Hikkake Hunter 2.0

2023年3月19日

This script serves as a successor to a previous script I wrote for identifying Hikkakes nearly two years ago.
The old version has been preserved here:

█ OVERVIEW

This script is a rework of an old script that identified the Hikkake candlestick pattern. While this pattern is not usually considered a part of the standard candlestick patterns set, I found a lot of value when finding a solution to identifying it. A Hikkake pattern is a 3-candle pattern where a middle candle is nested in between the range of the prior candle, and a candle that follows has a higher high and a higher low (bearish setup) or a lower high and a lower low (bullish setup). What makes this pattern unique is the "confirmation" status of the pattern; within 3 candles of this pattern's appearance, there must be a candle that closes above the high (bullish setup) or below the low (bearish setup) of the second candle. Additional flexibility has been added which allows the user to specify the number of candles (up to 5) that the pattern may have to confirm after its appearance.

█ CONCEPTS

This script will cover concepts mainly focusing on candlestick analysis, price analysis (with higher timeframes), and statistical analysis. I believe there is also educational value presented with the use of user-defined-types (UDTs) in accomplishing these concepts that I hope others will find useful.

Candlestick Analysis - Identification and confirmation of the patterns in the deprecated script were clunky and inefficient. While the previous script required the use of 6 candles to perform the confirmations of patterns (restricted solely to identifying patterns that confirmed in 3 candles or less), this script only requires 3 candles to identify and process patterns by utilizing a UDT representing a 'pattern object'. An object representing a pattern will be created when it has been identified, and fields within that object will be set for processing by the functions it is passed to. Pattern objects are held by a var array (values within the array persist between bars) and will be removed from this array once they have been confirmed or non-confirmed.

This is a significant deviation from the previous script's methods, as it prevents unnecessary re-evaluations of the confirmation status of patterns (i.e. Hikkakes confirmed on the first candle will no longer need to be checked for confirmations on the second or third; a pitfall of the deprecated version which required multiple booleans tracking prior confirmation statuses). This deviation is also what provides the flexibility in changing the number of candles that can pass before a pattern is deemed non-confirmed.

As multiple patterns can be confirmed simultaneously, this script uses another UDT representing a linked-list reduction of the pattern object used to process it. This liked-list object will then be used for Price Analysis.

Price Analysis - This script employs the use of a UDT which contains all the returns of confirmed patterns. The user specifies how many candles ahead of the confirmed pattern to calculate its return, as well as where this calculation begins. There are two settings: FROM APPEARANCE and FROM CONFIRMATION (default). Price differences are calculated from the open of the candle immediately following the candle which had confirmed the pattern to the close of the candle X candles ahead (default 10). (SEE FEATURES)

Because of how Pine functions, this calculation necessitates a lookback on prior candles to identify when a pattern had been confirmed. This is accomplished with the following pseudo-code:

Pine Script®

All return UDTs are held in a matrix which breaks up these patterns into specific groups covered in the next section.

Higher Timeframes - This script makes a request.security call to a higher timeframe in order to identify a price range which breaks up these patterns into groups based on the 'partition' they had appeared in. The default values for this partitioning will break up the chart into three sections: upper, middle, and lower. The upper section represents the highest 20% of the yearly trading range that an asset has experienced. The lower section represents the trading range within a third (33%) of the yearly low. And the middle section represents the yearly high-low range between these two partitions.

The matrix containing all return UDTs will have these returns split up based on the number of candles required to confirm the pattern as well as the partition the pattern had appeared in. The underlying rationale is that patterns may perform better or worse at different parts of an asset's trading range.

Statistical Analysis - Once a pattern has been confirmed, the matrix containing all return UDTs will be queried to check if a 'returnArray' object has been created for that specific pattern. If not, one will be initialized and a confirmed linked-list object will be created that contains information pertinent to the matrix position of this object.

This matrix contains the returns of both the Bullish and Bearish Hikkake patterns, separated by the number of candles needed to confirm them, and by the partitions they had appeared in. For the standard 3 candles to confirm, this means the matrix will contain 18 elements (dependent on the number of candles allowed for confirmations; its size will range from 12 to 30).

When the required number of candles for Price Analysis passes, a percent return is calculated and added to the returnArray contained in the matrix at the location derived from the confirmed linked-list object's values. The return is added, and all values in the returnArray are updated using Pine's built in array.___ functions. This returnArray object contains the array of all returns, its size, its average, the median, the standard deviation of returns, and a separate 3-integer array which holds values that correspond to the types of returns experienced by this pattern (negative, neutral, and positive)*.

After a pattern has been confirmed, this script will place the partition and all of the aforementioned stats values (plus a 95% confidence interval of expected returns) related to that pattern onto the tooltip of the label that identifies it. This allows users to scroll over the label of a confirmed pattern to gauge its prior performance under specific conditions. The percent return of the specific pattern identified will later be placed onto the label tooltip as well. (SEE LIMITATIONS)

The stats portion of this script also plays a significant role in how patterns are presented when using the Adaptive Coloring mode described in FEATURES.

*These values are incremented based on user-input related to what constitutes a 'negative' or 'positive' return. Default values would place any return by a pattern between -3% and 3% in the 'neutral' category, and values exceeding either end will be placed in the 'negative' or 'positive' categories.

█ FEATURES

This script contains numerous inputs for modifying its behavior and how patterns are presented/processed, separated into 5 groups.

Confirmation Setting - The most important input for this script's functioning. This input is a 'confirm=true' input and must be set by the user before the script is applied to the chart. It sets the number of candles that a pattern has to confirm once it has been identified.

Alert Settings - This group of booleans sets which types of alerts will fire during the scripts execution on the chart. If enabled, the four alerts will trigger when: a pattern has been identified, a pattern has been confirmed, a pattern has been non-confirmed, and show the return for that confirmed pattern in an alert. Because this script uses the 'alert' function and not 'alertcondition', these must be enabled before 'any alert() function call' is set in TradingView's 'alerts' settings.

Partition Settings - This group of inputs are responsible for creating (and viewing) the partitions that breaks the returns of the patterns identified up into their respective groups. The user may set the resolution to grab the range from, the length back of this resolution the partitions get their values from, the thresholds which breaks the partitions up into their groups, and modify the visibility (if they're shown, the colors, opacity) of these partitions.

Stats Settings - These inputs will drastically alter how patterns are presented and the resulting information derived from them after their appearance. Because of this section's importance, some of these inputs will be described in more detail.

P/L Sample Length - Defines the number of candles after the starting point to grab values from in the % return calculation for that pattern.

P/L Starting Point - Defines the starting point where the P/L calculation will take place. 'FROM APPEARANCE' will set the starting point at the candle immediately following the pattern's appearance. 'FROM CONFIRMATION' will place the starting point immediately following the candle which had confirmed the pattern. (SEE LIMITATIONS)

Min Returns Needed - Sets how many times a specific pattern must appear (both by number of candles needed to confirm and by partition) before the statistics for that pattern are displayed onto the tooltip (and for gradient coloration in Adaptive Coloring mode).

Enable Adaptive Coloring - Changes the coloration of the patterns based on the bullish/bearishness of the specified Gradient Reference value of that pattern compared to the Return Tolerance values OR the minimum and maximum values of that specified Gradient Reference value contained in the matrix of all returns. This creates a color from a gradient using the user-specified colors and alters how many of the patterns may appear if prior performance is taken into account.

Gradient Reference - Defines which stats measure of returns will be used in the gradient color generation. The two settings are 'AVG' and 'MEDIAN'.

Hard Limit[\b] - This boolean sets whether the Return Tolerance values will not be replaced by values that exceed them from the matrix of returns in color gradient generation. This changes the scale of the gradient where any Gradient Reference values of patterns that exceed these tolerances will be colored the full bullish or bearish gradient colors, and anything in between them will be given a color from the gradient.

Visibility Settings - This last section includes all settings associated with the overall visibility of patterns found with this script. This includes the position of the labels and their colors (+ pattern colors without Adaptive Coloring being enabled), and showing patterns that were non-confirmed.

Most of these inputs in the script have these kinds of descriptions to what they do provided by their tooltips.

█ HOW TO USE

I attempted to make this script much easier to use in terms of analyzing the patterns and displaying the information to the user. The previous script would have the user go to the 'data window' side bar on TradingView to view the returns of a pattern after they had specified which pattern to analyze through the settings, needlessly convoluted. This aim at simplicity was achieved through the use of UDTs and specific code-design.

To use, simply apply the indicator to a chart, set the number of candles (between 2 and 5) for confirming this specific pattern and adjust the many settings described above at your leisure.

█ LIMITATIONS

Disclaimer - This is a tool created with the hopes of helping identify a specific pattern and provide an informative view about the performance of that pattern. Previous performance is not indicative of future results. None of this constitutes any form of financial advice, *use at your own risk*.

Statistical Analysis - This script assumes that all patterns will yield a NORMAL DISTRIBUTION regarding their returns which may not be reflective of reality. I personally have limited experience within the field of statistics apart from a few high school/college courses and make no guarantees that the calculation of the 95% confidence interval is correct. Please review the source code to verify for yourself that this interval calculation is correct (Function Name: f_DisplayStatsOnLabel).

P/L Starting Point - Because of when the object related to the confirmation status of a pattern is created (specifically the linked-list object) setting the 'P/L Starting Point' to 'FROM APPEARANCE' will yield the results of that P/L calculation at the same time as 'FROM CONFIRMATION'.

█ EXAMPLES

Default Settings:


Partition Background (default):



Partition Background (Resolution D : Length 30):


Adaptive Coloration:


Show Non-Confirmed:

2023年3月19日

リリースノート

Final Comment Polishing