Uptick Downtick Ratio
Uptick/downtick ratios are a classic breadth tool on exchange-traded instruments with a real tape. Retail feeds have no such tape - the tick volume series is only a count of price updates, not signed trade flow - but the direction of each individual tick (did Bid move up or down from the previous one) is something the platform genuinely knows in real time. This indicator keeps a fixed-size rolling window of the last InpTickWindow tick directions in a ring buffer and reports the percentage that were upticks, giving a live read on whether recent order flow has leaned toward buyers or sellers pushing price. Because direction only exists tick by tick and neither platform keeps a historical tick-by-tick record, older bars are deliberately left blank rather than backfilled from a proxy - a close-to-close comparison, for instance, cannot recover what actually happened inside a bar and would quietly claim more precision than the platform can support. What the chart shows is exactly what it can honestly show: the ratio as measured since the indicator was attached. Notes and limitations - Ticks with no Bid change are not counted as either an uptick or a downtick; they simply do not move the ratio. - The window is measured in ticks, not time, so its effective time span stretches and shrinks with how busy the market currently is - during a quiet session InpTickWindow ticks can span much longer than during a fast one. - History before the indicator was attached, and any history before the terminal was last restarted, is not available and is left blank rather than estimated. - This is a flow proxy, not a volume measure, and should not be read as if it were exchange-reported buy/sell volume.
Indicator · MT4 · v1.0 · Free
About Uptick Downtick Ratio
Uptick Downtick Ratio is an indicator for MetaTrader 4. It has 1 setting, such as Tick window. MQL source code included.
Files in the download: UptickDowntickRatio.ex4, UptickDowntickRatio.mq4, UptickDowntickRatio.txt.
Settings
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Tick window | 300 | Number of most recent ticks kept in the rolling window |
How to install
- Download the ZIP from your PolyMaria library and unzip it.
- In MetaTrader 4 open File → Open Data Folder, then go to MQL4 → Indicators.
- Copy the .mq4 file(s) there. Put any .mqh files in MQL4 → Include.
- Open the .mq4 file in MetaEditor and press Compile (F7) if MetaTrader does not show it.
- Drag the indicator from the Navigator onto a chart and adjust the settings.
Tags: Volume · MT4 Indicator · MQL4 Source Code