Smart Swing Indicator

Most charts show you noise. Candlesticks flicker, wicks overlap, and the actual market direction gets lost in the chaos. Swing charting cuts through this by focusing on what matters: when price changes direction.

SSI brings this methodology to TradingView at no cost. No trial periods, no feature limits that expire. Just professional swing structure, free forever.

The Problem with Most Charts

Standard candlestick charts show every price movement equally. A minor pullback gets the same visual weight as a major trend reversal. Your eye has to do the filtering, which means fatigue and missed signals.

Swing charting solves this by identifying only the points where price genuinely changes direction — swing highs and swing lows. Connect these points, and the market's true structure emerges.

How Swings Form

Understanding swing mechanics helps you trust what you're seeing:

Up Bars — A bar with a higher high AND higher low than the previous bar. The market is pushing higher. Consecutive up bars build an up swing.

Down Bars — A bar with a lower high AND lower low than the previous bar. The market is pushing lower. Consecutive down bars build a down swing.

Inside Bars — A bar contained entirely within the previous bar's range. This is consolidation — the market catching its breath. Inside bars don't change the swing direction; they're pauses, not reversals.

Outside Bars — A bar that exceeds both the high and low of the previous bar. These are decision points where the market tested both directions.

Outside Bar Handling

When an outside bar forms, the indicator needs to decide: is this a continuation of the current swing, or a reversal? Different traders handle this differently, and there's no universally "correct" answer.

The indicator gives you three options in settings:

Mark as Continuation — Shows the zigzag path where price tested the opposite direction before resuming the trend. Use this if you find value in seeing where price was rejected.

Mark as Reversal — Treats the outside bar as a pivot point, reversing the swing at its extreme. Use this if you treat outside bars as significant turning points.

Skip Entirely — Ignores outside bars completely, waiting for cleaner signals. Use this if you prefer conservative, higher-confidence swing points.

Visual Styles

SSI offers two ways to display swing structure:

Rectangular Style — Draws boxes around each swing, making the range visually prominent. Good for seeing the "territory" each swing covers.

Diagonal Style — Connects swing points with angled lines, emphasizing the direction and slope of each move. Classic swing chart appearance.

Both styles use color coding: green for up swings, red for down swings (customizable).

Features

Automatic Swing Detection

The indicator identifies swings using mechanical rules — no subjectivity, no manual drawing. What it marks as a swing today, it would mark identically on historical data.

Inside Bar Highlighting

Optional visual markers show where inside bars occurred within swings. These consolidation points often become important when price returns to test them.

Outside Bar Visualization

When outside bars form continuations, the indicator shows the intraday zigzag path — revealing where the market tested the opposite direction before being rejected.

Basic Labels

Display price levels at swing highs and lows. Keep your chart clean or add context — your choice.

Works Everywhere

Stocks, forex, crypto, futures, indices — any market TradingView supports. Any timeframe from 1-minute to monthly. The indicator automatically adjusts decimal precision to match each instrument.

How to Use SSI

Identify the Trend

The simplest application: look at the swing direction.

• Swings stacking higher (higher highs, higher lows) = Uptrend
• Swings stacking lower (lower highs, lower lows) = Downtrend
• Swings overlapping = Range or consolidation

Find Support and Resistance

Swing highs become resistance. Swing lows become support. The indicator shows you exactly where these levels are — no guesswork.

Time Your Entries

Wait for a swing to complete, then look for entries in the trend direction:

• In an uptrend: Look for entries after a down swing completes
• In a downtrend: Look for entries after an up swing completes

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is SSI really free? Yes. No trial, no time limit, no catch. Free forever.

What's the difference between SSI and PRO? SSI gives you core swing detection with visual styles and outside bar handling. SSI PRO adds multi-day swing periods, comprehensive ratio analysis (retracement and extension), velocity tracking, 12+ alert conditions, and CSV export. Think of SSI as the foundation and PRO as the analytical toolkit.

Does this repaint? No. Once a swing is confirmed, it stays exactly where it is. Historical data looks identical to real-time.

How do I get it? Search for "Smart Swing Indicator" in TradingView's indicator library and add it to your chart. No signup required.