Ants Pro - MVP Leaders [LevelUp]

Ants Pro identifies exceptionally strong momentum, volume, and price action (MVP) — often one of the earliest signs of institutional accumulation. It offers extensive customization, powerful historical analysis tools, and advanced screening features to give traders a meaningful edge.

Ants Pro was developed in collaboration with David Ryan, three-time winner of the U.S. Investing Championship. David worked with William O’Neil and managed the New USA Growth Fund at William O’Neil + Company, where the Ants idea originated.

Ants Pro helps answer an important question posed by David:

“What separates a stock that makes a 15–20% move from one that rises 15–20%, builds a base, and then continues significantly higher?”

Through his research, David found that many of the market’s biggest winners showed consistent buying over 12 to 15 days, on high volume — a sign of steady institutional accumulation that often unfolds over days or weeks as institutions establish large positions in a stock.

In addition to spotting early accumulation, Ants Pro can flag signs of topping patterns, alerting traders to possible shifts in market sentiment and helping them navigate momentum changes effectively.

🔹—— Key Features ——🔹

▪ Automated detection and highlighting of Ants.
▪ Extensive customization options to match your trading style.
▪ Hover over Ants for detailed stats.
▪ Optional table showing progress towards a new Ant.
▪ Pine Screener support to find new and historical Ants.
▪ Create symbol or watchlist alerts to get real-time notifications of new Ants.

🔹—— Ants Pro Overview ——🔹

The original Ants indicator was published on TradingView in 2021, before Ant integration became available in MarketSurge — a premium charting platform developed by Investor’s Business Daily, the company founded by William O’Neil. Ants Pro is a complete rewrite designed to deliver a similar visual experience while adding extensive customization options, real-time and historical Ant statistics, unique alert features, and support for the Pine Screener to enable comprehensive stock screening.

🔹—— Ants ▪ Momentum, Volume & Price (MVP) ——🔹

The default criteria for a new Ant are based on the daily timeframe and are as follows:

▪ Momentum: Stock closed higher at least 12 of the past 15 days.
▪ Volume: Volume 20%+ above its 50-day average over the past 15 days.
▪ Price: Price up 20%+ over the past 15 days.

You can adjust these parameters based on your trading style and preferences. See the Settings section below for more details.

If you’re wondering about the name “Ants,” it comes from the original implementation, where small black marks were plotted above price bars whenever the MVP criteria were met, resembling ants on the chart.

🔹—— Ants As MVP Leaders ——🔹

Ants highlight significant strength in price and volume, yet they aren’t a buy signal on their own. With the default criteria, a stock that’s up 12 of the past 15 days with price and volume running 20%+ above average is showing exceptional momentum — yet it's important to avoid chasing price.

Instead, add stocks showing Ants to a watchlist and wait for a pullback to an area of support, such as a moving average or a prior price zone where support was evident. Another strong setup is sideways consolidation followed by a decisive breakout above the consolidation high.

CELH


FTAI


IREN


🔹—— Ants As Topping Signal ——🔹

The Ants indicator can be helpful for spotting topping formations. When you compare the definition of a climax top with Ants, they have similar price and volume characteristics.

Climax Top
▪ Stock in a strong, extended uptrend, followed by a 20%+ surge in price over 2 to 3 weeks.
▪ Multiple high-volume up days and/or a large gap up near the absolute peak.
▪ Highest price of move occurs, followed immediately by a reversal.

Because the default Ant settings are essentially looking for the same combination of extreme price acceleration and volume surge, the indicator will often show Ants at or just before a topping pattern. That visual cue begs the question, is this the final blow-off, or just another leg higher?

Context is everything. Paying close attention to where the stock has already been — how extended it is from your preferred moving averages, a prior base, or institutional support levels — is what separates a high-probability profit-taking opportunity from an early exit on a still trending leader.

The distance from the 50-day SMA helps show how far price has stretched above its intermediate trend; when a stock extends too far above this level, it often reflects unsustainable strength and a higher risk of a pullback.

The Average True Range (ATR) multiple helps quantify how far price has moved relative to its average volatility, giving a normalized read on how stretched a stock is. The ATR multiple is simply the distance between price and the 50-SMA expressed in ATR units. For example, an ATR multiple of 5 means price is five times its ATR above the 50-SMA. Ants Pro uses a 20-day ATR.

OKLO


APLD


🔹—— Stats Table ▪ Progress Towards New Ant ——🔹

There is an optional table that highlights every requirement and how current price and volume are tracking toward qualifying as a new Ant. When conditions are close, a shallow pullback or consolidation may offer a possible early entry.

TSLA


🔹—— Hover Over Ants For Stats ——🔹

As shown above in the charts of OKLO and APLD, you can hover your cursor over any Ant to get detailed price and volume stats.

▪ Close Up: number of bars up versus the requirement.
▪ Volume % Change: % change versus the requirement.
▪ Price % Change: % change versus the requirement.
▪ From 50-SMA: how far is the price from the 50-SMA.
▪ ATR Multiple: how many ATR multiples is the price from the 50-SMA.

Note: To hover over an Ant, the Ants Pro indicator needs to be shown on top of all other indicators. Follow the steps in the chart below to bring Ants Pro to the front.


🔹—— Context-Sensitive Help ——🔹

All help tooltips are context-aware and update based on your Settings. If you adjust the Ant requirements, for example, changing the default 12 of 15 days to 7 of 10 days, the Ants popup and table values will automatically reflect those changes.


🔹—— Configuring Alerts ——🔹

New Ant Alert
Using the TradingView alert dialog, choose the option for "New Ant" to be notified when price and volume meet the requirements for a new Ant.


Watchlist Alerts
To be notified when there is a new Ant across a range symbols, you can use a watchlist alert as outlined below.


Historical Ants Alert
In the Condition drop-down menu of the alert dialog, there is an option for Historical Ants. This setting is intended for use with the Pine Screener. If you select this for an alert on a stock, an alert will be generated if there are one or more Ants going back in time based on the Historical Bars To Search value in Settings. For example, if Historical Bars To Search is set to 50, and there is an Ant on the chart within the past 50 bars, an alert will be triggered.

🔹—— Stock Screening ——🔹

Ants Pro works with the Pine Screener, eliminating the need for a separate screening indicator.

Screening For New Ants
To search for new Ants on the most recent bar:


The new Ant might appear only on the last bar, or it could be part of a longer series of Ants.


Screening For Historical Ants
When searching historical bars, you can configure how far back to search:


Screening And Custom Ant Requirements
You can change any of the default price and volume requirements. For example, instead of 12 of 15 days up and 20%+ gains, your preference may be 8 of 10 days up and 10%+ gains.


🔹—— Settings ——🔹

Ant Requirements
You can customize the default price and volume requirements to align with your preferences.


Table Of Ant Stats
The table showing status towards the progress of a new Ant has several configurable options:
▪ Current Progress: shows the stats of price and volume.
▪ Always On: table will always be visible, even if there is an Ant on the last bar.


Historical Bars To Search
This option is only applicable when using the Pine Screener. By default, searching historical bars will look back approximately one year (250 daily bars). However, you might prefer to screen over a shorter period of time. For example, change the value to 50 to look for Ants that occurred over the past 50 bars.

🔹—— Studying Past Winners & Reviewing Trades ——🔹

TradingView’s Bar Replay is an incredibly useful feature that lets you step through any historical chart bar by bar, simulating real-time price movement as it unfolded. You can revisit past big winners, review your own trades, test whether a pattern would have influenced your decisions at the time, and use those insights to refine your price and volume analysis.

AXON


🔹—— Best Practices ——🔹

In technical analysis, it’s essential to understand where price is coming from. Never evaluate a pattern in isolation — always zoom out and study the broader context of price and volume.

The same applies to Ants. Remember, Ants are not a buy signal. When they appear, zoom out on the chart and assess where price is in relation to moving averages and prior areas of support or resistance. Review higher timeframes to see the bigger picture.

▪ Build a watchlist as new Ants appear. Review the watchlist regularly for potential trades.
▪ Relative strength is essential. Look for the RS Line to be trending up.
▪ Look for earnings and sales acceleration as confirmation of strength.
▪ Always define risk before entering a trade — know where you’ll exit.
▪ Size positions based on volatility and conviction, not emotion.
▪ Be patient — trends take time to develop.

🔹—— Acknowledgements ——🔹

A sincere thank you to David Ryan for sharing his expertise on Ant requirements and for offering insightful suggestions to improve the Ants Pro indicator.