MillionAlgo Smart Money

Smart Money draws market structure for you: every break of a swing high or swing low becomes a labelled line on the candles, so you can see at a glance whether the market is making higher highs or has changed character. It comes with MillionChart Pro, a MillionAlgo indicator plan, the founders' year or the free Pro month; see Plans.

What it shows#

Each event is a horizontal line from the swing bar to the bar that broke it, at the broken price, with its name above the line for a bullish break and below it for a bearish one:

• BOS (break of structure) — a dashed line: the close broke a swing in the direction of the current structure trend (a higher high in an uptrend, a lower low in a downtrend). Green for bullish, red for bearish.
• CHoCH (change of character) — a solid line in a darker shade: the close broke a swing against the current trend, the first sign that the trend may be turning.
• CHoCH+ — a CHoCH where the swing before the break had already failed to make a new extreme (a higher low before a bullish break, a lower high before a bearish one): a stronger change of character.
• Two scales at once: internal structure (thin lines, labels with an i prefix such as iBOS) from small swings, and swing structure (thick lines, BOS, CHoCH) from large ones.

Smart Money does not draw order blocks, fair-value gaps or swing markers; the lines are its whole output. A break on the forming bar is drawn only once that bar has closed.

How it is calculated#

A swing high is a bar whose high is above the highs of a set number of bars on each side — Internal structure length bars for the internal scale, Swing structure length bars for the swing scale; a swing low is the mirror. Each confirmed swing becomes a level waiting to be broken. When a close crosses above the newest waiting swing high the study records a bullish event, names it BOS if the structure trend was already up and CHoCH (or CHoCH+) if it was down, and sets the trend to up; the bearish side mirrors this. The study reads the last 1,000 bars of the chart.

How traders use it#

• A run of BOS lines in one direction is a trend; trade with it and treat each new BOS as confirmation.
• A CHoCH is the first warning: many traders stop adding to the old direction and wait for a BOS in the new direction before switching.
• CHoCH+ carries more weight than CHoCH, because the market had already failed to extend before it broke.
• The internal scale turns first and often; the swing scale is slower and cleaner. A common rule: take entries from internal breaks only in the direction of the swing structure.
• The broken level often becomes support or resistance when price comes back to it: a bullish BOS line is a place to look for a long entry on the retest.
• Watch out for choppy markets, where internal CHoCH lines flip back and forth. Raise Internal structure length or hide the internal scale, and judge by the swing lines.

Settings#

Example on gold#

For example, on the 1-hour chart gold has been falling for a week with bearish BOS lines at each new low, the last at $4,268. Price then bounces and a candle closes above the most recent swing high at $4,292: a solid green line labelled CHoCH appears from that swing to the break. The conservative reading is not to buy yet but to stop selling, and to wait for a higher low and a bullish BOS above the next swing high, near $4,310, before going long with a stop under the higher low. A close back under $4,268, with a bearish BOS, would say the downtrend has resumed.

Add it to your chart#

1. Click Indicators in the top strip (on the Pro screen, press I), or click Signals and turn Smart Money on.
2. Type smart and click the indicator.
3. Click its chip in the legend to open the Inspector and change the settings; drag the chip to reorder; the dot hides it; × removes it.

Related#

• Pivot Highs and Lows — the same swing points with their prices, without the structure logic
• Zig Zag — the swings joined as legs
• VIP V6 — MillionAlgo's full setup engine, which has its own swing markers
• Alerts — an alert on a break of structure
• Adding and tuning indicators