Break Tracer reads the trend in two layers and only acts when they agree.

A fast pair of exponential moving averages (26 and 50) gives the short-term direction. A 200-bar trend average, with a channel of 0.618 times the average true range around it, gives the trend. When the fast pair points up and price is above the trend average, the trend is up; when both point down, it is down; and while a bar opens or closes inside the channel, the market is treated as ranging and nothing new is started.

WHAT YOU SEE

A trend line in green or red shades, orange while the market is ranging.

A shaded band between the two fast averages, in the same colours.

A Long plate under the bar where an up-trend begins and a Short plate over the bar where a down-trend begins.

A yellow cross where a position is closed because the trend or the fast averages turned.

Candles colored by trend, with a lighter shade for a candle that closes against it.

Optional: the channel itself, a stop line with an SL cross at the level that closed the position, Golden Cross and Death Cross plates where the medium average crosses the trend average, and a gray shading outside a date window of your choosing.

HOW TO USE IT

A Long or Short plate marks the moment both layers agree; the close cross marks the moment they stop agreeing. Strategy 2, the default, takes every agreement; Strategy 1 is stricter and stands aside while the trend average is still on the wrong side of the medium average. Long only, short only or both can be chosen. The trend average can be taken from a higher timeframe - for example the hourly on a five-minute chart - and it then uses the last completed higher-timeframe bar, so it never changes within that bar.

SETTINGS

Source, EMA lengths, trend average length and type (SMA or EMA), the higher timeframe, the channel width, an optional percentage stop, an optional date window, the strategy type and which sides to take. Each drawing element has its own switch, and switching one off changes the drawing only: the values, alerts and webhook carry on.

ALERTS AND WEBHOOK

Six events: Buy, Sell, Buy Close, Sell Close, Stop Loss Long and Stop Loss Short, plus Golden and Death Cross as an option. Each has its own switch and can fire when the bar closes or as soon as the condition is met. Delivery is a log line, a sound or an e-mail. There is also a webhook: enter an address and each event is posted to it as JSON, as plain text, or in a template you write yourself with placeholders for the symbol, timeframe, time, prices, the averages, the trend state and the position. It stays off until you enter one, it sends nothing during the history pass or in a backtest, and it needs no special access rights - posts go out through cTrader's own networking service.

FOR cBOTS

The trend average, both fast averages, the trend state and the position state are published as output series.

TYPE AND WINDOW

A trend indicator, drawn on the price chart.

TIMEFRAMES AND INSTRUMENTS

Any time-based timeframe; the defaults read well from M5 to H4, and the higher timeframe option lets a low timeframe chart follow a slower trend. It works on any instrument - forex pairs, metals, indices and crypto - because everything it uses is derived from the bars themselves.

WHO IT IS FOR

Traders who want a trend filter they can see: when to be long, when to be short, when to stand aside, and an alert at each change.

NOTES

The marks follow the bar that is still forming, so one can appear and disappear until that bar closes. Alerts and webhook posts default to bar close, where the condition is final. On a fresh chart the first mark is a Short on the second bar, because nothing can be measured until the averages exist.

Trading involves risk. Past performance does not guarantee future results.