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Relative Volume Gradient Paintbars – New Updates for ThinkOrSwim

Relative Volume Gradient Paintbars for Thinkorswim [VIDEO]

Relative Volume Gradient Paintbars Study for Thinkorswim

Today I’m releasing an overhaul of the Relative Volume indicator for Thinkorswim that I’ve been working on for awhile. This is one of my favorite thinkscript studies and I’ve been experimenting with it in my own trading for awhile, so I wanted to go ahead and get the update released on the site and see if it can add some value for my fellow traders.

Like all of our upgrades, they’re completely free to prior purchasers, just go to the My Account > Orders > View Order Details area of the site and the new links should be posted there for you to install.

New Features

  1. Relative Volume Gradient Paintbars to highlight the highest relative volume bars!
    1. Custom colors
    2. 4 custom coloration thresholds
    3. Different color scheme for up bars vs. down bars
  2. MA-based relative volume for tick charts, also with gradient paintbars!
  3. Combined tick volume / trade volume in the same indicator, just switch the mode in settings. Simply add 2 instances if you want both relative tick count & share count on the same chart!
  4. Combined long term studies into 1 study with custom period reset (12 for monthly charts, 52 for weekly charts, 252 for daily charts).
  5. Added a TIME BASED relative volume QUOTE COLUMN so you can see when a stock in your watchlist has surging volume on whatever INTRADAY timeframe you want (5 minute, hourly, etc).
  6. Added a MA BASED relative volume QUOTE COLUMN so you can see when a stock in your watchlist has surging volume on ANY timeframe you want (hourly, daily, etc).

Benefits

  • High volume bars now immediately pop out visually on your chart without having to look down at the histogram.
  • You can even hide the histogram altogether and just use the paintbars function to gauge volume and save screen space.
  • This release really simplifies down the number of scripts and makes each more powerful and customizable.
  • MA-based relative volume indicator can be used on tick charts, intraday minute charts, or daily and higher charts.
  • Using the MA-based relative volume on tick charts lets you see an additional dimension of volume on the same graph (tick count bars combined with share count highlighting really adds additional depth of information).

Get the Relative Volume study here!

I’m finding the volume gradient to be a real value add, and especially on the tick charts:

relative volume gradient paintbars indicator for thinkorswim
Example chart of KO with the new relative volume gradient paintbars indicator for Thinkorswim

Get the Relative Volume study here!

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Intraday Multiple Timeframe VWAP

Four-hour and 1-hour intraday VWAPs for ThinkOrSwim

Multiple Timeframe VWAP Indicator for ThinkOrSwim

I wanted to take a minute and tell you guys about my new Multiple Timeframe VWAP indicator for ThinkOrSwim. Most of you guys know I love volume, and recently (in the past year) I’ve started trading based on VWAP, or volume weighted average price. VWAP just makes sense: it’s the rolling average price at which the most volume traded during the current time frame (usually day). It’s a good indicator of what the most fair price is for that timeframe.

For VWAP to work, it has to reset at a certain time. Most people look at daily VWAP which resets overnight, either at midnight or at the start of regular hours trading. Longer term traders often look at yearly VWAP, which resets each year on January 1st.

But you can calculate VWAPs for any timeframe, and I’ve found that 1-hour VWAPs and 4-hour VWAPs are incredibly useful — in addition to the normal daily VWAP — both as a gauge of fair value on range-bound days, and as a support or resistance point on trending days.

Examples

Here’s a great example from a chart I pulled up the other day, where the gray line is 4-hour multiple timeframe VWAP, and the red/blue line is the 1-hour VWAP:

Four-hour and 1-hour intraday multiple timeframe VWAP for ThinkOrSwim
Four-hour and 1-hour intraday multiple timeframe VWAP for ThinkOrSwim. Gray = 4-hour, red/blue = 1-hour.

The arrows in the afternoon point out some extremely precise pivot lows that happened RIGHT AT the 4-hour multiple timeframe VWAP. The squiggles show some examples of the hourly VWAP acting as intraday support.

Anyway, I don’t know if I’m the only one that looks at these types of intraday VWAPs, but I find them incredibly useful for evaluating trade locations.

The Reason

Up until now, I had been using Sierra Chart to plot the intraday multiple timeframe VWAP because ThinkOrSwim had no ability to plot them. I have several VWAP indicators including the built-in indicator in TOS, and none of them had the ability to specify your own intraday reset period. So I decided to devote some time to developing my own so that I could get rid of the second platform and keep things a little more streamlined.

After some real struggles, I was finally able to solve the problem of resetting the VWAP at different custom periods. I also added in some features that I’d kind of wished my other indicators had, such as color-coding the VWAP line based on whether price is above or below the line (similar to the VWAP indicator available in TradeStation). And I also threw in the ability to plot standard deviation lines around VWAP as well so you can visually see how far extended price is getting away from “fair value”.

So anyway, I recently posted the thinkscript code for my multiple timeframe intraday VWAP for sale on my ThinkOrSwim Downloads shop in case anyone else is interested in this indicator. Like I said, I don’t think most people are even aware this kind of indicator exists and so it’s pretty uncharted territory, but I think from my experience there is some good edge to be exploited here. But anyway, I would love to hear from you in the comments whether or not you’ve heard of people using this before. And if you’re interested in the indicator itself, here’s the link:

$99.99Add to cart

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How to Install Indicators, Scans, and Columns in ThinkOrSwim

How to install indicators and downloads in the thinkorswim platform.

How to Install Indicators, Scans & Watchlist Columns in ThinkOrSwim

This video will show you exactly how to install indicators, scans, and custom watchlist quote columns in thinkorswim. There are actually 3-4 different ways to install thinkScript code, and this ThinkOrSwim tutorial walks you through 3 of them. The fourth way is to just click a “shared item” link and it will install automatically. I figured that one was easy enough to not need an explanation :-).

You can also view the tutorial video on YouTube.