Feature guide · 4 min read
Pullback Candles
Marks the precise moment a short pullback turns: two consecutive lower closes followed by a higher close, on a fresh swing low.
- Settings toggle
- Enable Pullback Candles
- NinjaTrader 8 name
- ToredaPullback
- Ships enabled
- No
What it does
Detects a 3-bar, swing-confirmed pullback and marks it with a diamond, plus an optional text label.
- Bull pullback — two consecutive lower closes followed by a higher close (`Close[2] < Close[3]`, `Close[1] < Close[2]`, `Close[0] > Close[1]`), where this bar's or the prior bar's low is the lowest of the last 6 bars. Optionally requires `Close > EMA(Bull EMA Length)`.
- Bear pullback — the mirror: two higher closes then a lower close, with a 10-bar swing high, optionally requiring `Close < EMA(Bear EMA Length)`.
How to read it
The swing condition is what separates this from any three-bar wiggle: the pattern only counts where the pullback actually reached a fresh low. The optional 2/5/9 SMA plots give the short-term trend context the pattern is read against.
Faster charts produce many more signals
The pattern is short by construction, so on a fast chart it fires often and in both directions. Turn the EMA filters on to keep only with-trend pullbacks.
Inputs
| Input | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Bull EMA Length / Bear EMA Length | 50 / 50 | EMA periods for the trend filters. |
| Use Bull EMA Filter / Use Bear EMA Filter | Off / Off | Only count pullbacks in the direction of the EMA trend. |
| Show MAs | Off | Plot the 2/5/9 SMAs. |
| Show Labels | Off | "PB Bull" / "PB Bear" text beside each diamond. |
| Bull Color / Bear Color | Green / Red | Marker and label colors. |
| MA 2 / MA 5 / MA 9 Color | Blue / #A200FF / Green | SMA plot colors. |
| Draw Visuals | On | Master drawing switch. |
Adding it to a chart
- Right-click the chart → Indicators… → find ToredaPullback, click Add, set the inputs, click OK.
- Color inputs shown as #RRGGBB are typed as hex text, e.g. `#6FA8DC`. An invalid value falls back to a default and prints a note in the NinjaScript Output window rather than failing the indicator.
- Faster charts produce many more signals; turn the EMA filters on to keep only with-trend pullbacks.
Notes and limitations
- The signal is a one-bar pulse with no cooldown, so consecutive qualifying patterns each fire.
- Markers are placed 4 ticks beyond the bar's low or high and labels 8 ticks, so they scale with the instrument's tick size.
For strategy builders
NinjaTrader 8 only
Every plot is registered transparent, so it changes nothing on a chart until you color it in the indicator dialog. Levels are NaN when there is no value — never 0, which would compare as a real price — and flags are 1/0.
| Plot | Meaning |
|---|---|
| MA2 / MA5 / MA9 | The three SMAs. NaN during the 12-bar warmup. |
| BullSignal / BearSignal | 1 on the bar a pullback fires. |
This content is for educational purposes only and is not financial advice. Trading involves substantial risk of loss. See our risk disclosure for details.