A staircase with a missing step
For days, price has climbed like a staircase: each dip stops above the last one, each push reaches a little higher. Then an hourly candle closes below the last low. Is that a deeper pullback, or the first crack in the trend?
Your chart alone rarely settles it, because that candle mixes two things: the structure of your timeframe and the strength of the trend on bigger ones. Two PulseFlow indicators pull them apart so you can look at each one: PulseFlow Pivot Up & Down marks the swings, and PulseFlow Strong Trend Detector shows the trend across timeframes.
Pivot Up & Down: the steps of the staircase
It puts a red triangle above each swing high and a green one below each swing low, and nothing else: no pane, table, lines or labels. A swing high is a candle whose high stands above the highs on both sides; a swing low is the mirror image.
A swing is confirmed only once the number of candles you chose has closed to its right, so each triangle arrives late, drawn back on the pivot candle; after that it does not move or disappear. That number, the "Bars on each side" setting, also decides how big a swing must be.
Strong Trend Detector: the strength behind the steps
It is based on the RSI (Relative Strength Index), which measures how strongly price has been rising or falling. It brings readings from different timeframes into a separate pane below price, with bullish, bearish and neutral states, and lets you consult the daily, weekly and monthly information.
It answers what the triangles cannot: are you following a strong move or a passing fluctuation? Readings from periods still open, such as the current week, can change until they close.
Two scales, one reading
The triangles describe your chart's timeframe; the pane brings in the daily, weekly and monthly view. So the two can disagree, and the disagreement is worth reading.
Rising steps and a bullish pane tell the same story. With a neutral pane, or timeframes pointing different ways, the same steps call for caution: the climb may be weak, or just a range. And when a step breaks, the pane helps you judge what broke: just your chart's structure, or the context as well. In a downtrend, read it the other way round.
Mind the delay. The break shows on the candles first; the new low gets its triangle only after enough candles close to its right. Use the last green triangle as your line. A new one confirms a new swing; the pane is where you check whether the trend behind it has changed.
When a step breaks: two cases
Imagine an hourly chart. The pane shows a bullish state, and the green triangles keep stepping up. You read each dip as part of the trend.
Then a candle closes below the low that the last green triangle marks. Case one: the pane stays bullish. The hourly staircase has lost a step, but the bigger picture holds; that fits a deeper pullback. Case two: at the daily close, the pane turns neutral. Now structure and context have both changed: time to review your plan.
Setting up the chart
Add both to the same chart; the pair fits even TradingView's free Basic plan, which allows two indicators per chart. Pivot Up & Down works on any symbol and timeframe; try Strong Trend Detector on your own symbol first. Then tune "Bars on each side" to the swings you trade: more candles keep only the bigger steps, though each triangle arrives later; fewer let the smaller ones in.
To step away from the screen, Strong Trend Detector has strong-trend alerts, and Pivot Up & Down offers "Pivot high confirmed" and "Pivot low confirmed", which fire at the close of the confirming candle, with the same delay as the triangles.
The step and the trend on one screen
With both loaded, a broken low comes with two answers: which step gave way, the one the last green triangle marks, and whether the daily, weekly and monthly trend moved too, without extra lines over the candles. You decide how big a step must be to count and which bigger timeframe you check first.
Prices for PulseFlow indicators are not active for now: details are in the pricing section. The next time price breaks the last swing low, ask one question before you act: did only a step break, or the trend behind it too?