Momentum Radar

Four nested support-and-resistance envelopes, each anchoredAnchored VWAPA VWAP that begins at a chosen pivot bar (a swing high or swing low) and runs forward. Anchoring makes the absolute level meaningful instead of drifting with whatever bars happen to load.Click for full definition → from a different swing pivotPivot High / Pivot LowA bar that is higher (or lower) than a defined number of bars on both sides. Confirmed only after the right-hand bars print without breaking it.Click for full definition →, that show fast, medium, slow, and very-slow momentum on a single chart.

1. What This Indicator Watches For

Most charts make you pick one timeframe and live with it. A 1H chart shows you the last few days' wiggles but hides the pivotPivot High / Pivot LowA bar that is higher (or lower) than a defined number of bars on both sides. Confirmed only after the right-hand bars print without breaking it.Click for full definition → from three weeks ago. Flip up to the daily and you finally see the swing lowSwing High and Swing LowThe most recent confirmed pivot in either direction. Swing highs cap rallies until broken; swing lows support pullbacks until broken.Click for full definition → that matters — but you've lost the fine-grained read on what's happening right now.

Professional traders solve this by jumping between timeframes. They check the daily for the macro level, the 4H for the swing structureMarket StructureThe pattern of swing highs and lows price prints as it moves. Healthy uptrends print higher highs and higher lows; healthy downtrends print the mirror.Click for full definition →, the 1H for the entry zone. That works, but it's slow.

Momentum Radar collapses that whole workflow onto one chart. It draws four support-and-resistance bands at the same time, each anchoredAnchored VWAPA VWAP that begins at a chosen pivot bar (a swing high or swing low) and runs forward. Anchoring makes the absolute level meaningful instead of drifting with whatever bars happen to load.Click for full definition → to a different lookback — roughly the last 17, 72, 305, and 1292 bars. The result is a literal radar: short-pulse rings up close, a wide outer ring marking the dominant pivotPivot High / Pivot LowA bar that is higher (or lower) than a defined number of bars on both sides. Confirmed only after the right-hand bars print without breaking it.Click for full definition → of the chart's history. One glance tells you whether short-term and long-term momentum agree, or whether they're pulling in opposite directions.

2. How It Works Under the Hood

Three engines run in parallel:

• AnchoredAnchored VWAPA VWAP that begins at a chosen pivot bar (a swing high or swing low) and runs forward. Anchoring makes the absolute level meaningful instead of drifting with whatever bars happen to load.Click for full definition → VWAPs. For each of the four lookbacks, the indicator finds the highest bar in that window and starts a volume-weighted average priceVolume-Weighted Average PriceAn average where each bar's contribution is scaled by its volume, so heavy-volume bars pull the line harder than thin ones. Used as a slow centre of gravity.Click for full definition → from that pivotPivot High / Pivot LowA bar that is higher (or lower) than a defined number of bars on both sides. Confirmed only after the right-hand bars print without breaking it.Click for full definition → forward. It does the same with the lowest bar. The two lines bracket price like a ceiling and a floor, both weighted by volume so heavy-trade bars matter more than thin ones.
• Four nested levels. The four lookbacks (17, 72, 305, 1292 bars) deliberately scale up by roughly 4x each time. On a 1H chart that maps to: today's pulse, this week's swing, this month's structureMarket StructureThe pattern of swing highs and lows price prints as it moves. Healthy uptrends print higher highs and higher lows; healthy downtrends print the mirror.Click for full definition →, this quarter's regime. Inner levels react fast and noisy; outer levels move slowly and represent the meaningful pivotsPivot High / Pivot LowA bar that is higher (or lower) than a defined number of bars on both sides. Confirmed only after the right-hand bars print without breaking it.Click for full definition →.
• Auto-hide gating. When an outer (slower) envelope sits inside an inner (faster) one, it's redundant — the inner level already covers that ground. The indicator hides the outer ring on those bars so the chart stays clean. Only the most-recently-violated pivotPivot High / Pivot LowA bar that is higher (or lower) than a defined number of bars on both sides. Confirmed only after the right-hand bars print without breaking it.Click for full definition → on each side remains visible at any moment.

How each ring picks where to anchorAnchored VWAPA VWAP that begins at a chosen pivot bar (a swing high or swing low) and runs forward. Anchoring makes the absolute level meaningful instead of drifting with whatever bars happen to load.Click for full definition →. Every bar, the indicator asks two questions for each of the four scopes:

1. Where was the highest high in this lookback window? The top envelope starts there and tracks volume-weighted average priceVolume-Weighted Average PriceAn average where each bar's contribution is scaled by its volume, so heavy-volume bars pull the line harder than thin ones. Used as a slow centre of gravity.Click for full definition → forward.
2. Where was the lowest low in this lookback window? The bottom envelope starts there and tracks the other side.

The colour and thickness of each ring tell you which scope you're looking at:

The thicker the line, the longer-term the level. Red is always the resistance side (anchoredAnchored VWAPA VWAP that begins at a chosen pivot bar (a swing high or swing low) and runs forward. Anchoring makes the absolute level meaningful instead of drifting with whatever bars happen to load.Click for full definition → from a high); green is always the support side (anchoredAnchored VWAPA VWAP that begins at a chosen pivot bar (a swing high or swing low) and runs forward. Anchoring makes the absolute level meaningful instead of drifting with whatever bars happen to load.Click for full definition → from a low). When rings stack tightly together you're in coiled, low-range territory. When they fan wide apart you're inside a freshly extended trend.

3. What You See on the Chart

Default colour scheme: red for the upper envelopes, green for the lower envelopes, blue tags for the mid VWAPVolume-Weighted Average PriceAn average where each bar's contribution is scaled by its volume, so heavy-volume bars pull the line harder than thin ones. Used as a slow centre of gravity.Click for full definition → labels on the price axis. Linewidth grows with each level so the slow rings always pop visually.

4. Reading It in 3 Patterns

Pattern A — All four rings aligned

1

All four red rings sit cleanly above price in order. Resistance scopes agree.

2

All four green rings stack below price, fastest closest. Every timeframe aligned bull.

3

Price drifts up off the green stack toward the nearest red ring. Trade pullbacks long.

Pattern B — Split rings across scopes

1

Fast Level 1 and 2 rings sit above price. Short-term momentum is heavy.

2

Slow Level 3 and 4 rings sit below price. Macro pivots still bullish.

3

Split signals across scopes. Stand aside or fade the range until rings realign.

Pattern C — Regime change as outer rings flip

1

Heavy red Level 3 ring caps price for a long stretch. Macro resistance held.

2

Clean break and close above the slow ring. Regime change across timeframes underway.

3

Same level redraws as a green ring beneath price. Resistance flipped to support.

5. Trade Walkthrough

1

Level 3 red ring caps price for days. Fast green rings hold underneath.

2

Close prints above the heavy Level 3 ring. Outer-ring flip trigger fires.

3

First pullback retests the freshly-flipped Level 3 green ring. Textbook entry.

4

Price extends well above the Level 1 red ring. Stretched move, take profit.

A clean macro flip on ETH. After a multi-week grind below the Level 3 red ring near 3,420, ETH finally tagged through it on 15 March and held. The retest two sessions later turned that exact same level — now drawn as the Level 3 green ring at 3,415 — into the launch pad for a roughly +7 % push into 22 March. The numbered markers (1)–(4) on the chart map to the four phases below.

The sequence

The trade in one card

Lesson

The outer ring flip gives you the alert. The first retest that holds the flipped ring gives you the trade. Price extending well past the fastest ring tells you the move is stretched and it's time to step out.

6. Common Pitfalls

• Treating every ring tag as a signal. Price tags the Level 1 ring constantly in any normal trend — it's only ~17 bars deep, so reactions there are noise. The signals worth acting on are at Level 3 and Level 4, which only flip every few weeks or months.
• Ignoring the auto-hide gaps. When a slower ring vanishes for a stretch of bars it means a faster ring already covers the same area. Don't try to extrapolate the hidden line — trust the ring that's actually drawn.
• Trading Pattern B as if it were Pattern A. Split rings across scopes is a stand-aside or mean-reversionMean ReversionThe expectation that price, after stretching far from a baseline (a moving average, prior range), will snap back toward it. Works best in chop and range-bound markets.Click for full definition → regime, not a trend-followingTrend FollowingThe opposite of mean reversion — staying with a directional move once it's established, exiting only when the trend itself breaks. Works best in trending markets.Click for full definition → one. Buying the fast green ring while price is still capped by a slow red ring is how chop chews up trend traders.
• Confusing inner and outer rings on a fresh chart. On a chart with less history than 1292 bars, the outer rings have nowhere to anchorAnchored VWAPA VWAP that begins at a chosen pivot bar (a swing high or swing low) and runs forward. Anchoring makes the absolute level meaningful instead of drifting with whatever bars happen to load.Click for full definition → and may sit close to recent price. Sanity-check by linewidth — the heaviest line is always Level 4.
• Mistaking the mid-line ticks for tradeable levels. The blue right-axis tags are the "fair value" inside each band, not pivotsPivot High / Pivot LowA bar that is higher (or lower) than a defined number of bars on both sides. Confirmed only after the right-hand bars print without breaking it.Click for full definition → in their own right. The actual support and resistance are the red and green lines.