Rounding base breakout event
Price closing above its recent highs one bar after a Bollinger squeeze ends, while an average rises.
The indicator looks for a squeeze followed by a breakout. It measures the width of Bollinger bands around the close and flags the bar where that width has shrunk 10 bars in a row while the 50-bar EMA is rising. On the next bar, if the close is above the highest high of the prior 20 bars, it draws a marker. Despite the name, it checks no curved base shape, only those two conditions.
How to read it
- Markers appear only on the candles, one per breakout; there is no line to watch.
- A marker means the close just cleared the highest high of the prior bars, right after the bands had been narrowing.
- Treat each marker as a breakout alert to check, not a trade signal on its own.
What it outputs
- Breakout above prior highs
- Marks the bar where the close clears the highest high of the prior bars, one bar after a squeeze setup completes.
When it fires
The bar after a setup, when the close clears the highest high of the prior bars. A setup is the 10th straight bar of narrowing bands while the average rises. A marker means price broke out of a range just after volatility tightened.
Settings
- ma_window
- Length of the moving average whose slope must be rising on the squeeze bar. Shorter reacts to short swings and turns more often; longer follows the bigger trend and turns less often.
- width_window
- Sets two things: the Bollinger band window for bandwidth, and how many prior bars' highs the close must clear. Raising it smooths the bands and raises the breakout bar; lowering it makes the bands twitchier and the breakout easier.
- width_drop_n
- How many bars in a row the band width must shrink before the squeeze counts. Higher needs a longer squeeze and gives fewer markers; lower lets short squeezes count and gives more markers.
- confirm_days
- Bars the breakout must hold for. Keep it at 1: any value above 1 removes every marker, because the setup lasts only one bar.
Pitfalls
- Rare at defaults: 12 markers in a month of SPY one-minute bars, about 0.6 a day, so most charts show none.
- Despite the name, no rounded base is checked. The average only has to be rising on the one bar the squeeze completes.
- Keep confirm_days at 1. Any higher value removes every marker, because the setup lasts only one bar.