Amphibiantrading

Webby's Tight Indicator

Webby's Tight Indicator is used to measure a securities volatility relative to itself over time. This is achieved by taking the average of three short term ATR's (average true range) and creating a ratio versus three longer term ATR's.

Mike Webster recently stated he is using the 3,5,8 for the short term ATR's and the 55,89,144 for the long term ATR's. All of the ATR lengths are part of the Fibonacci sequence.

The ratio of the ATR's is then calculated and plotted as a histogram with 0 representing the ATR's being equal. As a stocks short term ATR contracts the histogram will rise above 0 meaning volatility in the short term is contracting relative to long term volatility. On the other hand if the short ATR's are expanding versus the long term ATR's the histogram will fall below 0 and turn red, signifying short term volatility is greater than long term volatility.

The easy visualization of this indicator allows you to quickly see when a stock is in a tight range and could be ready for a potential breakout to the long side or breakdown to the short side.

In this example we see tight price action with a blue histogram followed by volatility to the upside coinciding with a breakout.

In this example we see volatility expanding as a stock continues to fall.

To help differentiate between trending contraction or expansion and just short term blips 5-day exponential moving average of the ratio is also plotted on the histogram and dynamically changes colors as it rises and falls.

Indicator options include:
  • Change histogram colors
  • Choose ema line width
Release Notes:
Added option to hide the ema of the ratio and option to highlight the highest and lowest ratio of the last year.

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Open-source script

In true TradingView spirit, the author of this script has published it open-source, so traders can understand and verify it. Cheers to the author! You may use it for free, but reuse of this code in a publication is governed by House Rules. You can favorite it to use it on a chart.

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