Opening Power Bar Strategy (Trade Your Edge)

💎 GENERAL OVERVIEW:
The Opening Power Bar Strategy indicator identifies high-momentum “Power Bars” during the first 60 minutes of the New York session and generates Long/Short signals using levels from the pre-market session. The indicator plots Stop-Loss and three Take-Profit levels, manages dynamic trailing stop-loss logic (optional), displays pre-market levels, and supports alerts.

This indicator was developed by Flux Charts in collaboration with Steven Adams (Trade Your Edge).

🔹What is the purpose of the Opening Power Bar Strategy?:
The purpose of the Opening Power Bar Strategy is to trade the most active and meaningful part of the trading day, the opening move. It’s designed to take advantage of the volume and volatility that happens right after the market opens, when traders react to overnight news and pre-market movement. The indicator helps identify when that early move has real strength by looking for a large, decisive candle (a Power Bar) forming around key pre-market levels. Once it detects one, it builds a full trade plan automatically with entry, stop-loss, and take-profits.

🔹Why are signals only during the first 60 minutes?:
Most of the day’s total trading volume happens within the first 60 minutes after the market opens. This period usually sets the high or low of the day and defines the bias: whether the market will trend or stay in a range. After this first hour, volume and volatility typically decrease, and price movement becomes less consistent.

🔹What’s the theory behind the Opening Power Bar Strategy?:
The Opening Power Bar Strategy is built on a simple principle: the first hour after the market open sets the tone for the rest of the day. This period consistently shows the highest trading volume, as traders react to overnight news, economic data releases, pre-market movements, etc.

These early reactions often establish the day’s high/low, revealing where buyers or sellers are strongest. When a large, decisive candle (a Power Bar) forms during this time near the pre-market high or low, it confirms that one side is taking control. The pre-market high and low define the range that institutions and short-term traders had already reacted to before the market open. Thus, when a Power Bar forms near one of these levels during the first hour, it often marks the start of a breakout or rejection that shapes the rest of the session.

🎯 OPENING POWER BAR STRATEGY FEATURES:
The Opening Power Bar Strategy indicator includes 5 main features:

1. Power Bars
   
2. Pre-Market High / Low / Mid Levels
   
3. Long / Short Signals + Risk Management
   
4. Simple Moving Average (SMA)
   
5. Alerts
   

1️⃣ Power Bars:
🔹What are Power Bars?:
Power Bars are large, high-momentum candles that show strength in one direction of the market. They form when a candle’s body (the distance between open and close) dominates most of the candle’s total range (the distance between high and low), meaning price moved strongly in one direction with little to no pullback. To qualify, the candle must also be large relative to nearby candles. This size difference confirms that the candle is a true burst of momentum. In short, Power Bars reveal where real strength has just entered the market and where momentum is most likely to continue.

🔹How to interpret and use Power Bars:
When a Power Bar forms, it signals that price just made a strong directional move with little to no pullback. Traders can use these bars to identify momentum shifts and potential trade setups during the opening session.

A bullish Power Bar means buyers controlled the entire candle, often marking the start of upward momentum. A bearish Power Bar means sellers were in control the entire candle, often signaling the start of downwards momentum. In the Opening Power Bar Strategy, these candles are only used for signals when they appear within the pre-market high and low range. Their location relative to the pre-market midline determines direction bias:

• Bullish Power Bars forming near the pre-market low can signal potential long opportunities.
  
• Bearish Power Bars forming near the pre-market high can signal potential short opportunities.
  

🔹How are Power Bars identified?:
Power Bars are detected and confirmed only after the candle closes, ensuring that the full candlestick body and range can be measured. The indicator does not repaint or change past bars. Once a Power Bar is confirmed, it stays fixed on the chart. Power Bars can be detected on any timeframe or symbol that produces standard candlestick data. However, since the Opening Power Bar Strategy focuses on the first 60 minutes of the trading session, they’re most meaningful on lower intraday timeframes such as 1-minute to 5-minute charts.

The indicator identifies Power Bars using two user-defined inputs: Sensitivity and Body %.

🔹Sensitivity:
The Sensitivity setting determines how large a candle’s body must be relative to nearby candles. It uses the Average True Range (ATR) to compare the current candle’s size with recent candles, and the Sensitivity value acts as a multiplier of that ATR. A higher Sensitivity value means the candle must be much larger than recent candles to qualify, so fewer Power Bars will form. A lower value makes the filter less strict, allowing more candles to qualify.

🔹Body %:
The Body % setting controls what percentage of the candle’s total range must be body rather than Wick. A higher value requires the body to take up more of the candle’s total range, so fewer candles pass the filter. A lower value allows candles with more wick to qualify, so more Power Bars will form.

Body % Example:
If Body % is set to 50, the candle body must cover at least half of the candle’s total range. For example, if a candle’s high is $11, its low is $10, its open is $10.20, and its close is $10.80, then the total range is $1 ($11 - $10) and the body is $0.60 ($10.80 - $10.20). Body % = (Body / Total Range) * 100 = (0.60 ÷ 1.00 × 100) = 60%. Since 60% is greater than the input of 50%, this candle passes the Body % criteria.



Once a candlestick closes and it meets both the Sensitivity and Body % requirements, it will be plotted in a different color, using barcolor() function. Users can adjust the bullish/bearish colors of Power Bars by adjusting the ‘Candle Coloring’ setting. The Power Bar candle coloring is purely visual and does not affect signal logic or strategy calculations.



🔹Do Power Bars form outside the first 60 minutes?:
Power Bars can technically form at any time of day, but the Opening Power Bar Strategy only uses those formed between 9:30 AM and 10:30 AM ET for trade signals.

2️⃣ Pre-Market Levels
The indicator tracks pre-market price action from 4:10 AM EST until 9:29 AM EST to determine the session’s High and Low. When pre-market ends, both levels are drawn and continuously projected to the right throughout the regular session. A midline is calculated as the midpoint between those levels and is used to determine bullish or bearish bias at the open. This midline is calculated in the indicator’s background and not visually plotted.

Long signals require price to be positioned below the midline before breaking upward, and Short signals require price to be positioned above the midline before breaking downward.

Users can enable retest labels, which appear if price touches the pre-market low, and closes above it, or if price touches the pre-market high, and closes below it. Users can also enable/disable the pre-market levels. If disabled, the pre-market high and pre-market low levels will not be displayed.



3️⃣Long/Short Signals:
Long and Short signals only trigger during the first hour of the New York trading session, between 9:30 AM and 10:30 AM EST. These signals form between the Pre-Market Low (PML) and Pre-Market High (PMH).

▫️ A Long entry requires:
1) A bullish power bar forms
1.a) The candle’s low is < the 50% area or Midpoint of the PML/PMH range
1.b) The candle closes above the PML, but below the PMH
2) If this candle occurs between 09:30 AM and 10:30 AM, a long signal will appear.

▫️ A Short Entry requires:
1) A bearish power bar forms
1a) The candle’s high is > the 50% area or Midpoint of the PML/PMH range
1b) The candle closes below the PMH, but above the PML
2) If this candle occurs between 09:30 AM and 10:30 AM, a short signal will appear.

Only one trade can be active at a time. Users can enable or disable Long Signals and Short Signals independently. Entry markers appear directly on the chart at confirmation.

When a signal is plotted on the Power Bar’s candle close, the indicator automatically builds a rule-based trade structure and plots the following information:

• Stop-Loss (SL)
  
• Take-Profit 1 (TP 1)
  
• Take-Profit 2 (TP 2)
  
• Take-Profit 3 (TP 3)
  

For Long signals, the SL is placed at the low of the bullish Power Bar and TP 1 is placed at the PMH. The distances for TP 2 and TP 3 are then measured using the move from the entry price to TP 1. That same distance is added once above TP 1 to set TP 2, and added again above TP 2 to set TP 3.



For Short signals, the SL is placed at the high of the bearish Power Bar, and TP 1 is placed at the PML. The distances for TP 2 and TP 3 are then measured using the absolute value of the move from the entry price to TP 1. That same distance is subtracted once below TP 1 to set TP 2, and subtracted again below TP 2 to set TP 3.



🔹Trailing Stop-Loss Feature:
When the Trailing Stop-Loss setting is enabled, the Stop-Loss (SL) automatically adjusts as price reaches take-profit levels. This feature helps secure profits while keeping the trade logic completely rule-based and non-discretionary.

Here’s exactly how it works step-by-step:

▫️ Initial Stop-Loss placement:

• For a Long trade, the initial SL is set at the low of the Power Bar that triggered the entry.
  
• For a Short trade, the initial SL is set at the high of the Power Bar that triggered the entry.
  

This level stays fixed until one of the Take-Profit targets is reached.

▫️ After TP 1 is hit:

• The SL automatically moves to the entry price (breakeven).
  
• This eliminates all downside risk on the trade.
  

▫️ After TP2 is hit:

• The SL automatically moves to TP 1
  
• This locks in a partial profit while allowing the trade to continue toward TP 3.
  

▫️ Final exit condition:

• The trade is considered complete once either the trailing Stop-Loss or TP 3 is reached.
  

4️⃣Simple Moving Average (SMA)
In addition to the core trade logic, the indicator includes an optional Simple Moving Average (SMA) that provides extra confirmation and context for interpreting Power Bar signals. The SMA is not related to any of the signal generation logic. It does not influence when or where Power Bars or trade signals appear. Instead, it serves as a contextual confirmation tool and should be used as an additional way to interpret the strength and quality of a setup once a signal is triggered.

There are a few ways the SMA can be used for extra context with the Opening Power Bar Strategy:

▫️ #1 Directional Confirmation:
The SMA is mainly used as a confirmation tool for countertrend Power Bar setups. It helps traders identify when a strong reversal may be developing against the prior trend.

• When the SMA is sloping downward but a bullish Power Bar closes above it, that can signal a potential shift from bearish to bullish momentum.
  
• When the SMA is sloping upward but a bearish Power Bar closes below it, that can indicate a possible transition from bullish to bearish conditions.
  

▫️ #2 Timing Entries
When a large Power Bar prints a signal far away from the SMA, it often indicates that price has moved quickly and temporarily extended away from its average level. In these cases, the SMA can be used as a pullback area where price may retrace before resuming its move. Waiting for this pullback can often lead to a better risk-to-reward trade setup.

For example, in the chart below, a strong bullish Power Bar formed and triggered a Long signal while closing well above the SMA. Entering immediately after the signal would have produced a 0.22 risk-to-reward to TP 1. However, waiting for price to retrace back toward the SMA before entering would have resulted in a much stronger 2.46 risk-to-reward ratio.



The SMA provides a simple way to identify areas for safer pullback entries when a Power Bar signal forms too far from its average level. This helps traders maintain consistency with their risk-to-reward targets and align entries with their trading plan.

▫️ #3 Risk/Trade Management:
During active trades, the SMA can also be used to gauge the healthiness of a trend.

• If price continues to respect the SMA after entry, it supports holding the position toward later Take-Profit levels. Additionally, the SMA can highlight areas where traders may consider adding to existing positions if price respects it.
  

• If price closes strongly back through the SMA in the opposite direction, traders may use that as an early exit or a signal that momentum has shifted.
  

▫️ Optional and Visual Only:
The SMA is an optional visual overlay that can be turned on or off in the indicator’s settings. It is purely there for traders who want an added layer of confirmation and structure when evaluating setups from the Opening Power Bar Strategy.

Users can customize the length of the SMA and the color within the settings.


📢 Alerts:
The indicator supports alerts, so you never miss a key market move. You can choose to receive alerts for each of the following conditions:

• Long Signal
  
• Short Signal
  
• TP 1 (Take-Profit 1)
  
• TP 2 (Take-Profit 2)
  
• TP 3 (Take-Profit 3)
  
• SL (Stop-Loss)
  
• Pre-Market Low Retest
  
• Pre-Market High Retest
  

🚩UNIQUENESS:
This indicator automates a structured opening-range strategy that traders typically manage manually each morning. It identifies valid Power Bars only when they occur inside the pre-market high/low range, confirms direction using pre-market midline context, and automatically builds risk targets using the pre-market range itself. Once a valid trigger occurs during the defined trade window, the indicator immediately generates a complete trade idea (entry/SL/TP 1-3) with built-in trailing logic and alerts.