The layers
Five reads on the market.
Start with one, stack the rest.
Compass sets the direction from the higher timeframes. Trigger finds the entry, the stop and the exit. Undertow checks the volume behind the move, Coil the momentum, and Tripwire the risk of a trap. Every read lands in the stack panel beside LiveChart, in plain English, stated against one bias that holds through noise, so the reads never argue. Below, each layer on a chart, with what it shows and what it alerts on.
Every chart on this page is LiveChart itself: a recorded session from the market-data feed, run through the same engine and drawn by the same code you use on LiveChart. Each picture draws its layer at full strength and dims the rest. Every term is defined in the glossary.
Layer 01 · Bias & levels
Compass
“Is the higher timeframe aligned with the trade?”
A 1-minute setup can be clean on its own terms and still sit inside a 15-minute, hourly and daily downtrend, which is where good-looking longs get run over. Compass resolves trend state across five higher timeframes, the daily and weekly cycle and yesterday’s range into one read, and the same higher-timeframe trend anchors the bias every layer reads against.
In practiceSize with the tailwind and treat counter-trend reads as scalps. When the timeframes are split, the market has not chosen a side, and position size should reflect that.
- Trend state for the 15m, 1h, 2h, 4h and daily in a single row
- One read against the stack bias: a tailwind, a lean, higher timeframes still pointing the other way, or a split
- Yesterday’s high, midpoint and low projected across the session
- VWAP, a fast and slow EMA that adapt to volatility (5/13 to 13/34), the 50-bar trend SMA and the 100 and 200 SMAs, all drawn by the Core
- Shows in
- Stack panel, VWAP, the averages and yesterday’s levels
- Alerts
- Bias flips
- Updates
- Every bar
- Price
- Free
AlertsThe stack bias turning bullish, bearish or neutral, in your tab, on your desktop and by email
Layer 02 · Entry & exit Flagship
Trigger
“Where is the entry, the stop and the exit?”
A late entry widens the distance to the stop and compresses the reward; an undefined exit turns winners into losers. Trigger prints LONG or SHORT only when one side wins a five-part score (trend, momentum, flow, structure and the confirm intervals) by a clear margin and locks in, never into a side the plan has ruled out, optionally before the bar closes, and attaches a stop sized to the ticker’s normal range (ATR), a target set as a multiple of that risk (R) and a trailing stop, all calibrated to the ticker profile. Exits print as CL (close), with the reason and the result in R.
In practiceDefine the stop before entry and honor the CL when it prints. A “Stay flat” read is a decision too: no trade is a position.
- LONG and SHORT labels with entry and stop, and a ★ on the highest-conviction signals
- A long and a short score on every bar: a side has to lead by a clear margin and lock in before anything prints, plus turn entries once selling or buying dries up at a low or high
- No buying into stretched highs or selling into stretched lows, no fighting a clean trend, and a ★ only when both confirm intervals agree and the bias isn’t against it
- CL (close) labels with the exit reason and the result in R: +2R is twice the amount risked
- Stop, target and trailing-stop levels calibrated for microcaps, large caps or index products
- Shows in
- Entry and CL labels, stop and trail lines, the signals table
- Alerts
- Entries and exits
- Updates
- Every bar
- Price
- $9/mo
AlertsEvery LONG, SHORT and CL, with the price, stop and target or the result, in your tab, on your desktop and by email
Layer 03 · Order flow & tape
Undertow
“Is real size behind the move?”
Candle color reports the outcome, not the participation. On a thin float, one aggressive order can paint a wide-range bar with no real buying behind it, and at the highs, sellers can quietly absorb every push, as they did on NVDA here before the drop. Undertow estimates each bar’s net buying and selling (delta) from its price and volume, keeps the session’s running total (CVD) and measures volume against what is normal for that ticker.
In practiceRequire participation before chasing. Absorption at highs or thin tape is a reason to wait for confirmation or reduce size.
- On the chart: volume colored by who traded it, absorption marked on the bar, and net flow as a ribbon under the bias
- Who controls the volume, read against the stack bias: in control, pushing back, or drying up as a move tires
- Session CVD and its divergences from price, stated in plain English
- Volume surges, buyers or sellers stacking up, and absorption, named in the stack panel the bar they happen
- Relative volume scored against the ticker’s own premarket, regular or after-hours norm
- Large orders breaking the range, and bids stacked into selling, flagged the bar they happen
- Shows in
- Stack panel, flow-colored volume, absorption marks, the flow ribbon
- Alerts
- Feeds the bias flips
- Updates
- Every bar
- Price
- $9/mo
Layer 04 · Momentum & volatility
Coil
“Is momentum expanding or fading?”
Momentum leads price. Late entries tend to arrive after the volatility expansion has matured, and impatient exits happen inside compressions that were about to release. Coil tracks the full cycle of compression, release and decay, and cross-checks two momentum gauges, RSI and MACD, for divergence. Here, on SOUN’s 1-minute, each coil is boxed and each release marked the bar it fires.
In practiceCompression is the time to plan, release is the time to act, and divergence is the time to stop adding and manage the position.
- On the chart: every squeeze boxed, the bar it releases marked, and momentum as a ribbon under the bias
- The squeeze (volatility coiled into a tight range) stated plainly: coiled for how many bars, released, expanding or fading
- RSI turns at overbought and oversold levels set for the ticker’s profile, and divergences, stated in words
- MACD expansion or decay, without reading line crosses
- A stretched or diverging move reads as a warning against the bias, not a call the other way
- Shows in
- Stack panel, squeeze zones, release marks, the momentum ribbon
- Alerts
- Through the plan and Trigger
- Updates
- Every bar
- Price
- $9/mo
Layer 05 · Trap risk
Tripwire
“Is the structure sound, or is it a trap?”
Failed breakouts cluster in predictable places: prior highs, reclaimed levels that don’t hold, stalled resistance, and failed swings that leave late buyers trapped. Tripwire grades new longs and shorts on every bar: each starts at 100 and every warning that fires costs its points, across 11 checks and 3 outright blocks. It names the main reason and the levels in play. With Trigger on the chart, an Avoid is a pass.
In practiceRun it as the final check before entry. Clean clears the trade, Caution argues for reduced size, and Avoid is a pass. The stated reason is how pattern recognition gets built.
- On the chart: resistance and support as stepped lines, every failed break marked with an ×, and the breakout it’s tracking
- One grade for the side the bias favors, Clean, Caution or Avoid, with the reason and the room to the next level
- 11 checks and 3 outright blocks, from chop under resistance and trapped buyers to the daily cycle pointing the other way
- Breakouts and reclaims tracked from the first test to confirmed, with the levels in play
- Trapped buyers and sellers, and breakouts confirmed by volume, called out the bar they happen
- Every check shows the points it costs and can be disabled to fit a specific playbook
- Shows in
- Stack panel, level lines, failed-break marks, the breakout level
- Alerts
- Holds Trigger off traps
- Updates
- Every bar
- Price
- $9/mo
Glossary
Every term in the stack panel, in plain English.
The stack panel states its reads plainly, but the detail rows use standard trading terms. Each one, defined once.
- Stack bias
- The stack’s one direction, from the higher timeframes, price against VWAP and the trend SMA, volume flow, momentum and trend strength. It turns only after several bars of agreement (15 minutes on the 1m and 5m, three bars on longer intervals), so it holds through noise, and every layer reads against it.
- Plan
- The line under the stack bias: what the bias and price’s place in it call for, such as buying pullbacks, waiting for a reclaim, or no new shorts into support. Trigger never fires into a side the plan has ruled out.
- Signal style
- One setting for how much evidence a trade needs. Early enters sooner, including turn entries; Balanced is the default; Selective trades less and grades Tripwire strictly.
- Turn entry
- A Trigger entry off an exhausted low or high: after selling (or buying) dries up, price closes back through the fast EMA with flow turning. Marked as a turn in the signals table.
- 1m, 5m, 15m, 1h, 4h, D
- Candle lengths: one minute, five minutes, fifteen minutes, one hour, four hours and one day. Compass reads the longer ones while you trade the shorter.
- VWAP
- The session’s average price, weighted by volume. Price holding above it generally means buyers have controlled the session; below it, sellers.
- EMA and SMA
- Moving averages. The exponential (EMA) leans on recent bars and turns faster; the simple (SMA) weights every bar equally. Compass draws a fast and a slow EMA, and the 50, 100 and 200-bar SMAs.
- ADX
- Trend strength from 0 to 100, whichever the direction. Above 25 reads as trending; below 20, as weak or ranging.
- RSI
- Momentum on a 0 to 100 scale. High readings mean price is stretched to the upside (overbought), low readings to the downside (oversold). The levels adjust to the ticker’s profile.
- MACD
- The gap between a fast and a slow average. It widens while momentum builds and narrows as it fades.
- Squeeze
- Volatility compressed into an unusually tight range. A squeeze stores energy and usually resolves in a sharp move; Coil calls the release and its direction.
- Divergence
- Price makes a new high or low that momentum or volume doesn’t confirm: often the first sign a move is tiring.
- Delta and CVD
- Delta is a bar’s net buying minus selling volume; cumulative volume delta (CVD) is the session’s running total. Undertow estimates both from each bar’s price and volume.
- Relative volume
- Volume against the ticker’s own normal for that session and time of day. 2.0x means twice its usual.
- Absorption and stacking
- Absorption is heavy volume that fails to move price: someone is filling every order at that level. Stacking is buyers or sellers pressing the same side bar after bar.
- Float
- The shares available to trade. A low float can move violently on modest volume, which is why the ticker profile sets stricter thresholds for it.
- Tape
- The live flow of trades. Thin tape is unusually light volume for the session; heavy tape is selling pressure dominating it.
- Ticker profile
- How the stack calibrates itself: Index/ETF, Large cap, Small cap or Microcap, picked automatically from float, dollar volume and daily range. It sets volume thresholds, stop width and RSI levels.
- ATR
- Average true range: how far the ticker typically moves per bar. Stops sized in ATR fit each ticker’s volatility instead of a fixed number of cents.
- R
- One unit of the risk taken, from entry to stop. A trade closed at +2R made twice what it risked; −1R is a full stop-out.
- LONG, SHORT and ★
- Trigger’s entry tags, with the entry price. The stop and target are in the signals table, and the stop is drawn on the chart in red. A ★ marks the highest-conviction signals: every part of the score and both confirm intervals agree, and the bias isn’t against it.
- CL
- Trigger’s close label: where the trade exits, with the reason (stop, target, trailing stop or fading pressure) and the result in R.
- Clean, Caution, Avoid
- Tripwire’s grades for a new long or short right now: each starts at 100 and loses points for every warning that fires, with the main reason behind each.
- YH, YM, YL
- Yesterday’s high, midpoint and low, drawn across today’s session.
At a glance
The stack, side by side.
Every layer reports into the same stack panel, under one bias and one plan, so any combination reads as one. Settings are consolidated, most of them set by one Signal style, and every one explains itself in the chart’s Settings panel.
| Layer | Question | Shows | Price | Add |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compass | Is the higher timeframe aligned with the trade? | Trend state from 15m to daily, VWAP, EMAs, SMAs, yesterday’s levels | Free | Open |
| Trigger | Where is the entry, the stop and the exit? | LONG, SHORT and CL labels; stop and trailing stop; turn entries | $9/mo | Add |
| Undertow | Is real size behind the move? | Who controls the volume; net buying against selling; stacking, absorption and large orders; relative volume | $9/mo | Add |
| Coil | Is momentum expanding or fading? | Squeeze, release and decay; RSI and MACD; divergence | $9/mo | Add |
| Tripwire | Is the structure sound, or is it a trap? | A grade for the bias side with the reason, the room to the next level, breakouts and reclaims | $9/mo | Add |
Run the full stack on one chart.
The Full Stack puts Trigger, Undertow, Coil and Tripwire on LiveChart with Compass, for $29 a month, below the layers on their own. Start free; add it whenever you’re ready.