Consolidation Range with Signals runs on MT4 and MT5. It finds the stretches where a
market stops going anywhere, draws the structure inside them, and marks the bars where
price makes a real move while still inside.
That last part surprises people, so let me put it first. This is not a breakout tool. The
signal fires during the quiet stretch, not after price leaves it.
What the number actually is
Two things run side by side, and it helps to keep them apart.
The detector decides whether the market is consolidating. In ADX mode, the default,
that means ADX under 17. In volatility mode it means three measures compressed at once:
the standard deviation of log returns, the variance of log returns, and ATR, each below
its own rolling average by its own multiplier. Three conditions at the same time is a
high bar, which is why volatility mode gives far fewer ranges.
The range filter is a stepped line that only moves when price gets far enough away
from it. That distance is r, and r is where the whole thing lives:
r = average( |high − previous low| × 2.618 , over 2000 bars ) × Range Multiplier
So r is a long run average of how far this instrument reaches from one bar to the next.
On gold H1 it comes out around 87 dollars. The four MID levels are that distance split
into thirds above and below the filter, and they're drawn only while a range is on
screen.
A signal fires when the range is on screen and the filter takes a step, up or down.
The filter can only step when price has moved at least r, so the signal means: this
market is supposed to be quiet, and it just made a full-sized move anyway. Then nothing
for cooldown bars, twenty by default.
The one detail worth checking on the chart
The entry line sits at the close of the signal bar. The stop and the targets are measured
from the filter, not from the entry.
That's deliberate, and easy to miss, because it means the levels aren't symmetric around
the entry. Look at the EURUSD picture below: the distance from Entry up to TP1 isn't the
mirror of the distance down to SL, and it isn't 0.5 against 0.4 the way the settings
suggest. Both are multiples of r measured from the filter, and the entry is wherever
the close landed.
Whether you like that is a real question. It anchors the levels to the range rather than
to your fill, and it also means the risk on any one signal depends on how far the close
ran from the filter.
Where this differs from a box and a breakout arrow
| What a range tool has to decide | What most of them do | What this one does |
|---|---|---|
| Whether the market is consolidating | A fixed bar count, or the last N bars' high to low | ADX under a threshold, or three volatility measures compressed at once |
| How wide the range really is | High minus low of the box you can see | A 2000 bar average of the instrument's own bar to bar reach |
| When to speak | On the break, after the fact | On the bar price makes a full sized move while still inside |
| Where the stop and targets go | Fixed pips, or a multiple of the entry | Multiples of r, measured from the filter |
| How often | Every bar that qualifies | One signal, then twenty bars of silence |
The third row is the trade this tool makes. Waiting for the break is safer and later;
firing inside the range is earlier and wrong more often. It picked early.
What you actually see on the chart
The box marks the detected consolidation, drawn from the first bar the detector fires
and extended until price leaves. The filter is the thick stepped line, blue while
rising and cyan while falling. The MID levels are the two blue lines above it and the
two cyan ones below, at a third and two thirds of r. The signal is the labelled
group: Entry, SL, and TP 1 to TP 3, green for a long and pink for a short, each running
twenty bars to the right.
TP 2 and TP 3 are off by default. Turn them on in Trade Settings if you want the full
ladder.
What it doesn't move
Only closed bars are evaluated. The bar still forming never gets a filter value, a MID
value or a signal, and the work runs once per new bar rather than once per tick.
A signal's lines are drawn once, on the bar that produced it, and never touched again. No
signal here can appear mid-bar and be gone by the close, because the bar has to close
before it is looked at.
Alerts are off out of the box. Set Notification type and they fire on the signal bar
only, and only once the indicator has been running, so a year of history gives you a year
of drawings and no alerts. MT5 also takes a Telegram bot token and channel id; the MT4
build has platform alerts and email only, which is what MQL4 gives you.
What it can't do
It needs 2000 bars before it draws anything, and that's not a warm-up you can shorten,
because r is the 2000 bar average. On MT4 the default chart history is often shorter, so
if the chart comes up empty, raise Max bars in chart under Tools, Options, Charts, and
scroll back once.
A signal inside a range is an anticipation, not a confirmation. Sometimes the move
that triggered it is the first leg out; sometimes it's one wide bar inside a range that
runs another day. The cooldown limits how often you're told, not how often it's right.
There is no filter on the signal itself. It doesn't ask which way the higher timeframe
is pointing or whether the last three did the same and failed. That judgement is left to
you, deliberately, but it does mean the raw signal count is higher than you'd trade.
Switching detection mode is not tuning. ADX under 17 happens often; three compressed
volatility measures at once happens rarely. Expect the number of ranges to change by a lot.
You won't find a win rate table in this listing, and I'd be careful with any indicator
listing that has one. It draws a box, a filter, four levels and five lines.
Honestly, the fiddliest part of porting this wasn't the maths. MQL4 numbers its bars
backwards from MQL5, so every window had to be turned around: the averaging loop that
reads the previous 2000 bars on one platform reads the next 2000 on the other, and it
compiles cleanly either way. One of those two is looking at the future.
Questions you'll have
Does Consolidation Range with Signals repaint? No. Only closed bars are evaluated, and
a signal's lines are drawn once and never moved.
Why aren't the SL and TP symmetric around my entry? Because they're measured from the
range filter while the entry is drawn at the close. It anchors the levels to the range
rather than to your fill.
Why is my chart empty? Almost always too little history: the filter needs 2000 bars
before it can produce a value. Scroll back once, and on MT4 raise Max bars in chart first.
Why did a signal fire before the range broke? Because that's the trigger. It fires on
the bar the filter steps while the range is still on screen, not after price leaves it.
What are the best settings for Consolidation Range with Signals? Leave Range
Multiplier alone first and change ADX Threshold instead: lower it for fewer, cleaner
ranges, raise it toward 20 for more. Range Multiplier moves the stop and every target
at once, so touch it last.
Can I get Telegram alerts? On MT5, yes, via the bot token and channel id in the
notification block. The MT4 build does platform alerts and email only.
MT4 or MT5? Both, and your subscription covers both. Same formula, same defaults, one
download each.
Support
Message me through the site with a screenshot showing the chart, plus the symbol and
timeframe. That's usually enough for me to tell you what happened. 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.