Auto Pitchfork Indicator, Drawn From Real Swings

What it shows

A median line, plus pairs of parallel lines on both sides of it at set distances. A line joins the second and third swing points. A light fill covers the area inside the 0.5 lines by default. Original type starts from the first point; the other types start from a point moved along the first leg.

How Pravex works it out

1. Find the swing points with a zigzag. A bar is a swing when it is the extreme of half the swing size on each side, and a swing only counts if the move from the previous one is at least 3 × ATR(10) as a percentage of the close. Highs and lows alternate, and the running extreme after the last confirmed swing is added as a live point.
2. Take the last three points: A, B and C. Find M, the middle of B and C (halfway in bars, halfway in price).
3. Pick the median line’s starting point, called the origin, by fork style. Original uses A. Schiff uses A’s bar with a price halfway between A and B. Modified Schiff uses the middle of A and B. Inside uses the middle of A and M.
4. The median line runs from the origin through M and carries on to the right. Its slope is the price change per bar between the origin and M.
5. Each ticked level draws two lines, both parallel to the median line. Start at M and move toward B (and toward C) by the level’s fraction of that distance: at ratio 1 the line passes through B (and C), at 0.5 it is halfway. The lines run to the last bar and beyond.
6. The fill is built from the bands between neighbouring lines. With the fill limited to the 0.5 lines, only the bands up to the 0.5 ratio are filled.

Settings

Setting	Default	What changing it does
Swing size (candles)	10	The swing window: a swing must be the extreme of half this many candles on each side. A bigger number finds slower, wider swings so the fork covers more candles; a smaller one fits recent moves.
Fork style	Original	Where the median line starts. Original, Schiff, Modified Schiff and Inside all use the same three points but move the origin, which changes the slope of the whole fork. Schiff and Modified Schiff start it halfway up or down the first leg.
Fill transparency	85	How see-through the fill is, from 0 (solid) to 100 (none). At 85 it is faint.
Extend lines to the left	off, 1, Solid	Lets the lines carry on to the left edge of the chart as well as to the right. The two boxes after it are the thickness (1 to 4) and the line style (Solid, Dashed or Dotted) of the median line and the line between B and C.
Fill only inside the 0.5 lines	on	Limits the fill to the area within the 0.5 lines on each side. Off fills out to the outermost ticked level. After this box come 9 level rows, each with a tick box, a ratio, a width and a line style (ticked by default: 0.5 and 1; off: 0.25, 0.382, 0.618, 0.75, 1.5, 1.75, 2). Rows above 1 draw lines outside B and C; rows below 1 sit between the median and the outer prongs.

How traders read it

The idea behind a pitchfork is that price tends to return to the median line, and that the outer lines act as the edges of the move. Traders watch for a bounce off a prong in the direction of the trend, or for price to leave the fork altogether.

Say the fork slopes upward and price drops from the top line back toward the median. In pitchfork reading the median is the first area to look at for a bounce. If price closes outside the lower line, they take it as a hint that the channel they were drawing has ended.

The fork style matters. Original runs the median from the first point; Schiff and Modified Schiff start it halfway to the second point in price, which changes the slope. Switch between them to see how much the fork depends on that one choice.

When it misleads

All the lines hang on three points that the zigzag picks, and the last one is a running extreme. When price makes a new swing, the fork is redrawn from different points and last hour’s lines vanish. In a sideways range the three points are close together and the fork turns into a narrow, steeply tilted channel that means little. Changing the fork style or the swing size gives a different fork from the same candles, so there is no single right one. Treat it as a guide to the slope of recent swings.

Questions and answers

How does Auto Pitchfork choose its points?

It runs a zigzag over the candles and uses the last three swing points. Each swing must be the extreme of half the swing size on both sides and must move at least 3 × ATR(10) from the previous swing.

What is the difference between Original, Schiff and Modified Schiff?

Only the starting point of the median line changes. Original starts at the first point. Schiff starts at the first point’s bar but halfway in price to the second point. Modified Schiff starts halfway to the second point in both.

Why did my pitchfork change shape on a new swing?

The third point is the latest running extreme, so the fork follows it while the swing is still forming. Once later candles confirm the swing, that point stays.

What do the level lines on a pitchfork mean?

They are parallel lines at fractions of the distance between the median line and the lines through the second and third points. Ratio 1 is the line through those points; 0.5 is halfway.

Related: Auto Fib Retracement, Auto Fib Extension, Auto Trendlines, Pivot Points High Low, every indicator.