ZynIQ Breakout Essentials

Breakout Essentials marks a LONG when a candle closes above the recent range by a small ATR buffer, and a SHORT when one closes below it. Every signal comes with the range box that was broken and a Risk Helper ladder (entry, stop and up to three targets) that is followed bar by bar until the stop or the last target is hit. Signals are decided on closed candles only, so they never appear and then disappear.

How it works

1. The range. On every bar the range is the highest high and lowest low of the previous 20 bars (the current bar is not included). With “Range built from: Bodies” it uses the highest and lowest candle body instead.
2. The break. A LONG needs a closed candle whose close is above the range high plus 0.1 x ATR(14). A SHORT needs a close below the range low minus 0.1 x ATR(14).
3. Candle size. The breakout candle (high to low) must be at least 0.5 x ATR(14), so tiny candles that barely leave the range do not count.
4. Gaps. On intraday charts, the first bar after a time gap of more than 1.5 bars cannot signal.
5. Spacing. At least 5 bars must pass after a signal before the next one.
6. Direction. A signal in the opposite direction to the last one is always allowed (after the spacing). A second signal in the same direction needs a fresh range: the whole 20-bar range must have formed after the last signal, and the high (for a LONG) or low (for a SHORT) being broken must have been set at least 4 bars before the breakout (it held for 3 bars). In “Flip only” mode a same-direction signal is never allowed.
7. The Risk Helper starts a ladder at the signal bar’s close (see below).

Everything is decided when the candle closes. On history every candle is closed, so what you see on old bars is exactly what you would have seen live.

The Risk Helper

• Levels. In ATR mode (default) the stop is 1.0 x ATR(14) from the entry and the targets 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 x ATR(14), measured at the signal bar. Percent mode uses a percentage of the entry price; Points mode a fixed number of price points. Every level is rounded to the tick. A target is never closer than the one before it.
• Tracking. From the bar after the signal, each closed bar is checked with its high and low. If the stop is touched, the trade is Stopped. Otherwise each target reached is marked as hit. If one bar touches both the stop and a target, the stop counts first (the cautious reading, because a bar’s high and low do not tell you which came first).
• Ending. A trade ends when the stop or the last target is hit (Done), when a new signal prints (Closed), or after 100 bars (Expired). With “Move stop to entry after TP1” (and more than one target) the stop moves to the entry from the bar after TP1, and a later stop-out shows “Stopped at entry”.
• History. The current ladder and the last 5 finished ones stay on the chart; older ones are deleted.
• The Risk Helper shows levels only. It does not count wins or losses and shows no performance figures.

What you see on the chart

• LONG label (teal, under the candle) and SHORT label (fuchsia, over the candle) on each signal bar. Hover for the range high, low and close.
• Range box (dashed outline, faint fill in the signal colour) around the range that was broken, from its first bar to the signal bar. The last 20 are kept.
• Live range lines (off by default; faint grey steps): the current range high and low.
• Risk Helper ladder, from the signal bar to the right:
  • Entry: dotted cyan line with an “Entry” price tag.
  • Stop: dashed amber line with an “SL” tag.
  • TP1, TP2, TP3: dashed lines in the signal colour with price tags.
  • The price tags sit at the right end of the lines and move with them while the trade is open.
  • A level that is hit turns solid and thicker, and its own price tag changes to “TP1 hit 31231.00”, “TP2 hit …”, “SL hit …” or “Stop at entry hit …” (in a solid colour). There are no separate hit labels on the candles.
  • With “Move stop to entry after TP1”, the old stop line ends at the TP1 bar, a new amber stop line starts at the entry price and the SL tag reads “SL (entry)”.
• Signal highlight (off by default): a faint background tint on signal bars.
• HUD (top right by default, dark panel):
  • Title row: product name and the Risk Helper mode.
  • Direction (of the last signal) and Status (Waiting, Open, TP1 hit, TP2 hit, Done, Stopped, Stopped at entry, Expired, Closed).
  • Entry and SL, TP1 and TP2, TP3 and how many bars ago the last signal printed.
  • Long above / Short below: the prices a close must clear for the next signal (range plus or minus the buffer). Spacing and direction rules still apply.
• Watermark: “ZynIQ Breakout Essentials”, faint, bottom right.

Settings

Alerts

All alerts fire once, when the candle closes. Create them with Alert, Condition “ZQ Breakout Ess”, then:

• “Any alert() function call”: one alert for everything below, with detailed messages (ticker, timeframe, close, range, entry, stop and target prices). Recommended.
• Or pick a single condition, trigger “Once per bar close”:
  • ZQ Breakout Ess - Long breakout / Short breakout: a signal printed.
  • ZQ Breakout Ess - TP1 hit, TP2 hit, TP3 hit: the open trade reached that target.
  • ZQ Breakout Ess - Stop hit: the open trade’s stop was touched (including a stop moved to entry).

TP and stop alerts need the Risk Helper switched on.

Set it up for your market

How to use it

1. Start on a 5m or 15m chart of a market you know, with the defaults.
2. Treat a LONG or SHORT as “price has left the range decisively”, not as an order. Look at the box: a break from a tight, well-tested range usually means more than a break from a wide, messy one.
3. Favour signals that agree with your higher-timeframe view (for example the direction of the daily trend).
4. Decide before the signal how you will manage it with the ladder: for example, take part off at TP1 and move the stop to entry (switch on “Move stop to entry after TP1”), leave the rest for TP2 or TP3.
5. Use alerts (“Any alert() function call”) so you do not have to watch the screen.

Common mistakes: taking every signal in a tight, sideways market (whipsaws), using Percent or Points mode with values meant for another market, and moving the stop further away after entry.

Pairs well with: Session Master (where the session opens and closes), Premium/Discount Master (where in the bigger range the break happens) and Volume Surge Lite (whether the break has volume behind it). Breakout Lite adds session, premium/discount, volume and volatility filters and a retest helper to this same engine.

Good to know

• Confirmation: a signal appears when the breakout candle closes, never during the candle. On a 1h chart that means at the end of the hour.
• Ladder checks use each closed bar’s high and low, so a target and stop touched inside the same bar count as a stop (cautious). Fills, slippage and spreads are not modelled.
• Session gaps: the gap rule only applies on intraday charts. Daily and higher charts are never skipped.
• Drawing limits: TradingView keeps up to 500 labels per indicator; on long histories the oldest labels are removed first. Range boxes are capped by “Keep past range boxes”, ladders by “Keep past trades”.
• TradingView plan limits decide how many indicators you can add to one chart; Essentials counts as one.
• No performance figures: the indicator never shows win rates or results. Past signals on the chart are not a promise of future ones.
• Not financial advice. The decisions, and the risk, stay yours.

Version 3 changes

• Works on every market by default. v1’s minimum candle size was 0.0003 price units, which did nothing on MNQ, stocks or BTC. Every size is now a multiple of ATR (Average True Range), so the same defaults suit MNQ, EURUSD, BTCUSD and AAPL.
• The break must be decisive. v1 counted a close one tick above the range. v3 needs the close to clear the range by a buffer (0.1 ATR by default).
• Range built from wicks or bodies (the docs promised body-based ranges; v1 had wicks only).
• Repeat signals after a fresh range. v1 was flip-only (after a LONG, no LONG until a SHORT), so a trend gave one signal and chop gave whipsaws. v3 can print a second signal in the same direction once a new range has formed and its level has held for a few bars. Flip only is still an option.
• Ignore the first bar after a session gap (on by default): the futures daily halt, weekends and the overnight gap on regular-hours charts no longer print fake breakouts.
• Range box on every signal (promised, missing in v1). Optional faint live range lines (off by default) show where the next break would be, and the HUD always shows the next trigger prices.
• Signal history kept. v1 deleted every signal label except the latest.
• Risk Helper rebuilt. v1 defaulted to percentages (a 0.7% stop is about 140 points on MNQ), redrew the ladder from the latest bar on every bar and never tracked hits. v3 defaults to ATR (stop 1.0, targets 1.0 / 2.0 / 3.0 x ATR), anchors the ladder at the signal bar, rounds every level to the tick, shows each hit on the level’s own price tag (“TP1 hit”, “SL hit” and so on), turns hit levels solid, can move the stop to entry after TP1, lets you choose 1, 2 or 3 targets, adds a Points mode and keeps the last few ladders.
• Alerts with levels. Alerts for each signal and each TP or stop hit; the detailed alert messages carry the entry, stop and target prices.
• New HUD with position and size settings, the trade plan, its status and the next trigger levels. Every input now has a tooltip.