditional visualization of horizontal round level grids, along with enhanced options such as tilted grids that align with market sentiment, and fan-shaped grids for alternative price interaction views. It serves purely as a visual aid, providing an adaptable way to observe rounded price levels without making predictions or generating trading signals.
⚡ OVERVIEW ⚡
The Rounded Grid Levels indicator is a visual tool designed to help traders identify and track price levels that may hold psychological significance, such as round numbers or significant milestones. These levels often serve as potential areas for price reactions, including support, resistance, or points of market interest. The indicator's gridlines are determined by user-defined settings and adjust dynamically based on the visible chart area, meaning they are influenced by the user's current zoom level and perspective. This behavior is similar to TradingView's built-in grid lines found in the chart settings canvas, which also adjust in real-time based on the visible screen, ensuring the most relevant price levels are displayed. By default, the indicator provides consistent gridlines to represent traditional round number levels, offering a straightforward view of key psychological areas. Additionally, users have access to experimental and novel configurations, such as fan-shaped layouts, which expand from a central point and adapt directionally based on user settings. This configuration can provide an alternate perspective for traders, especially useful in analyzing broader market moves and visualizing expansion relative to the current price.
Users can display the gridlines in a variety of configurations, including horizontal, neutral, auto, or fan-shaped layouts, depending on their preferred method of analysis. This flexibility allows traders to focus on different types of price action without overcrowding the visual representation of price movements.
This indicator is intended purely as a visual aid for understanding how price interacts with rounded levels over time. It does not generate predictive trading signals or recommendations but rather provides traders with a customizable framework to enhance their market analysis.
⭕ ROUND NUMBERS IN MARKET PSYCHOLOGY ⭕
Round numbers hold a significant place in financial markets, largely due to the psychological tendencies of traders and investors. These levels often represent areas of interest where human behavior, market biases, and trading strategies converge. Whether it's prices ending in 000, 500, or other recognizable values, these levels naturally attract more attention and influence decision-making.
Round numbers can act as key support or resistance levels and often become focal points in market activity. They are frequently highlighted by financial media, embedded in products like options, and serve as foundations for various trading theories. Their impact extends across different market participants and strategies, making them important focal points in both short-term and long-term market analysis.
Round numbers play an important role in guiding trader behavior and market activity. To better understand why these levels are so impactful, there are several key factors that highlight their significance in trading and price dynamics:
Psychological Impact : Humans naturally gravitate toward round numbers, such as prices ending in 000, 500, or 00. These levels tend to draw attention as traders perceive them as psychologically significant. This behavior is rooted in the cognitive bias known as "left-digit bias," where people assign greater importance to rounded, more recognizable numbers. In trading, this means that prices at these levels are more memorable and thus more likely to attract attention, creating an area where traders focus their buying or selling decisions.
Order Clustering : Traders often place buy and sell orders around these rounded levels, either manually or automatically through stop and limit orders. This clustering leads to the formation of visible support or resistance zones, as the concentrated orders tend to influence price behavior around these key levels. Market participants tend to converge their orders around these price points because of their perceived psychological importance, creating a liquidity pocket. As a result, these areas often act as barriers that the price either struggles to cross or uses as springboards for further movement.
External Influences : Financial media frequently highlights round-number milestones, amplifying market sentiment and drawing traders' attention to these levels. Additionally, algorithmic trading systems often react to round-number thresholds, which can further reinforce price movements, creating self-reinforcing reactions at these levels. As media and analysts emphasize these milestones, more traders pay attention to them, leading to increased volume and often heightened volatility at those points. This self-reinforcing cycle makes round numbers an area where price movement can either accelerate due to a breakout or stall because of clustering interest.
Option Strike Prices : Options contracts typically have strike prices set at round numbers, and as expiration approaches, these levels can influence the price of the underlying asset due to concentrated trading activity. The behavior around these levels, often called "pinning," happens because traders adjust their positions to avoid unfavorable scenarios at these key strikes. This activity tends to concentrate price movement toward these levels as traders hedge their positions, leading to increased liquidity and the potential for abrupt price reactions near option expiration dates.
Whole Number Theory : This theory suggests that whole numbers act as natural psychological barriers, where traders tend to make decisions, place orders, or expect price reactions, making these levels crucial for analysis. Whole numbers are simple to remember and are often used as informal targets for profit-taking or stop placement. This behavior leads to a natural ebb and flow around these levels, where the market finds equilibrium temporarily before deciding on a future direction. Whole numbers tend to work like magnets, drawing price to them and often creating reactions that are visible across different timeframes.
Quarters Theory : Commonly used in Forex markets, this theory focuses on quarter-point increments (e.g., 1.0000, 1.2500, 1.5000) as key levels where price often pauses or reverses. These quarter levels are treated as important psychological barriers, with price frequently interacting at these intervals. Traders use these points to gauge market strength or weakness because quarter levels divide larger round-number ranges into more manageable and meaningful segments. For example, in highly traded forex pairs like EUR/USD, traders might treat 1.2500 as a significant barrier because it represents a halfway point between 1.0000 and 1.5000, offering a balanced reference point for decision-making.
Big Round Numbers : Major round numbers, such as 100, 500, or 1000, often attract significant attention and serve as psychological thresholds. Traders anticipate strong reactions when prices approach or cross these levels. This is often because large round numbers symbolize major milestones, and price behavior around them tends to signal important market sentiment shifts. When price crosses a major level, such as a stock moving above $100 or Bitcoin crossing $50,000, it often creates a surge in trading activity as it is viewed as a validation or invalidation of market trends, drawing in momentum traders and triggering both retail and institutional responses.
By visualizing these round levels on the chart, the Rounded Grid Levels indicator helps traders identify areas where price may pause, reverse, or gain momentum. While round numbers provide useful insights, they should be used in conjunction with other technical analysis tools for a comprehensive trading strategy.
🛠️ CONFIGURATION AND SETTINGS 🛠️
The Rounded Grid Levels indicator offers a variety of configurable settings to tailor the visualization according to individual trader preferences. Below are the key settings available for customization:
Custom Settings
Rounding Step : The Rounding Step parameter sets the minimum interval between gridlines. This value determines how closely spaced the rounded levels are on the chart. For example, if the Rounding Step is set to 100, gridlines will be displayed at every 100 points (e.g., $100, $200, $300) relative to the current price level. The Rounding Step is scaled to the chart's visible area, meaning users should adjust it appropriately for different assets to ensure effective visualization. Lower values provide a more granular view, while larger values give a broader, higher-level perspective.
Major Grids : Defines the interval at which major gridlines will appear compared to minor ones. For example, if the Rounding Step is 100 and Major Grids is set to 10, major gridlines will be displayed every $1,000, while minor gridlines will be at every $100. This distinction allows traders to better visualize key psychological levels by emphasizing significant price intervals.
Direction : Users can select the gridline direction, choosing between options such as 'Up', 'Down', 'Auto', or 'Neutral'. This setting controls how the gridlines extend relative to the current price level, which can help in analyzing directional trends.
Neutral Direction : This option provides balanced gridlines both above and below the current price, allowing traders to visualize support and resistance levels symmetrically. This is useful for analyzing sideways or ranging markets without directional bias.
Up Direction : The gridlines are tilted upwards, starting from visible lows and extending toward the rounded level at the current price. By choosing Up , traders emphasize an upward sentiment, visualizing price action that aligns with rising trends. This option helps illustrate potential areas where pullbacks may occur, as well as how price might expand upwards in the current market context.
Down Direction : The gridlines are tilted downwards, starting from visible highs and extending toward the rounded level at the current price. Selecting Down allows traders to emphasize a downward sentiment, visualizing how price may expand downwards, which is particularly useful when analyzing downtrends or potential correction levels. The gridlines provide an illustrative view of how price interacts with lower levels during market declines.
Auto Direction : The gridlines automatically adjust their direction based on recent market trends. This adaptive option allows traders to visualize gridlines that dynamically change according to price action, making it suitable for evolving market conditions where the direction is uncertain. It’s useful for traders looking for an indicator that moves in sync with market shifts and doesn’t require manual adjustment.
Grid Type : Allows users to choose between 'Linear' or 'Fan' grid types. The Linear type creates evenly spaced gridlines that can be either horizontal or tilted, depending on the chosen direction setting, providing a straightforward view of price levels. The Fan type radiates lines from a central point, offering a more dynamic perspective for analyzing price expansions relative to the current price. These grid types introduce experimental visualizations influenced by chart properties, including visible highs, lows, and the current price. Regardless of the configuration, the gridlines will always end at the current bar, which represents a rounded price level, ensuring consistency in how key price areas are displayed.
Extend : This setting allows gridlines to be projected into the future, helping traders see potential levels beyond the current bar. When enabled, the behavior of the extended lines varies based on the selected grid type and direction. For Neutral and Horizontal Linear settings, the extended gridlines maintain their round-number alignment indefinitely. However, for Up , Down , or Auto directions, the angle of the extended gridlines can change dynamically based on the chart’s visible high and low or the latest price action. As a result, extended lines may not continue to align with round-number levels beyond the current bar, reflecting instead the current trend and sentiment of the market. Regardless of direction, extended gridlines remain consistently spaced and either parallel or evenly distributed, ensuring a structured visual representation.
Color Settings : Users can customize the colors for resistance, support, and minor gridlines at the current price. This helps in visually distinguishing between different grid types and their significance on the chart.
Color Options
These configuration options make the Rounded Grid Levels indicator a versatile tool for traders looking to customize their charts based on their personal trading strategies and analytical preferences.
🖼️ CHART EXAMPLES 🖼️
The following chart examples illustrate different configurations available in the Rounded Grid Levels indicator. These examples show how variations in grid type, direction, and rounding step settings impact the visualization of price levels. Traders may find that smaller rounding steps are more effective on lower time frames, where precision is key, whereas larger rounding steps help to reduce clutter and highlight key levels on higher time frames. Each image includes a caption to explain the specific configuration used, helping users better understand how to apply these settings in different market conditions.
Smaller Rounding Step (100) : With a smaller rounding step, the gridlines are spaced closely together. This setting is particularly useful for lower time frames where price action is more granular and finer details are needed. It allows traders to track price interactions at narrower levels, but on higher time frames, it may lead to clutter and exceed Pine Script's 500-line limit.
Larger Rounding Step (1000) : With a larger rounding step, the gridlines are spaced farther apart. This visualization is better suited for higher time frames or broader market overviews, allowing users to focus on major psychological levels without overloading the chart. On lower time frames, this may result in fewer actionable levels, but it helps in maintaining clarity and staying within Pine Script's line limit.
Linear Grid Type, Neutral Direction (Traditional Rounded Price Levels) : The Linear gridlines are displayed in a neutral fashion, representing traditional round-number levels with consistent spacing above and below the current price. This layout helps visualize key psychological price levels over time in a straightforward manner.
Linear Grid Type, Down Direction : The Linear gridlines are tilted downwards, remaining parallel and ending at the rounded level at the current price. This setup emphasizes downward market sentiment, allowing traders to visualize price expansion towards lower levels, which is useful when analyzing downtrends or potential correction levels.
Linear Grid Type, Down Direction : The Linear gridlines are tilted downwards, extending from the current price to lower levels. Useful for observing downtrending price movements and visualizing pullback areas during uptrends.
Linear Grid Type, Auto Direction : The Linear gridlines adjust dynamically, tilting either upwards or downwards to align with recent price trends, remaining parallel and ending at the rounded level at the current price. This configuration reflects the current market sentiment and offers traders a flexible way to observe price dynamics as they develop in real time.
Fan Grid Type, Neutral Direction : The fan-shaped gridlines radiate symmetrically from a central point, ending at the rounded level at the current price. This configuration provides an unbiased view of price action, giving traders a balanced visualization of rounded levels without directional influence.
Fan Grid Type, Up Direction : The fan-shaped gridlines originate from lower visible price points and radiate upwards, ending at the rounded level at the current price. This layout helps visualize potential price expansion to higher levels, offering insights into upward momentum while maintaining a dynamic and evolving perspective on market conditions.
Fan Grid Type, Down Direction : The fan-shaped gridlines originate from higher visible price points and radiate downwards, ending at the rounded level at the current price. This setup is particularly useful for observing potential price expansion towards lower levels, illustrating areas where the price might extend during a downtrend.
Fan Grid Type, Auto Direction : The fan-shaped gridlines dynamically adjust, originating from visible chart points based on the current market trend, and radiate outward, ending at the rounded level at the current price. This adaptive visualization offers a continuously evolving representation that aligns with changing market sentiment, helping traders assess price expansion dynamically.
📊 SUMMARY 📊
The Rounded Grid Levels indicator helps traders highlight important round-number price levels on their charts, providing a dynamic way to visualize these psychological areas. With customizable gridline options—including traditional, tilted, and fan-shaped styles—users can adapt the indicator to suit their analysis needs. The gridlines adjust with chart zoom or scale, offering a flexible tool for observing price action, without providing specific trading signals or predictions.
⚙️ COMPATIBILITY AND LIMITATIONS ⚙️
Asset Compatibility :
The Rounded Grid Levels indicator is compatible with all asset classes, including cryptocurrencies, forex, stocks, and commodities. Users should adjust both the Rounding Step and the Major Grid settings to ensure the correct scale is used for the specific asset. This adjustment ensures that the most relevant round price levels are displayed effectively regardless of the instrument being analyzed. For instance, when analyzing BTCUSD, a higher Rounding Step may be needed compared to forex pairs like EURUSD, and the Major Grid value should also be adjusted to appropriately emphasize significant levels.
Line Limitations in Pine Script :
The Rounded Grid Levels indicator is subject to Pine Script's 500-line limit. This means that it cannot draw more than 500 gridlines on the chart at any given time. The number of gridlines depends directly on the chosen Rounding Step . If the steps are too small, the gridlines will be spaced too closely, causing the indicator to quickly reach the line limit. For example, if Ethereum is trading around $2,500, a Rounding Step of 100 might be appropriate, but a step of 1.00 would create too many gridlines, exceeding Pine Script's limit. Users should consider appropriate settings to avoid running into this constraint.
Runtime Error Considerations
When using the Rounded Grid Levels indicator, users might encounter a runtime error in specific scenarios. This typically happens if the Rounding Step is set too small, causing the indicator to exceed Pine Script's line limit or take too long to process. This can often occur when switching between charts that have significantly different price ranges. Since the Rounding Step requires flexibility to work with a wide variety of assets—ranging from decimals to thousands—it is not practically limited within the script itself. If a runtime error occurs, the recommended solution is to increase the Rounding Step to a larger value that better matches the current asset's price range.
Runtime Error: If the Rounding Step is too small for the current asset or chart, the indicator may generate a runtime error. Users should increase the Rounding Step to ensure proper visualization.
⚠️ DISCLAIMER ⚠️
The Rounded Grid Levels indicator is not designed as a predictive tool. While it extends gridlines into the future, this extension is purely for visual continuity and does not imply any forecast of future price movements. The primary function of this indicator is to help users visualize significant round number price levels.
The gridlines adjust dynamically based on the visible chart range, ensuring that the most relevant round price levels are displayed. This behavior allows the indicator to adapt to your current view of the market, but it should not be used to predict price movements. The indicator is intended as a visual aid and should be used alongside other tools in a comprehensive market analysis approach.
While gridlines may align with significant price levels in hindsight, they should not be interpreted as indicators of future price movements. Traders are encouraged to adjust settings based on their strategy and market conditions.
🧠 BEYOND THE CODE 🧠
The Rounded Grid Levels indicator, like other xxattaxx indicators , is designed with education and community collaboration in mind. Its open-source nature encourages exploration, experimentation, and the development of new grid calculation indicators, drawings, and strategies. We hope this indicator serves as a framework and a starting point for future innovations in grid trading.
Your comments, suggestions, and discussions are invaluable in shaping the future of this project. We actively encourage your feedback and contributions, which will directly help us refine and improve the Rounded Grid Levels indicator. We look forward to seeing the creative ways in which you use and enhance this tool.
Psychological levels (Bank levels) PsychoLevels v3 - TartigradiaPsychological levels (Bank levels) plots the closest "round" price levels above and below current price, based on neuroscience research of how humans intuitively calculate in logarithms.
Psychological levels, also called bank levels, are "round" price numbers, by truncating after the nth leftmost digits, around which price often experience resistance or support, because traders and investors tend to set orders around these round numbers.
The calculation done here is fully automatic and dynamic, contrary to other similar scripts, this one uses a mathematical calculation that extracts the 1, 2 or 3 leftmost digits and calculate the previous and next level by incrementing/decrementing these digits. This means it works for any symbol under any price range.
This approach is based on neuroscience research, which found that human brains intuitively approximate numbers on a logarithmic scale, adults and children alike, and similarly to macaques, for more info see Numerical Cognition , Weber-Fechner Law , Zipf law .
For example, if price is at 0.0421, the next major price level is 0.05 and medium one is 0.043. For another asset currently priced at 19354, the next and previous major price levels are 20000 and 10000 respectively, and the next/previous medium levels are 20000 and 19000, and the next/previous weak levels are 19400 and 19300.
IMPORTANT: Please enable "Scale price chart only" in the chart's scale's options, as otherwise major levels may make the chart's scale very small and hard to read.
How it works
At any time, there are 3 levels of strength (1 leftmost digit, 2 leftmost digits, 3 leftmost digits) represented by different sizes, and 3 directional levels for each of these strengths (level above, level below, and half-level) represented by different colors and positions, around current price.
Indeed, contrary to other similar price levels scripts, we do not plot ALL price levels at all times, because otherwise the chart becomes wayyy too cluttered, and also it's highly processing intensive to plot so many lines. So we here use a dynamical approach: we plot only the relevant levels, the closest ones according to current price.
Hence, when a level disappears, it does not mean that it does not exist anymore, but simply that we are not drawing it right now because it is not pertinent for the current price movement (ie, too far away).
Breakouts can be detected in two different ways depending on if SMA is set to a value higher than 1 or not: if SMA == 1, then there is no smoothing, so the levels adapt instantaneously to the current price, so to detect breakout, you should refer to the levels at the previous tick and whether they were broken by current tick's price; if SMA > 1, then there is some smoothing, and so the levels will stay in-place even if there is a breakout, so it's easier to spot breakouts without having to look at the previous ticks, but on the other hand you won't see the new levels for the new price range until after a few more ticks for the smoothing window to adapt. Hence, by default, smoothing is disabled, so that you can see the currently pertinent levels at all time, even right after or during a breakout.
By default, the strong above level is in green, strong below level is in red, medium above level is in blue, medium below level is in yellow, and weak levels aren't displayed but can be. Half levels are also displayed, in a darker color. Strong levels are increments of the first leftmost digit (eg, 10000 to 20000), medium levels are increments of the second leftmost digit (eg, 19000 to 20000), and weak levels of the third leftmost digit (eg, 19100 to 19200). Instead of plotting all the psychological levels all at once as a grid, which makes the chart unintelligible, here the levels adapt dynamically around the current price, so that they show the above/below/half levels relatively to the current price.
Indeed, "half-levels" are also displayed (eg, medium level can also display 19500 instead of only 19000 or 20000). This was made because otherwise the gap between two levels was too big, especially for the strongest levels (eg, there was no major level between 20000 and 30000, but with a half-step we also get a half-level at 25000, and empirically price tends to respect these half levels - I also tried quarter levels but empirically the results were not good). In addition to this hard-coded half-level, you can also create more subdivisions (eg, quarter levels) by setting the simple moving average to a value higher than 1.
The script can be made to run on the daily timeframe whatever the current chart's timeframe is, to reduce the variability in levels, to make it less noisy than intraday price movement. But by default, the chart resolution is used, because I empirically found that the levels found with this indicator work on all time resolutions quite well.
The step can be adjusted to increase the gap between levels, eg, if you want to display one every 2 levels then input step = 2 (eg, 22000, 24000, 26000, etc), or if you want to display quarter levels, input 0.25 (eg, 22000, 22250, 22500, etc). The default values should fit most use cases and cover most psychological levels.
How to read
Focust first on bigger dotted levels, they are stronger and more likely to cause a rebound or a major event or price to stay at this level.
Remember that it's not enough to just look at levels, the context is important, because levels have various effects depending on current price movement: if price is above a level, the level is a support on which price can rebound; if price is below a level, the level is a resistance on which price can rebound (or break); and finally sometimes price also stays hovering around a level for some time.
Levels closer to 9 are less weaker, and levels closer to 0 are stronger, according to Zipf law. This is now reflected since v3 in the transparency, levels that are closer to 9 will be more transparent.
The switch in color for the same level illustrates how a level switches from being a support to a resistance and inversely. Eg, if a major level turns from green to red, then it changed from being a resistance (above) to a support (below).
As is well known in trading, longer standing levels are stronger. This indicator provides a direct illustration: in practice, the number of consecutive dots on the same line influences the strength of the level: the longer the chain of dots, the more you can expect this price level to be significant. The length does not mean the level will necessarily hold, but that other traders are likely to monitor if it holds, and if not then price will break down. Hence, longer levels are good spots to place stop losses, or to enter trades depending on your strategy. In general, a single dot is not enough to consider a level significant, but 2 or more is a good enough level, and 10+ is a strong level. Intuitively, this makes sense, and is what pro traders do: the longer a level is tested, the stronger it is. This indicator can visually represent this intuition and allows to use it as a more systematic trading signal.
Motivation
I initially made the first version of the PsychoLevels indicator mainly to train with PineScript, but I found it surprisingly accurate to define levels that are respected by price movements. So I guess it can be useful for new traders and experienced traders alike, as it's easy to forget that psychological levels can often be as strong if not stronger than technical levels. It can also be used to quickly screen other minor assets for trading opportunities. For example, a hybrid strategy would be to manually define levels on BTCUSD but using this script to automatically define levels in crypto altcoins and quickly screen them for a trade opportunity that can be greater than with BTCUSD but with the same trend.
Personally, although initially I did not believe an automated tool would work well for this purpose, I could now empirically verify that it is quite reliable for the purpose of detecting levels, and so I use it all the time to find the levels automatically and help me monitor them like a hawk, so that I only have to draw uber major levels, the ones that last between cycles and that are hard to autodetect, but otherwise all daily/weekly levels are usually covered. However, trendlines must still be drawn manually or with another indicator (but note that up to now I have found none that worked well enough), as PsychoLevels only draws levels (ie, horizontal lines, not oblique ones!).
Differences with the previous version PsychoLevels v2
price levels now have a transparency according to their importance for the human brain: numbers closer to 9 are weaker, and numbers closer to 0 are stronger and represent a major psychological threshold (eg, that's why prices marked as $9.99 sell better than $10.00). This option can be disabled to get the exact same behavior as v2.
modularized and typed code
PsychoLevels v2 can be found here:
Sonarlab - Psych/Whole Number Levels Have you ever noticed that prices seem to stick to certain “round numbers” like $1250, $1300, or $1350? It’s not just your imagination — these round numbers can actually act as psychological levels in the market, influencing trader behavior and shaping price action.
But why do traders care so much about these round numbers? It all comes down to our psychological wiring. Humans are naturally drawn to symmetry and simplicity, and round numbers offer a nice, neat way to measure price levels. Plus, these levels often coincide with important milestones or historical levels of support and resistance, giving them even more psychological weight.
To help you take advantage of these psychological levels in your trading, we’ve created a free TradingView indicator that automatically plots round numbers on your chart. Whether you’re a seasoned trader or just starting out, this indicator can give you a valuable edge in the market.
Here’s how the Indicator works:
1. Install the indicator on your TradingView chart. You can find it in the public library by searching for “Round Numbers Indicator”.
2. Select your preferred round numbers and customize the appearance of the indicator to fit your chart. The default settings are already set good.
3. Watch as the round numbers dynamically adjust to the current price action, providing you with a clear view of the market’s psychological levels.
Psychological levels (Bank levels) PsychoLevels v2 - TartigradiaPsychological levels (Bank levels) plots "round" price levels above and below current price, by truncating after the nth leftmost digits, based on neuroscience research of how humans intuitively calculate in logarithms.
Psychological levels, also called bank levels, are "round" price numbers around which price often experience resistance or support, because traders and investors tend to set orders around these round numbers.
Calculation here is fully automatic and dynamic, contrary to other similar scripts, this one uses a mathematical calculation that extracts the 1, 2 or 3 leftmost digits and calculate the previous and next level by incrementing/decrementing these digits. This means it works for any symbol under any price range.
This approach is based on neuroscience research, which found that human brains intuitively approximate numbers on a logarithmic scale, adults and children alike, and similarly to macaques, for more info see Numerical Cognition , Weber-Fechner Law , Zipf law.
For example, if price is at 0.0421, the next major price level is 0.05 and medium one is 0.043. For another asset currently priced at 19354, the next and previous major price levels are 20000 and 10000 respectively, and the next/previous medium levels are 20000 and 19000, and the next/previous weak levels are 19400 and 19300.
Usage:
* By default, strong upper level is in green, strong lower level is in red, medium upper level is in blue, medium lower level is in yellow, and weak levels aren't displayed but can be. Half levels are also displayed, in a darker color. Strong levels are increments of the first leftmost digit (eg, 10000 to 20000), medium levels are increments of the second leftmost digit (eg, 19000 to 20000), and weak levels of the third leftmost digit (eg, 19100 to 19200). Instead of plotting all the psychological levels all at once as a grid, which makes the chart unintelligible, here the levels adapt dynamically around the current price, so that they show the upper/lower levels relatively to the current price.
* A simple moving average is implemented, so that "half-levels" are also displayed when relevant (eg, medium level can also display 19500 instead of only 19000 or 20000). This can be disabled by setting smoothing to 1.
* By default, the script runs on the daily timeframe, whatever the current chart's timeframe is. This is to reduce the variability in levels, to make it less noisy than intraday price movement, but this can be changed in the settings.
* The step can be adjusted to increase the gap between levels, eg, if you want to display one every 2 levels then input step = 2 (eg, 22000, 24000, 26000, etc), or if you want to display quarter levels, input 0.25 (eg, 22000, 22250, 22500, etc). The default values should fit most use cases and cover most psychological levels.
I made this script mainly to train with PineScript, but I found it surprisingly accurate to define levels that are respected by price movements. So I guess it can be useful for new traders and experienced traders alike, as it's easy to forget that psychological levels can often be as strong if not stronger than technical levels. It can also be used to quickly screen other minor assets for trading opportunities. For example, a hybrid strategy would be to manually define levels on BTCUSD but using this script to automatically define levels in crypto altcoins and quickly screen them for a trade opportunity that can be greater than with BTCUSD but with the same trend.
Changes compared to v1:
* Deduplicated redundant calculations and hence faster script.
* Added half-step levels, which allows to more easily see breakouts (because the levels are still on-screen).
* All steps are now configuration on the GUI.
* Revamped color scheme.
* And major reasons to post as a separate v2 script rather than updating: because we can't update the original description nor screenshot. I have now read more about the House Rules and saw other scriptmakers, so I am trying to write better descriptions like wizards do, by explaining not only how the script works but what the underlying financial concept is to a neophyte audience.
Foreign Currency Psychological ResistanceThought it would be interesting to look into psychological barriers (round numbers) denominated in foreign currencies and see where those barriers show up on a USD chart.
I did a couple of quick and superficial Internet searches to get an idea of which USD pairs are being used the most to trade Bitcoin. My conclusion is that the most relevant currencies are the Chinese Renminbi and the Brazilian Real.
Based on that, I wrote this little indicator that uses the exchange rate from the USD pairs (USDCNY, USDBLR) and the round number targets to come up with the corresponding USD price levels.
