Balance of Power¶

Indicators · Oscillators

Balance of Power — intrabar buyer/seller pressure, smoothed.

Balance of Power (BOP) measures who won each bar — buyers or sellers — by looking at where price closed relative to where it opened, scaled by the bar's range. A close near the high means buyers dominated; near the low, sellers did. Averaged over time, BOP reveals the persistent pressure underneath price: who's really in control, regardless of whether price has moved much yet. It's a simple, intuitive read of intrabar conviction.

How it works¶

For each bar the block computes (close − open) / (high − low) — a value from +1 (closed at the high, total buyer control) to −1 (closed at the low, total seller control) — then smooths it with an SMA over the Smoothing window (default 14; set to 1 for raw, unsmoothed BOP). The result oscillates around zero in a sub-pane, with Bull ↑ / Bear ↓ signals on the zero cross. Positive means buyers have the upper hand on balance; negative, sellers.

When to use it¶

Use BOP as a pressure and confirmation gauge. Sustained positive readings confirm buyers are in control (supporting longs); the zero cross marks a shift in the balance of power; and divergence — price making new highs while BOP fades — warns the buying conviction is waning even as price holds. It reads a different thing than price-change oscillators (intrabar open-to-close character rather than close-to-close movement), so it's a useful confirming lens. Smoothing trades responsiveness for steadiness.

Example¶

Balance of Power on the EURUSD H1 chart — Balance of Power on EURUSD · H1

Confirm buyer control: wire bars into Balance of Power and require it above zero via a Greater Than (buyers in control), combined with your long trigger through an And gate into a Buy Signal. Watch for BOP/price divergence in the Tester review.

Tips & gotchas¶

Close-vs-open within the range — it reads who won each bar.
Zero cross = power shift; sustained sign = control; divergence = waning conviction.
Smoothing = 1 is raw (twitchy); higher is steadier.
A different lens than close-to-close oscillators — good for confirmation.

Inputs¶

Socket	Type	What to wire in
Bars	`bars`	Price bars

Outputs¶

Output	Type	Plots as	Description
BOP	`series`	Line · sub-pane	Balance of power (≈ -1..1)
Bull ↑	`signal`	Signal arrows	BOP crosses above zero
Bear ↓	`signal`	Signal arrows	BOP crosses below zero

Parameters¶

Parameter	Type	Default	What it does
Smoothing	number · 1–200	`14`	SMA length applied to raw BOP (1 = raw)
Line color	colour	`#26a69a`

Chart guides

This indicator draws reference level(s): Zero.

Reference auto-generated from the block catalog · category Indicators.