[TehThomas] - ICT Volume ImbalanceThis script is a Volume Imbalance (VI) detector and visualizer for use on the TradingView platform. The goal of the script is to automatically identify areas where there are significant imbalances in the volume of trades between consecutive candlesticks and visually highlight these areas. These imbalances can provide traders with valuable insights about the market’s current condition, often signaling potential reversal or continuation points based on price and volume action.
ICT (Inner Circle Trader) Concept of Volume Imbalances
Volume imbalances are a critical concept in the ICT trading methodology. They refer to situations where there is an unusual or significant difference in volume between two consecutive candlesticks, which might indicate institutional or large player activity. According to ICT principles, these imbalances can show us areas of market inefficiency or potential price manipulation. By identifying these imbalances, traders can gain an edge in understanding where the market is likely to move next.
Bullish and Bearish Volume Imbalances:
Bullish Volume Imbalance: This occurs when there is a strong increase in buying pressure, typically indicated by a higher volume on a candle that closes significantly above the previous one, often leaving a gap or larger price movement. The market could be preparing to push higher, and the volume shows a clear shift in buying demand.
Bearish Volume Imbalance:
Conversely, a bearish imbalance occurs when there is a strong increase in selling pressure, typically signaled by a candle that closes significantly lower than the previous one, again with higher volume. This could indicate that large players are offloading positions, and the price is likely to drop further.
Key Features and Functions of the Script
The script automates the process of detecting these volume imbalances and visually marking them on a price chart. Let’s explore its functionality in detail.
1. Inputs Section
The script allows for significant customization through its input options, which help traders adjust the detection and visualization of volume imbalances based on their individual preferences and trading style. Below are the details:
lookback (250 bars): This input specifies the number of bars (or candles) the script should look back when analyzing the volume imbalance. By setting this to 250, the user is looking at the last 250 bars on the chart to detect any significant volume imbalances. This period is adjustable between 50 to 500 bars.
volumeThreshold (1.0 multiplier): This input helps set the sensitivity for identifying volume imbalances. The script compares the volume of the current candle with the previous one, and if the current volume exceeds the previous volume by this threshold multiplier (in this case, 1.0 means at least equal to the previous volume), then it triggers an imbalance. Users can adjust the multiplier to suit different market conditions.
showBoxes (true/false): This toggle determines whether the boxes representing volume imbalances are drawn on the chart. When enabled, the script visually highlights the imbalances with colored boxes.
fillBaseColor (orange with 80% opacity): This is the color setting for the background of the imbalance boxes. A softer color (like orange with opacity) ensures the imbalance is highlighted without obscuring the price action.
borderColor (gray): The color of the border around the imbalance boxes. This adds a visual distinction to make the imbalance areas more visible.
borderWidth (1 pixel): This controls the width of the box's border to adjust how prominent it appears.
rightOffset (30 bars): This input controls how far the imbalance box extends to the right on the chart. It helps users anticipate the potential continuation of the imbalance beyond the current candle.
allowWickOverlap (true/false): This setting allows imbalances to be identified even if the wicks of the two consecutive candlesticks overlap. If set to false, only imbalances where the bodies of the candlesticks don’t overlap are considered.
showBrokenBoxes (true/false): If enabled, once a volume imbalance no longer holds true (i.e., the price breaks through the box), the box is marked as "broken." If disabled, the box is deleted when the imbalance condition no longer applies.
brokenBoxColor (red): This controls the color of the box when it is broken, which can be used as a visual cue that the imbalance was invalidated or no longer valid for analysis.
2. Volume Imbalance Function
This is the core function of the script, where the logic to detect bullish and bearish volume imbalances is implemented.
Bullish Imbalance Condition:
The first condition checks if the low of the current candle is greater than the high of the previous candle. This suggests that the market is moving upward with buying pressure.
The second condition checks whether the volume of the current candle is higher than the previous candle by the volumeThreshold multiplier. If both conditions are satisfied, a bullish imbalance is detected.
Bearish Imbalance Condition:
The first condition checks if the high of the current candle is lower than the low of the previous candle. This suggests downward price action with selling pressure.
The second condition checks whether the current volume exceeds the previous volume by the threshold
Allow Wick Overlap: If allowWickOverlap is set to true, the script will still detect imbalances if the wicks of the two candles overlap (common in volatile markets). If false, imbalances are only considered if the wicks do not overlap.
3. Box Creation and Management
When a volume imbalance is detected, the script creates a box on the chart:
The bullish imbalance box is drawn using the minimum of the open and close of the current bar as the top boundary and the maximum of the open and close of the previous bar as the bottom boundary.
Conversely, the bearish imbalance box is drawn in reverse, using the maximum of the current bar’s open and close as the top boundary and the minimum of the previous bar’s open and close as the bottom boundary.
Once the box is created, it is displayed on the chart with the specified background color, border color, and width.
4. Processing Existing Boxes
After detecting a new imbalance and drawing a box, the script checks whether the box should still remain on the chart:
If the price moves beyond the boundaries of the imbalance box, the box is marked as broken (if showBrokenBoxes is enabled), and its color is changed to red, signifying that the imbalance is no longer valid.
If the box remains intact (i.e., the price has not broken the defined boundaries), the script keeps the box extended to the right as the market continues to evolve.
5. Removing Outdated Boxes
Lastly, the script removes boxes that are older than the specified lookback period. For example, if a box was created 250 bars ago, it will be deleted after that period. This ensures the chart stays clean and only focuses on relevant imbalances.
Why This Script is Useful for Traders
This script is extremely valuable for traders, especially those following the ICT methodology, because it automates the process of detecting market inefficiencies or imbalances that might signal future price action. Here’s why it’s particularly useful:
Identifying Key Areas of Interest: Volume imbalances often point to areas where institutional or large-scale traders have entered the market. These areas could provide clues about the next significant move in the market.
Visualizing Market Structure: By automatically drawing boxes around volume imbalances, the script helps traders visually identify potential areas of support, resistance, or turning points, enabling them to make informed trading decisions.
Time Efficiency: Instead of manually analyzing each candlestick and volume spike, this script does the heavy lifting, saving traders valuable time and allowing them to focus on other aspects of their strategy.
Enhanced Trade Entries and Exits: By understanding where volume imbalances are occurring, traders can time their entries (buying during bullish imbalances and selling during bearish ones) and exits (as imbalances break) more effectively, thus improving their chances of success.
Conclusion
In summary, this script is a powerful tool for traders looking to implement volume imbalance strategies based on the ICT methodology. It automates the identification and visualization of significant imbalances in price and volume, offering traders a clear visual representation of potential market turning points. By customizing the settings, traders can tailor the script to their preferred timeframes and sensitivity, making it a flexible and effective tool for any trading strategy.
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Volumeimbalance
Engulfing Pattern & Impulse [UAlgo]The Engulfing Pattern & Impulse is a tool designed for technical traders who utilize price action and volume analysis to assess market trends and potential reversals. This indicator identifies two powerful trading signals: Engulfing Patterns and Volume Impulses, which are essential components for evaluating potential bullish or bearish market momentum.
Engulfing Patterns are classic candlestick formations often associated with reversals or trend continuations, depending on the overall trend context. This indicator highlights both bullish and bearish engulfing patterns based on configurable criteria such as trend detection settings, comparison with average body size, and a customizable body multiplier for validation. The Volume Impulse feature signals moments of significant volume compared to historical levels, which often precede substantial price movements. Together, these features provide traders with a versatile tool for better timing entry and exit points.
The indicator also offers an adaptive trend detection system, allowing traders to choose from multiple methods (e.g., SMA50 or SMA50/SMA200 combinations) to assess the trend context, making it ideal for various market conditions.
🔶Key Features
Engulfing Pattern Detection: Identifies bullish and bearish engulfing patterns with customizable parameters, including body length and average size comparison.
Configurable trend basis: Choose between SMA50 or SMA50 with SMA200 to define trend direction.
Body size multiplier: Adjust the size threshold for valid engulfing patterns, providing flexibility based on market conditions.
Volume Impulse Signal: Highlights volume spikes that meet or exceed a specified multiplier, which can indicate increased buying or selling interest.
Customizable volume period and multiplier: Allows you to tailor the volume impulse detection based on the instrument’s average volume behavior.
Trend Detection Options: Select different trend detection methods to suit various trading styles and instruments.
SMA50-based detection: Classifies the trend based on the position of price relative to the 50-period SMA.
SMA50 and SMA200 combination: Incorporates a dual-moving average approach, classifying trends based on the relationship between price, SMA50, and SMA200.
Enhanced Visualization: Distinguishes bullish and bearish signals with customizable colors, providing clear and immediate visual cues for easy interpretation.
Custom label colors: Allows you to set distinct colors for bullish, bearish, and neutral signals for quick identification.
Pattern filtering: Enable or disable specific patterns (Bullish, Bearish, or Both) based on your trading preferences.
🔶 Interpreting Indicator
Bullish Engulfing Pattern: Indicates a potential bullish reversal in a downtrend. This signal occurs when a white candlestick with a body size exceeding a specified multiplier completely engulfs the previous black candlestick. The pattern will display a “BE” label below the candle if it meets the criteria, signaling potential upward momentum.
Bearish Engulfing Pattern: Indicates a potential bearish reversal in an uptrend. A black candlestick with a body size exceeding the specified multiplier fully engulfs the previous white candlestick, signaling possible downward movement. The “BE” label appears above the candle to denote this pattern.
Volume Impulse Up: Displays a “VI” label below the candle when the volume surpasses the defined multiplier, and the price closes higher than it opened, indicating strong upward buying interest.
Volume Impulse Down: Displays a “VI” label above the candle when the volume meets or exceeds the specified threshold, and the price closes lower than it opened, signaling strong selling pressure.
Indicator uses the SMA50 and SMA200 to determine trend direction due to their popularity in technical analysis as indicators of medium- and long-term trends. The SMA50 reflects the average price over the past 50 periods, providing insight into intermediate trends, while the SMA200 is often used to identify the broader trend direction. These SMAs help traders quickly assess whether the market is in an uptrend, downtrend, or consolidation phase, enhancing decision-making for both short-term and long-term strategies.
🔶 Disclaimer
Use with Caution: This indicator is provided for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. Users should exercise caution and perform their own analysis before making trading decisions based on the indicator's signals.
Not Financial Advice: The information provided by this indicator does not constitute financial advice, and the creator (UAlgo) shall not be held responsible for any trading losses incurred as a result of using this indicator.
Backtesting Recommended: Traders are encouraged to backtest the indicator thoroughly on historical data before using it in live trading to assess its performance and suitability for their trading strategies.
Risk Management: Trading involves inherent risks, and users should implement proper risk management strategies, including but not limited to stop-loss orders and position sizing, to mitigate potential losses.
No Guarantees: The accuracy and reliability of the indicator's signals cannot be guaranteed, as they are based on historical price data and past performance may not be indicative of future results.
Volume Gaps and ImbalancesThis Pine script indicator is designed to visually depict price inefficiencies, as identified by Volume Imbalances (VI) or Gaps. A Volume Gap is a scenario where the wicks of two successive candles don’t intersect, while an Imbalance occurs when only the wicks overlap, leaving the bodies apart. These zones of inefficiency frequently act as magnets for price, with the market striving rebalance in accordance with ICT principles.
Relevance:
Volume Gaps/Imbalances are zones of highly inefficient price delivery as per ICT concepts and represent a very strong draw to price. Price will often seek to rebalance those zones to ensure efficient price delivery. Consequently, these zones can provide good targets for entries in the opposite direction or take profit targets for previous entries in the direction of the Gap/Imbalance.
How It Works:
The indicator keeps track of all Gaps/Imbalances from the beginning of the available history. It automatically removes all mitigated Gaps/Imbalances, which are situations where the price has at least reached the bottom of a bullish gap or the top of a bearish gap.
On the last bar, the most recent valid gaps are highlighted with a box drawn from the start to the end of the gap. The start of a bullish gap is determined by the highest price of the previous candle’s open or close, while for bearish gaps, it’s the lowest price of the previous candle’s open or close. Conversely, the end of a bullish gap is the lowest price of the current candle’s open or close, and for bearish gaps, it’s the highest price of the current candle’s open or close.
To enhance the indicator’s speed and minimize chart noise, only the most recent gaps will be displayed, up to the limit set in the indicator settings.
Each displayed VI/GAP will indicate the size of the imbalance in ticks. For imbalances greater than 3 ticks, which represent stronger draws of liquidity, the color transparency will be reduced, and the text will be made more prominent. Volume Gaps are also marked with a 🧲 emoji for easy visual identification.
The indicator will automatically extend the boxes representing valid imbalances to the current bar for as long as the imbalance is not mitigated.
If an imbalance has been tapped, but not mitigated, the indicator will append 🚩emoji to denote that the imbalance has been partially mitigated and may no longer have as strong of a draw for price.
Configurability:
A user may configure the number of imbalances to show, the setting applies to bullish/bearish imbalances individually. This setting can be set to any value from 1 – 50.
Appearance wise, color, style and color transparency of each box representing an imbalance can be configured. The imbalance box label can be configured by setting the text size, along with the vertical & horizontal alignment.
What makes this indicator different:
Designed with high performance in mind, to reduce impact on chart render time.
Only keeps valid imbalances on the chart, with a limit on the # drawn
Indicates the size of the gap and provides visual markets to denote stronger, weaker and partially mitigated gaps
Aggressor Volume ImbalanceAggressor volume imbalance represents the ratio between market aggressor buy volume (market buy orders) and market aggressor sell volume (market sell orders). This ratio enables traders to evaluate the interest of market aggressors and whether aggressive market activity favours the price's direction.
Analysing aggressor volume is critical in understanding market sentiment and aids in identifying shifts in momentum and potential exhaustion points in the market. When the aggressor buy volume significantly exceeds the sell volume, it typically indicates strong buying interest, driving prices higher if the offer-side liquidity cannot contain it, and vice versa.
How it Works
The imbalance ratio is calculated as follows, according to the selected session timeframe (see settings):
imbalance := ((buyVolumeAccumulator - sellVolumeAccumulator)
/ (buyVolumeAccumulator + sellVolumeAccumulator)) * 100
Aggressive Volume Imbalance uses lower timeframe historical data to calculate Historical Aggressor Volume Imbalances, while live data is used for live aggressor volume imbalances.
How to Use It
You can set the indicator to use any historical data timeframe you prefer. However, it is highly recommended to use lower timeframes (e.g., 1 second), as the lower the timeframe, the more granular the data.
The indicator resets to 0% whenever a new session timeframe begins (e.g., a new day) and calculates new values for the rest of the session. This can be configured in the settings.
ICT Institutional Order Flow (fadi)ICT Institutional Order Flow indicator is intended to provide wholistic view to better analyze order flow and where price may go to next. The concept follows ICT principles.
ICT Market Structure
ICT breaks down Pivot points into three categories:
Short Term High/Low (STH/STL) is a 3 candle pattern with a low with higher low on each side (STL), or a high with lower high on each side (STH)
Intermediate Term High/Low (ITH/ITL) uses the calculated STH/STL and marks any STH that has lower or STH on each side, and STL that has higher STL on each side
Long Term High/Low (LTH/LTL) uses the calculated ITH/ITL and marks any ITH that has lower or ITH on each side, and ITL that has higher ITL on each side
Note: ICT also states that if a STH wicks into and closes (almost?) a FVG, he marks it as ITH even if it does not have STH on reach side. This scenario is not covered by this indicator
Liquidity
liquidity is usually present under pivot points. The more prominent the pivot point, the more likely higher values liquidity pools reside under/above it. Liquidity under ITL and LTL as an example, will have better indication of which liquidity the price may seek next.
Displacement
Displacement registers above average move in the price resulting in strong visible move. If requiring a FVG is enabled (in settings), then the displacement could possibly (but never guaranteed) be used to visually recognize a move as it develops.
Full Credit: The calculation for Displacement is derived from TFO's Visualizing Displacement
Imbalances
Imbalances can come in different forms. This indicator identifies three type of imbalances:
1. FVG
2. Volume Imbalance
3. Open Gaps
Imbalances completes the picture by help visualize strong moves, where possible pivot points may develop, and how to enter or manage a trade.
Weekly Opening Gap (cryptonnnite)In the context of general equities, opening price that is substantially higher or lower than the previous day's closing price, usually because of some extraordinarily positive or negative news. Opening gap using as a potential target which market usually trades to.
Imbalance Detector [LuxAlgo]This indicator detects and highlights market imbalances alongside a dashboard returning information about their frequency of occurrence and their fill percentage. Imbalances included in this script are Fair Value Gaps (FVG), Opening Gaps (OG) and Volume Imbalances (VI).
Alerts are available for the occurrences of all market imbalances.
Settings
Imbalances
Each imbalance has the same settings layout:
Imbalance: Enable/disable the detection of the specific imbalance.
Min Width: If enabled, requires the imbalance area width to be greater than the specified value. This minimum width can be expressed in points, percentages or ATR multiples.
Extend: Extend imbalances by a specified number of bars.
Dashboard
Show Dashboard: Enable/disable the dashboard on the chart.
Dashboard Location: Location of the dashboard on the chart.
Dashboard Size: Size of the dashboard.
Usage
Market imbalances are part of the many concepts available to price action traders and highlight areas where there is a disparity between supply and demand.
It is common to see price come back to these areas and traders often use them as supports and resistances but also as targets.
Details
The script can detect three distinct types of imbalances described below.
Fair Value Gaps
Fair Value Gaps (FVG) are three candle formations characterized by a gap between the wicks of the non-adjacent candles in the formation.
A bullish FVG is characterized by a gap between the current price low and the 2 bars anterior price high, and a bearish FVG is characterized by a gap between the current price high and the 2 bars anterior price low.
Opening Gaps
Opening Gaps (OG) are imbalances characterized by non-existent activity within a specific price range.
A bullish OG occurs when the current price low is greater than the previous high, a bearish OG occurs when price high is lower than the previous price low.
Opening Gaps primarily occur in closing markets, as such they are less common in the cryptocurrency market.
Most of the time an Opening Gap will also be accompanied by a Fair Value Gap, in order to avoid clutter the indicator will not detect Fair Value Gaps if Opening Gaps are enabled and if an Opening Gap has been detected
Volume Imbalances
Volume Imbalances (VI) are characterized by a price discontinuity between the opening price and previous close, but unlike Opening Gaps we do not see nonexistent activity within a certain price range.
A bullish VI occur when both the opening and closing prices are superior to the previous closing price, with the current price low overlapping the previous price high. A bearish VI occur when both the opening and closing prices are inferior to the previous closing price, with the current price high overlapping the previous price low.
Because Volume Imbalances can occur excessively on markets with frequent gaps, we make use of an additional condition for filtering out less significant imbalances. Bullish VI's will require the previous price high to be lower than the opening price, while bullish VI's will require the previous price low to be higher than the opening price.
ICT - GAPs and Volume Imbalance
GAPs
Gaps are areas on chart where the price have moved sharply up or down, with no trading in between. Gaps often fill, but they don't have to.
Volume Imbalance
Volume imbalance - determined using 2 candles
Bullish Volume Imbalance - area between the close of 1st candle and the open of 2nd candle
Bearish Volume Imbalance - area between the close of 1st candle and the open of 2nd candle
How to use the indicator:-
When you find imbalance in volume or a GAP in the chart, you may expect price to rebalance it before continuation.
Importantly, GAPs/Imbalances do not always fill. Traders should never assume that a gap/imbalance will fill without understanding the reasons for the gap and monitoring trading activity around the gap.
Pair it with your current bias for better results.
