Most trend lines wobble. Price pulls back, the average bends down, you get talked out of a position that was fine. AlphaTrend, on MT4 and MT5, does not bend: while the trend condition holds, the line moves one way and stays put the rest of the time.
That staircase is the whole indicator, and it is worth understanding exactly how it is built, because two things about it are not what people assume.
How the line is built
Two candidate levels are computed on every bar:
upT = low - ATR × coeff
downT = high + ATR × coeff
Then one of them is chosen, and this is the part that matters:
- If MFI ≥ 50, the line takes
upT— but only if that is higher than yesterday's line. Otherwise it holds where it was. - If MFI < 50, the line takes
downT— but only if that is lower than yesterday's line. Otherwise it holds.
So while money flow stays above 50, the line can climb and can never fall. The moment money flow drops below 50 the rule flips and the line starts ratcheting the other way. The flat sections in the screenshot are not the indicator being lazy; they are bars where the new candidate was worse than the level already held, so the level was kept.
That is a trailing stop, and it behaves like one: it gives you a level to be wrong at rather than a prediction.
The signal line is the same line, two bars ago
This is the part almost nobody realises, and it changes how you should read the crossovers.
ats[i] = at[i-2]
The grey line is not a second indicator, a slower average, or a different setting. It is the AlphaTrend line itself, shifted right by two bars.
Which means a "crossover" is not two independent measures agreeing. It means one thing and one thing only: the line changed direction within the last two bars. The arrows mark the bar where the ratchet flipped from climbing to falling or the reverse.
Once you know that, the signals get easier to use and harder to over-trust. They are direction-change markers, not a confluence of two systems. Anyone selling you a crossover of a line with its own lagged copy as "dual confirmation" is selling you the same information twice.
MFI on tick volume, and the switch that exists because of it
| What the source uses | What that means on forex | |
|---|---|---|
| Volatility | ATR(AP) |
Fine everywhere |
| Trend filter | MFI(AP, VOLUME_TICK) |
Money Flow computed on tick count, not traded volume |
| Alternative | RSI(AP, PRICE_CLOSE) |
Set novolumedata = true and price alone decides |
Retail forex feeds have no real volume, so MFI here is money flow weighted by how many ticks arrived. On a liquid symbol during an active session that is a reasonable proxy for activity. On a thin symbol, over a holiday, or with a broker whose feed throttles ticks, it is measuring your broker's plumbing rather than the market.
That is what novolumedata is for. Turn it on and the filter becomes plain RSI ≥ 50, which uses only closes. If you trade exotic pairs or CFDs, start there and compare the two on the same chart before deciding.
coeff sets how far the line sits from price. Larger means a wider stop, later flips, fewer signals. AP (default 14) is the period for all three of ATR, RSI and MFI at once — there is one knob, not three.
Repainting, honestly
On both platforms the calculation loop stops one bar short of the right edge, and it only runs when a new bar opens. A value, once written, is never revisited. The line and the arrows on your chart tonight are the ones that were there at the time.
That costs you a bar, and it is worth being clear about. The rightmost point of the line sits on the last closed candle rather than the one still moving, and the arrow for a flip shows up once the bar that caused it has finished. I would rather hand you a line that is one bar late than one that rewrites itself while you are watching.
Alerts
Two switches. signal_alert is on by default and pre_signal_alert is off; both fire on the direction change described above, through whichever channel you pick in noti_type — terminal alert, mobile push, or email.
Nothing fires on the first calculation pass, so loading the indicator does not replay a month of old signals.
The MT4 build has no Telegram. Terminal, push and email work on both platforms; the Telegram path exists only in the MT5 build, because the shared MT4 library this is built on does not carry it.
What it can't do
It does not know about structure, sessions, ranges or higher timeframes. It is one line and a direction flag.
The flat sections are the point of the design and also its cost: in a sideways market the line sits still while price crosses back and forth over it, and every crossing looks like something. It is not. Wait for the arrow, which requires the ratchet to actually reverse.
coeff = 1.0 with AP = 14 is not a universal setting. On gold at H1 it gives room; on a quiet pair at M5 it will flip on noise. Change one and compare, do not change both.
You won't find a win rate table in this listing, and I'd treat any indicator listing that has one with some care. This draws a level. What you do at the level is the part that decides the outcome, and I have no way to measure that.
Questions you'll have
Does AlphaTrend repaint? No, and both builds behave the same way. The ratchet commits inside the new-bar branch, never goes back over what it wrote, and the loop stops one bar short of the right edge so the candle still forming is left alone. You pay one bar of lag for that.
Is this the same as SuperTrend? Same family, different filter. SuperTrend flips on price closing through the band; this flips on money flow crossing 50 and ratchets the level in between. In a strong trend they look alike. Around the turn they do not, because SuperTrend is reacting to price and this is reacting to participation.
Why is my line flat for twenty bars? Because every candidate level in those twenty bars was worse than the one it already held. That is the ratchet working.
Which AlphaTrend setting should I change first? coeff. Raise it if you are being flipped out of good trends, lower it if the line sits too far away to be a useful stop.
MFI or RSI? MFI on major pairs, gold and indices. RSI (novolumedata = true) on anything thin or on a broker whose tick feed you do not trust.
MT4 or MT5? Both, and your subscription covers both. Same rules on each, same one-bar lag; see the note above about Telegram for the one real difference.
Support
Message me through the site with a screenshot, plus the symbol and timeframe. Updates are included for as long as your subscription is running.
Analysis tool. It places no trades and makes no profitability claim. Past price behaviour is not a guide to future price behaviour.