What it does
Prices such as 1.1000 on EUR/USD, 150.00 on USD/JPY or 2,500 on gold tend to attract attention. Orders cluster there because people like round numbers for entries, stops and targets. This indicator draws a ladder of these psychological levels around the current price and works out a sensible spacing for any symbol automatically.
How it works
- Automatic step = 10 raised to (the rounded base-10 logarithm of price minus 2), multiplied by the scale input. In practice that gives one hundredth of the nearest power of ten to the price.
- Illustrative results: a price near 1.08 gives a step of 0.01 (100 pips), near 150 gives 1.00, near 2,400 gives 10, near 18,000 gives 100 and near 60,000 gives 1,000.
- A manual step greater than zero overrides the automatic one.
- The major level just below price is found with floor(price / step) x step. The indicator draws the chosen number of major levels above and below it, plus dotted half levels in between.
- The ladder is only rebuilt when price moves into a different step or the step changes, so the indicator does very little work per tick. All its horizontal lines share a prefix and are deleted when the indicator is removed.
- Alerts compare the last two closed bars: if their closes fall in different steps, the level between them was crossed.
How to use it
Round numbers are best treated as zones rather than exact prices. Common ideas:
- Expect hesitation or reactions on the first test of a major level, especially if it lines up with other support and resistance.
- Avoid placing a stop-loss exactly on a round number, where many other stops may sit; a buffer beyond it is common practice.
- Use the half levels on lower timeframes and the majors on H4 and D1.
To see how much a move between two levels is worth in money, use the Pip Calculator.
Settings
| Input | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Step in price units | 0 (auto) | Fixed spacing when set above zero |
| Automatic step multiplier | 1.0 | Scales the automatic spacing |
| Major levels each side | 5 | Number of levels drawn above and below |
| Draw half levels | true | Dotted lines halfway between majors |
| Major / half colour, width | slate / gray, 1 | Line appearance |
| Popup alert / Push notification | false | Alerts once per bar on a cross of a major level |
Limitations
- The automatic step is a rule of thumb; some instruments are better served by a manual step.
- Round numbers do not always hold, and strong moves often pass through several in a row.
- Only the levels near the current price are drawn; older parts of the chart may lie outside the ladder.
- Level crosses on the live bar are ignored until the bar closes.