Multi-Timeframe Continuity Custom Candle ConfirmationMulti-Timeframe Continuity Custom Candle Confirmation
Overview
The Timeframe Continuity Indicator is a versatile tool designed to help traders identify alignment between their current chart’s candlestick direction and higher timeframes of their choice. By coloring bars on the current chart (e.g., 1-minute) based on the directional alignment with selected higher timeframes (e.g., 10-minute, daily), this indicator provides a visual cue for confirming trends across multiple timeframes—a concept known as Timeframe Continuity. This approach is particularly useful for day traders, swing traders, and scalpers looking to ensure their trades align with broader market trends, reducing the risk of trading against the prevailing momentum.
Originality and Usefulness
This indicator is an original creation, built from scratch to address a common challenge in trading: ensuring that price action on a lower timeframe aligns with the trend on higher timeframes. Unlike many trend-following indicators that rely on moving averages, oscillators, or other lagging metrics, this script directly compares the bullish or bearish direction of candlesticks across timeframes. It introduces the following unique features:
Customizable Timeframes: Users can select from a range of higher timeframes (5m, 10m, 15m, 30m, 1h, 2h, 4h, 1d, 1w, 1M) to check for alignment, making it adaptable to various trading styles.
Neutral Candle Handling: The script accounts for neutral candles (where close == open) on the current timeframe by allowing them to inherit the direction of the higher timeframe, ensuring continuity in trend visualization.
Table: A table displays the direction of each selected timeframe and the current timeframe, helping identify direction in the event you don't want to color bars.
Toggles for Flexibility: Options to disable bar coloring and the debug table allow users to customize the indicator’s visual output for cleaner charts or focused analysis.
This indicator is not a mashup of existing scripts but a purpose-built tool to visualize timeframe alignment directly through candlestick direction, offering traders a straightforward way to confirm trend consistency.
What It Does
The Timeframe Continuity Indicator colors bars on your chart when the direction of the current timeframe’s candlestick (bullish, bearish, or neutral) aligns with the direction of the selected higher timeframes:
Lime: The current bar (e.g., 1m) is bullish or neutral, and all selected higher timeframes (e.g., 10m) are bullish.
Pink: The current bar is bearish or neutral, and all selected higher timeframes are bearish.
Default Color: If the directions don’t align (e.g., 1m bar is bearish but 10m is bullish), the bar remains the default chart color.
The indicator also includes a debug table (toggleable) that shows the direction of each selected timeframe and the current timeframe, helping traders diagnose alignment issues.
How It Works
The script uses the following methodology:
1. Direction Calculation: For each timeframe (current and selected higher timeframes), the script determines the candlestick’s direction:
Bullish (1): close > open / Bearish (-1): close < open / Neutral (0): close == open
Higher timeframe directions are fetched using Pine Script’s request.security function, ensuring accurate data retrieval.
2. Alignment Check: The script checks if all selected higher timeframes are uniformly bullish (full_bullish) or bearish (full_bearish).
o A higher timeframe must have a clear direction (bullish or bearish) to trigger coloring. If any selected timeframe is neutral, alignment fails, and no coloring occurs.
3. Coloring Logic: The current bar is colored only if its direction aligns with the higher timeframes:
Lime if the higher timeframes are bullish and the current bar is bullish or neutral.
Maroon if the higher timeframes are bearish and the current bar is bearish or neutral.
If the current bar’s direction opposes the higher timeframe (e.g., 1m bearish, 10m bullish), the bar remains uncolored.
Users can disable bar coloring entirely via the settings, leaving bars in their default chart color.
4. Direction Table:
A table in the top-right corner (toggleable) displays the direction of each selected timeframe and the current timeframe, using color-coded labels (green for bullish, red for bearish, gray for neutral).
This feature helps traders understand why a bar is or isn’t colored, making the indicator accessible to users unfamiliar with Pine Script.
How to Use
1. Add the Indicator: Add the "Timeframe Continuity Indicator" to your chart in TradingView (e.g., a 1m chart of SPY).
2. Configure Settings:
Timeframe Selection: Check the boxes for the higher timeframes you want to compare against (default: 10m). Options include 5m, 10m, 15m, 30m, 1h, 2h, 4h, 1D, 1W, and 1M. Select multiple timeframes if you want to ensure alignment across all of them (e.g., 10m and 1d).
Enable Bar Coloring: Default: true (bars are colored lime or maroon when aligned). Set to false to disable coloring and keep the default chart colors.
Show Table: Default: true (table is displayed in the top-right corner). Set to false to hide the table for a cleaner chart.
3. Interpret the Output:
Colored Bars: Lime bars indicate the current bar (e.g., 1m) is bullish or neutral, and all selected higher timeframes are bullish. Maroon bars indicate the current bar is bearish or neutral, and all selected higher timeframes are bearish. Uncolored bars (default chart color) indicate a mismatch (e.g., 1m bar is bearish while 10m is bullish) or no coloring if disabled.
Direction Table: Check the table to see the direction of each selected timeframe and the current timeframe.
4. Example Use Case:
On a 1m chart of SPY, select the 10m timeframe.
If the 10m timeframe is bearish, 1m bars that are bearish or neutral will color maroon, confirming you’re trading with the higher timeframe’s trend.
If a 1m bar is bullish while the 10m is bearish, it remains uncolored, signaling a potential misalignment to avoid trading.
Underlying Concepts
The indicator is based on the concept of Timeframe Continuity, a strategy used by traders to ensure that price action on a lower timeframe aligns with the trend on higher timeframes. This reduces the risk of entering trades against the broader market direction. The script directly compares candlestick directions (bullish, bearish, or neutral) rather than relying on lagging indicators like moving averages or RSI, providing a real-time, price-action-based confirmation of trend alignment. The handling of neutral candles ensures that minor indecision on the lower timeframe doesn’t interrupt the visualization of the higher timeframe’s trend.
Why This Indicator?
Simplicity: Directly compares candlestick directions, avoiding complex calculations or lagging indicators.
Flexibility: Customizable timeframes and toggles cater to various trading strategies.
Transparency: The debug table makes the indicator’s logic accessible to all users, not just those who can read Pine Script.
Practicality: Helps traders confirm trend alignment, a key factor in successful trading across timeframes.
TFC
The Strat with TFC & Combo DashIntroduction:
This indicator is designed to implement "The Strat" trading strategy combined with a Timeframe Continuity Dashboard and Combo Dashboard. The Strat is a robust trading methodology that relies on price action and candlestick formations to make trading decisions. This script helps traders to identify specific bar types such as Inside Bars (1), Continuation Up Bars (2u), Continuation Down Bars (2d), and Outside Bars (3) across multiple timeframes. It visually highlights these bar types on the chart and provides a comprehensive dashboard displaying the current state of the selected timeframes.
Key Features:
Timeframe Continuity Dashboard: Displays arrows and bar types for up to four selected timeframes.
Strat Combos Dashboard: Shows the previous and current bar types to easily spot trading setups.
Customizable Colors and Labels: Options to personalize the colors and labels for Inside and Outside bars.
Adjustable Dashboard Position and Size: Allows users to set the location and size of the dashboard for better visual alignment.
Inputs:
TFC & Combo Dash Configuration:
Show TFC & Combo Dashboard: Toggle to display the dashboard.
Show Strat Combos: Toggle to display Strat combo setups.
Location: Dropdown to select the position of the dashboard on the chart.
Size: Dropdown to choose between desktop and mobile view.
Timeframe Selection:
Timeframe 1: Primary timeframe for analysis.
Timeframe 2: Secondary timeframe for analysis.
Timeframe 3: Tertiary timeframe for analysis.
Timeframe 4: Quaternary timeframe for analysis.
Candle Visuals:
Show Inside Bar Label: Option to show label instead of color for Inside bars.
Inside Bar Color: Color picker for Inside bars.
Show Outside Bar Label: Option to show label instead of color for Outside bars.
Outside Bar Color: Color picker for Outside bars.
TFC & Combo DashboardFunctions:
The script fetches values for the selected timeframes and computes the bar types and corresponding visual elements such as arrows and background colors. The dashboard displays this information in a tabular format for easy reference during trading.
The dashboard is dynamically created based on user input for position and size. It shows the selected timeframes, bar types, and combo setups, providing a quick overview of the market conditions across multiple timeframes.
Timeframes: Displays the four user chosen timeframes that the dashboard fetches data from.
Arrow and Color: Functions to set the arrow direction and color based on current bar action. Green and up arrow: price is above it's candle open.
Red and down arrow: price is below it's candles open.
Background Color: Functions to set background color based on the bar type. White for an outside bar(3), yellow for an inside bar(1), no color for a continuation bar(2).
Strat Candle Combos: Functions to determine if the bar is an Inside(1), Continuation Up(2u), Continuation Down(2d), or Outside bar(3). Shows the previous bar and the current bar for the user's chosen timeframes.
Candle Visuals:
The script plots labels and colors for Inside and Outside bars based on user preferences. It helps in quickly identifying potential trading setups on the chart.
Conclusion:
We believe in providing user-friendly tools to help speed up traders technical analysis and implement easy trading strategies. The Strat with TFC & Combo Dashboard is a tool to assist traders in identifying potential trading setups based on The Strat methodology; to suit the users needs and trading style.
RISK DISCLAIMER
All content, tools, scripts & education provided by Gorb Algo LLC are for informational & educational purposes only. Trading is risk and most lose their money, past performance does not guarantee future results.
Timeframe Continuity Oscillator [TFO]This indicator is used to visualize timeframe continuity - a core concept of "The Strat" - along with some added logic for potential range limiters.
When discussing timeframe continuity, typically we are evaluating several timeframes to see if price is trading above or below the current open of each respective timeframe. If we are concerned with the 15m, 4h, and 1D for example, and price is trading above the current open of each of those timeframes, we can say that we have full timeframe continuity (FTFC) up. Conversely, if price is trading below the current open of each of those timeframes, we can say that we have FTFC down.
We can visualize this with an oscillator of sorts, where the zero line is anchored to the open price of the highest timeframe that we're concerned with. Using the prior example, this would be the 1D timeframe. As long as price is above the current 1D open, it is impossible to have FTFC down; and as long as price is below the current 1D open, it is impossible to have FTFC up. This is why we base the oscillator's values off of the highest timeframe's open (the values are simply how far price has traded from this open) - any value greater than zero tells us that there is potential to have FTFC up, and any value less than zero tells us that there is potential to have FTFC down.
There are a few ways we chose to visualize this data. First, we can choose the "Binary" option which simply uses one solid bullish color above the zero line, and one solid bearish color below the zero line.
Second, we can choose the "Gradient" option to help describe whether we have FTFC up or down. Values above the zero line will be a mix of the bullish color and mid color, where the mid color indicates no timeframe continuity up and the bullish color indicates FTFC up - sort of like a color spectrum of timeframe continuity to describe how many timeframes are in agreement. Similarly, values below the zero line will be a mix of the bearish color and the mid color, where the mid color again indicates no timeframe continuity down and the bearish color indicates FTFC down.
Lastly, we can choose the "FTFC Only" option which will only color the histogram bars as bullish if there is FTFC up, or bearish if there is FTFC down.
One more feature that we added is these upper and lower bands that aim to help describe the potential upper and lower limits that price may travel, relative to the highest timeframe's open. This is done by taking the standard deviation of some defined lookback period, for example, 2 standard deviations of the previous 10 weeks, assuming 1W is the highest timeframe enabled.
The concept is similar to that of an ADR (average daily range) as it can be used to estimate maximum range extensions for the largest timeframe. The arrows you see are plotted once the value exceeds either band - alerts can be enabled for these events as well through any alert() function call.
Strat Dashboard [TFO]The Strat Dashboard tracks up to 10 signals while highlighting common strat reversal patterns, the SSS 50% rule, timeframe continuity, and some additional criteria with VWAP and moving averages.
With the strat, all price action bars/candles are simplified into 3 total possibilities: 1 (inside bar), 2 (a bar that takes the previous bar's high OR low), and 3 (outside bar). The first table column for Last X Candles shows the most recent candles according to this notation, for example, 1 - 2D - 2U. This would mean we had an inside bar, followed by a bar that took the previous bar's low, followed then by a bar that took the previous bar's high. Note that the colors in this column are set according to whether the current bar's close exceeds the previous bar's high/low. By default, these colors are green if above the previous bar's highs, or red if below the previous bar's lows. If the current close is in between the previous candle's high and low (even after already taking the prior high or low), no color will be applied.
The SSS 50% column shows a yes or no value for whether the current bar aligns with the SSS 50% rule, where a bar has taken either the previous high or low, and has since reversed to at least the midway point of the previous bar's height - essentially anticipating a 2 that may become a 3 (outside bar).
Timeframe continuity (TFC) shows a yes or no value for when the current candle on multiple timeframes are all green or red (above the open price or below the open price, respectively). For example, if you were looking at the current 15m, 1h, and 1D bars, and they were all above the open price, you could say there's TFC between all three timeframes. As of the initial release, you can select up to 3 different timeframes. The table values will only be true when all selected timeframes are in alignment. When setting alerts, first deselect the timeframes if you don't want TFC logic to impact alerts.
The "Last" column shows the last strat reversal pattern that was confirmed (after the last bar closes). Waiting for a candle close is the safer option since a 2 can turn into a 3; however for higher timeframes, it may be beneficial to make an update to this indicator in which you can have live alerts as well (not waiting for a candle close). You can select which strat reversals you want to be shown from the settings. Various strat reversals may be selected for alerts of type "Any"; for example, if setting up an alert for "Any" strat reversal on Symbol 1, then this alert will go off when any of the *selected* strat reversals occur for that specific symbol. Deselect any strat reversals that you don't want to be included in these alerts.
Lastly, the EMA and VWAP columns simply show whether price is above or below said value. This tracks the current candle close, and may repaint/change several times if the current bar is oscillating above and below these values.
Timeframe Continuity [TFO]Simple timeframe continuity indicator - see whether the selected timeframes are currently above or below their opening prices. Allows up to 10 different timeframes to be used.