Wyckoff Effort Versus Result
Wyckoff's core idea is that price and volume should agree. A bar that pushes with real conviction should move a proportionate distance; a bar that fails to move despite heavy activity, or moves despite almost no activity, is telling you something about who is actually in control. This indicator computes two trailing baselines for every bar - average tick volume and average range over a lookback window - with the tested bar itself excluded from both, so one outlier cannot inflate its own threshold. Four conditions are then flagged. No demand is an up bar with volume and range both below the low-ratio threshold: buyers pushed and nothing came of it. No supply is the mirror on a down bar: selling pressure that produced no real range is drying up, not accelerating. A buying climax is an up bar with volume and range both above the high-ratio threshold AND a close that is the highest close in the trend lookback window - heavy effort at a genuine new extreme, not just a strong trend day. A selling climax is the same test on the downside. The extreme check on climaxes matters: heavy volume and a wide range are common on ordinary trend days too. Requiring the close to actually be a fresh high or low is what keeps this reading exhaustion at a turning point rather than flagging every strong trending bar as a climax. Notes and limitations - Tick volume is MQL4's only activity proxy on most retail feeds - it counts price changes, not confirmed traded size - so both baselines read activity, not verified institutional flow. - Trailing averages lag a genuine regime shift; a market that has just gone through a real volatility change will produce a run of flags until the baseline catches up. - Bar 0 (the still-forming bar) is never signalled, since its own volume and range are still growing. - This flags a Wyckoff-style condition, not a trade signal. It does not size a position, place a stop, or account for spread and slippage.
Indicator · MT5 · v1.0 · Free
About Wyckoff Effort Versus Result
Wyckoff Effort Versus Result is an indicator for MetaTrader 5. It draws buy and sell arrows on the chart and can alert you with a pop-up, sound, email or push message. It has 8 settings, such as Volume lookback, Range lookback and Low effort ratio. MQL source code included.
Files in the download: WyckoffEffortVersusResult.ex5, WyckoffEffortVersusResult.mq5, WyckoffEffortVersusResult.txt.
Settings
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Volume lookback | 20 | Bars used to build the trailing tick-volume baseline |
| Range lookback | 20 | Bars used to build the trailing range baseline |
| Low effort ratio | 0.7 | Volume at or below this fraction of average counts as "low effort" |
| Low result ratio | 0.7 | Range at or below this fraction of average counts as "low result" |
| High effort ratio | 1.5 | Volume at or above this multiple of average counts as "high effort" |
| High result ratio | 1.5 | Range at or above this multiple of average counts as "high result" |
| Trend lookback | 10 | Bars checked to confirm a climax sits at a genuine trend extreme |
| Alerts | true | Alert once per closed bar on a new flag |
How to install
- Download the ZIP from your PolyMaria library and unzip it.
- In MetaTrader 5 open File → Open Data Folder, then go to MQL5 → Indicators.
- Copy the .mq5 file(s) there. Put any .mqh files in MQL5 → Include.
- Open the .mq5 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 · Trailing Stop & Break-even · Buy/Sell Arrows · Alerts · MT5 Indicator · MQL5 Source Code