Z-Score Candles with Reversals

4 thg 6, 2023

In the process of releasing some of my Z-Score based indicators. This is the Z-Score Candle indicator.

What it does:

This converts the current candles into a z-score based candle over a 14 period lookback (adjustable but recommended to leave at 14).
It plots out the overbought/oversold areas using colours and will lookback over a user defined period of time to identify previous areas of bullish and bearish reversals.

Why Z-Score Candles?

Before we get into how to use it, I think its important to discuss why converting candles to a Z-Score is advantageous.
When we convert candlesticks to Z-Score, we have the ability to view areas of natural mathematical support and resistance (I want to clarify, when I saw mathematical support and resistance, it is kind of a misnomer, it is not the same as technical support and resistance. Its a measure of the natural tendency of things to revert to their mean and not deviate to extreme poles of their mean for prolonged period of time, I use the term mathematical support and resistance as it is something most traders are familiar with and operates similarly).

This is particularly helpful during trends. For example, if we take a look at the following BA chart:



In the chart above, you can see that despite BA not being on technical support (that red line), the indicator identified math support (the support was identified by the indicator looking at BA's natural deviations from its mean and seeing that, at that particular point in time, BA had deviated to an area that traditionally leads to reversals to the upside).

If we look at another example:



We can see in the chart above that, despite BA making a new high on the day and "breaking out" of previous resistance, BA was at math resistance being 3.0 Standard Deviations from its trading mean at the time. Thus, necessitating the pullback you see in the chart.

How to use it:

The indicator can be used similar to RSI and Stochastics or any other oscillator based indicator. The difference is, you can actually see the price action in terms of its relationship to its mean. What the means, is the indicator displays the current price action in terms of the ticker's relationship to its current mean and average. This permits us to see areas of rejection and support in relation to its current distance from neutrality. We can also see the various positions of each of the ticker's values from the mean. For example, we can see where the open is in relation to the average, the high and the low vs simply looking at a single variable (usually the close price).

The indicator will also highlight areas where the ticker has deviated to extreme ends of its mean (defined at a Z-Score of +/- 3.0). The picture below is an example of a bearish extreme:



And a bullish extreme:



You can see in both cases a reversal resulted almost immediately.

Inputs:



In the chart above, you can see the 3 main input sections.

Z-Score Lookback: This determines the lookback length for the Z-Score. The recommendation is to leave at 14, especially if you are a day trader.

SMA Inputs: The SMA (The white line) can be toggled off and on. You can also change the source to the High, Low, Close and Open Z-Score. You can adjust the lookback length of the SMA to your liking to assess trends. It does not need to be the same input as the Z-Score.

Reversal Inputs: The reversal inputs determines the length of lookback for the indicator to determine the most extreme bearish and bullish deviation from its mean. It is defaulted at 75 but can be adjusted based on preference. For more frequent signals, you can reduce the lookback length but be prepared for false signals in that case. You can also toggle off the reversal labels if you do not want them.


Concluding remarks:

And that is the Z-Score Candle indicator in a nutshell. Pretty self explanatory otherwise. It is more tailored to day traders. It is not a tool I would necessarily use for longer-term outlooks. I would use a simple Z-Score based indicator for that. But for active day trading, this is very helpful. That said, it can be used to look at longer term outlooks as well, but there are more powerful Z-Score based indicators for that (you can check out my own Z-Score indicator or my recently released Z-Score Probability Indicator which is more tailored for bigger picture outlooks).


Hope you enjoy, as always leave your comments, suggestions and questions below!

Safe trades to all!