OrderFlow Structure SMC Indicator

Full parameter manual:

I built this because every SMC indicator I tried treated structure detection as a closed problem. They paint a BoS label as soon as price crosses a swing level and call it done. That worked maybe sixty percent of the time on clean trending charts and fell apart everywhere else. The problem wasn't the pivot logic. It was that a structural break in isolation tells you nothing about whether the move has actual participation behind it, and most "sweep" detection in retail tools fires on the wick before the reversal has even started.

This indicator is my attempt to fix both problems on a single chart.

What it analyses

The indicator reads three things from the bar data: pivot structure, wick behavior at unbroken swing levels, and a flow score derived from standardised log-returns weighted by tick volume.

Structure runs on two independent streams. The Internal stream uses a short pivot length (default 5) and catches micro shifts in price. The Swing stream uses a longer length (default 25) and tracks the higher-timeframe context. Each stream maintains its own trend state, so the same break can be a BoS on one stream and a CHoCH on the other if you want that granularity.

Liquidity sweeps require two stages. First, a bar's wick must exceed an unbroken swing level by at least a fraction of ATR, the close must come back inside the level, and the wick rejection has to account for at least half the bar's range. That registers a pending sweep. Confirmation only fires when price actually reverses through the midpoint of the sweep bar within a few bars. If the reversal doesn't come, the pending sweep expires and no signal prints.

Flow scoring uses Bulk Volume Classification, the model from Easley, Lopez de Prado and O'Hara's 2012 paper on flow toxicity. The indicator standardises each bar's log-return against the recent volatility window, runs it through the normal CDF to get an estimated buy-fraction, weights by tick volume, and accumulates across a short window. The result is a directional flow index between minus one and plus one, displayed as a buy-percent / sell-percent ratio. When a break event fires, the flow score gets compared against the break direction and a badge prints next to the label.

How to read the signals

Structural events appear as horizontal lines with text labels:

• BoS is a break of structure in the direction of the existing trend. Continuation signal.
• CHoCH is a change of character. The trend just flipped. Treat this as a reversal alert, not a confirmed reversal yet.
• iBoS and iCHoCH are the same events on the Internal stream, drawn in gold.
• SWEEP boxes mark a confirmed liquidity grab and reversal. The box shows the actual wick that did the sweeping.
• EQH and EQL are equal highs and lows within ATR tolerance, the kind of stop pools price tends to revisit.

Each signal carries a flow badge:

• [++] means flow agrees strongly with the break direction. Statistically the cleanest setups happen here.
• [~] means flow is ambivalent. The break may still work, but you're not getting confirmation from participation.
• [!?] means flow opposes the break. These are the breaks that often turn into traps. Not a hard rule but a useful filter.

The dashboard shows the current state of both streams (swing trend, internal trend), the live flow ratio, the next unbroken swing high and swing low the indicator is monitoring, and a count of any pending sweeps waiting for confirmation. You can drag it anywhere on the chart and the position is remembered between sessions.

Settings that actually matter

Most of the parameters have sensible defaults and you can leave them. The ones worth tuning:

Pivot lengths. Internal default is 5 and Swing default is 25. Lower values make both streams more reactive, higher values smoother. On lower timeframes I'd raise Internal to 7 or 9 to cut noise. On daily charts I'd lower Swing to 15.

BoS confirmed by close. Default on. If you turn this off, breaks fire on wick touch instead of close. Faster signals, more false positives.

Sweep rejection percent. Default 0.5, meaning the wick must be at least half the bar's range. Raising it to 0.65 makes sweep detection stricter and prints fewer but cleaner signals.

Flow thresholds. Strong is 0.60, Weak is 0.40 by default. Tightening Strong to 0.65 will print fewer [++] badges but each one means more.

Detect sweeps. If you don't trade sweep reversals, turn this off and the chart gets less busy.

Who this is for

Discretionary SMC traders who want order flow context that isn't tick volume divergence guesswork. Anyone who has gotten tired of indicators that paint a sweep on every wick and call it a signal. Quant-minded retail traders who recognise BVC as a real microstructure technique rather than a buzzword.

If you trade purely on price action with no interest in volume-derived signals, the flow badges will be noise to you. The structure and sweep logic still work fine without them. Turn the flow confirmation off in settings.

What this isn't

It isn't a Level 2 order book reader. Retail platforms don't have that data and no indicator on the cTrader Store actually does. The flow score is an estimate from bar-level data, calibrated against recent volatility. It's directionally useful, not exchange-grade.

It isn't an autotrading robot. It draws on the chart and fires alerts. Trading decisions are yours.

It won't catch every move. Pivot confirmation requires bars on both sides of the pivot, so during fast vertical moves the structure stream lags by definition. That's a feature of how structure detection works, not a bug.