SMC Pullback

Swing high / low detection by the pullback rule — MetaTrader 5 indicator

Marks swing highs and lows using the pullback definition instead of the usual 3-candle pattern. A high is confirmed only when price trades back through the low of the candle that made it, so every marked point is an actual rejection rather than a shape. Closed bars only, no repainting.

📦 MQL5 Code Base: https://www.mql5.com/en/code/76451

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What is in this folder

Indicators/Code Base/
│
└── SMC Pullback v1.0.mq5             the indicator - one self-contained file

No includes, no dependencies. The whole indicator is one .mq5.

make_figures.py re-implements the detector in Python and draws the figures from its output, so the diagrams cannot drift away from the MQL5 code. It doubles as an independent check on the algorithm.

Installing

1. Copy SMC Pullback v1.0.mq5 into MQL5/Indicators/Code Base (or any subfolder of it).
2. Open it in MetaEditor and compile (F7).
3. Drag it onto a chart from the Navigator.

Works on any symbol and any timeframe. It needs no other indicator and no market data beyond the chart's own history.

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The rule

The detector never looks for both sides at once. It searches for one side at a time and holds three values:

• Direction — which side it is currently looking for.
• Tracked extreme — the highest high (or lowest low) of the current leg.
• Reference level — the opposite edge of the candle that made that extreme.

The reference is the key. A candle that sets a new highest high also supplies the level that will later confirm it: its own low. When price trades back through that low, the high becomes a swing and the search flips to the low side, seeded from the candle that caused the break. Looking for a low is the mirror image.

Because confirming one side always flips the search to the other, highs and lows alternate automatically — there is no rule enforcing it and no comparison against earlier swings.

On each closed candle two independent questions are asked: did it make a new extreme? and did it break the reference? That gives four cases per direction:

#	Current trend	Current candle	Action 1	Action 2
1	Looking for a HIGH	Inside bar — no new high, reference low intact	nothing	nothing
2	Looking for a HIGH	New high, reference low intact	tracked high = this candle's high	reference low = this candle's low
3	Looking for a HIGH	Break — no new high, trades below the reference low	confirm the tracked high as a swing high	flip to LOW, seeded from this candle
4	Looking for a HIGH	Outside bar — new high and breaks the reference low	confirm this candle's own high as a swing high	flip to LOW, seeded from this candle
5	Looking for a LOW	Inside bar — no new low, reference high intact	nothing	nothing
6	Looking for a LOW	New low, reference high intact	tracked low = this candle's low	reference high = this candle's high
7	Looking for a LOW	Break — no new low, trades above the reference high	confirm the tracked low as a swing low	flip to HIGH, seeded from this candle
8	Looking for a LOW	Outside bar — new low and breaks the reference high	confirm this candle's own low as a swing low	flip to HIGH, seeded from this candle

Rows 1–4 and 5–8 are exact mirrors, which is why the engine is only a few dozen lines.

Rows 4 and 8 are the interesting ones. An outside bar can extend the leg and break the reference in the same candle, and the two rules contradict each other. The resolution is to let the candle be the swing itself: its own extreme is confirmed, and the same candle then opens the opposite leg. On the chart that shows up as a marker above and below one bar, with a vertical leg between them.

See here for the full explanation with figures.

No repainting

The tracked extreme is provisional and is never drawn. A swing reaches the chart only on the candle that confirms it, and once drawn it is never moved, recoloured or removed. Only closed bars are evaluated — the forming bar is ignored.

The trade-off, stated plainly: confirmation lag. The newest swing appears only after the break that validates it. A marker that appeared the instant a new high printed would have to move later, which is exactly what repainting means.

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Inputs

Group	Input	Default	Notes
Detection	Start by looking for	swing high	Affects only the oldest bars; after the first confirmation the direction follows the breaks.
Detection	Break confirmed by	Wick	Wick is the literal rule. Close requires a close through the reference — fewer, larger swings.
Display	Draw the swing markers	true	Buffers stay filled either way, so iCustom is unaffected.
Display	Arrow code high / low	217 / 218	Wingdings codes.
Display	Arrow distance	10	Pixels between the candle and the arrow.
Display	Draw the legs	true	The dotted zig-zag between consecutive swings.
Display	Leg colour / style / width	silver, dotted, 1
Alerts	Popup / Push	false	Fire once per swing, on live updates only.

Choosing a break mode: start with Wick. On M1–M15, or on wick-heavy symbols such as gold and index CFDs, switch to Close — it removes most swings caused by a single spike without changing the logic anywhere else. There is no period or sensitivity to tune; a higher timeframe is the other way to get larger structure.

Using it from an EA

Two buffers, non-empty only on confirmed swings (empty value 0.0):

Buffer	Contents
0	price of a confirmed swing high
1	price of a confirmed swing low

int h = iCustom(_Symbol, _Period, "SMC_Pullback");
double buf[];
CopyBuffer(h, 0, 0, 100, buf);   // swing highs

The detection engine is a single self-contained class, CPullbackDetector, with no buffer or chart dependencies — it takes the price arrays and reports confirmed swings. Copy it straight into an EA if you would rather not go through iCustom.

Scope

This indicator stops at the swing points. It does not label HH/HL/LH/LL and it does not derive BOS, CHoCH, IDM, order blocks or liquidity levels. Those are separate steps that all need a reliable set of swings first — which is what this provides.

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Credits and use

The pullback definition of a swing comes from the Trading Hub 3.0 methodology. This is an independent MQL5 implementation of that rule; it shares no code with any other project.

Copyright 2026, Sandro Begashvili

Published free on the MQL5 Code Base: https://www.mql5.com/en/code/76451