Engulfing Signals

25 jul 2023

Okay, so we've got an indicator here that prints buy sell signals based on engulfing candles and uses a 200 EMA and RSI to filter out some of the noise.

This indicator incorporates price action, in the form of engulfing candles, moving averages and a momentum oscillator. It also has the of plotting either a Simple Moving Average or an Exponential Moving Average over varying periods in order to determine if price is respecting a certain level or to develop more accurately-timed alert signals. Engulfing candles can be a good indication of a change in sentiment and momentum.

Engulfing candles can be a good indication of a change in market behaviour but they happen far too often to be of any practical use by themselves.

In order to filter out some of the weaker candles, I have incorporated RSI into this script. The indicator will provide a BUY signal only when an engulfing candle prints and there is a reading of above 50 on the RSI, which is considered to reflect overall bullish sentiment. The signal is printed directly on the chart as a small green triangle just under the engulfing candle.

In contrast, the indicator will provide a SELL signal only when an engulfing candle prints and there is a reading of below 50 on the RSI, which is considered to reflect overall bearish sentiment. The signal is printed directly on the chart as a small red triangle just above the engulfing candle.

In order to maintain a clean chart and maximise the opportunity to couple this indicator up with other indicators that may increase the accuracy of the signals even further, the RSI will not be shown on the chart. However, to verify the accuracy of the signals please feel free to load the RSI indicator onto your chart and you will see that the signals only print according to the conditions described above.

In order to further filter out weaker signals I have made a rule that a buy signal should only print if it is above the 200 EMA and a sell signal only if the engulfing candle is below the 200 EMA. I use the 200 EMA because it is a commonly accepted indication of the general trend and to make the signals as accurate as possible we want to be trading with the longer trend, not against it.

The indicator will not print signals for engulfing candles outside of these parameters.

I suggest combining this indicator with a shorter moving average such as a 9, 14 or 20 perhaps. There is no need to add an additional indicator. You can do this directly in the settings menu. This unique feature allows you to study possible levels that price may or may not be respecting.

Alternatively, you could use the MACD to filter out some of the weaker signals, though bear in mind that the RSI is already doing that to some degree before the signal even prints.

To my knowledge there is no other indicator out there that combines these three concepts but, as you will see, doing so provides some high quality signals.