Most indicator vendors describe their tool as proprietary and leave it there. That's a reasonable way to protect source code and a poor way to earn trust, because you cannot evaluate a decision rule you're not allowed to understand.
So here is the design of SimpleAlgo V5 in plain language: what it measures, when a signal becomes final, where the levels come from, and when it does badly. Not the source code — the logic you need in order to judge it.
The four questions it answers
The indicator is built around the idea that a chart tool should answer four separate questions, each with a different input. Asking the same question five ways is one of the classic failure modes.
1. Which way is the market leaning? (direction)
A trend layer derived from smoothed price and its slope, evaluated on your chart timeframe and above. It produces one output: bias up, bias down, or unclear.
Its job is exclusion. Counter-bias signals are filtered or de-emphasised, which removes a large share of the trades traders regret. When the market is ranging, the layer is designed to report "unclear" rather than manufacture a direction — and that means fewer signals in chop, on purpose.
2. Where can a move start from? (structure)
Market structure detection: swing highs and lows, break of structure, change of character, and the zones left behind by displacement moves — order blocks and imbalances.
These come with a timing caveat we'd rather state than bury: a swing point cannot be confirmed until bars have traded to the right of it. Structure labels are therefore confirmed late by definition. The level is real; the confirmation is not available at the moment the level forms. Anything that claims otherwise is shifting plots backwards, which is the second kind of repainting.
3. Is anything behind the move? (momentum and participation)
A momentum reading combined with relative volume, used as a filter rather than a trigger. Its purpose is to reject signals where price moved but nothing was behind it — the profile of a lot of false breaks.
4. Where is the idea wrong? (risk)
Every signal prints with a stop level and target levels, derived from current volatility (an average-true-range measure) and the nearest structural level, not from a fixed number of points. The same setup on a quiet morning and a volatile open produces different distances, which is the point: a fixed stop is wrong in at least one of those two conditions.
The targets are multiples of the resulting risk distance, so the trade has a defined risk-reward before you enter, and your position size can be computed from the stop rather than guessed.
When a signal is final
On the close of the candle.
The signal is evaluated as the candle completes, and once printed it does not disappear. Alerts are intended to be set to Once Per Bar Close so that what fires is what stays.
The honest cost: you always enter after the candle that triggered it. You give up the wick and the first part of the move. We accept that trade-off deliberately, because the alternative — reacting to the unclosed candle — produces signals that can be withdrawn, and a signal that can be withdrawn cannot be traded or tested.
You can verify this rather than believe it. Bar replay reproduces live behaviour exactly when signals finalise on the close; the method is in how to test a trading indicator.
Where it does badly
Every tool has conditions it handles poorly. Ours:
Tight ranges. The direction layer reports "unclear" and the structure layer produces breaks that immediately reverse. Fewer signals, lower quality. Standing aside is the correct response, and it's the hardest one.
Scheduled news. Volatility-derived stops widen after the fact, not before. A release can gap straight through a level that was reasonable a minute earlier. Sit out the release.
Illiquid markets and sessions. Relative volume is meaningless when there's barely any volume, and structure formed on thin trade doesn't hold.
Very low timeframes. On sub-minute charts, spread and commission frequently exceed the move a confirmed signal can capture. Check with the fee and break-even calculator before trading a timeframe that small.
Gapping instruments. Overnight gaps skip stops. Position sizing, not the indicator, is what handles that risk.What it is not
Not a bot. Nothing is automated, nothing is executed for you. You place every order.
Not predictive. Nothing on the chart forecasts the next candle. Everything is a measurement of what has already printed.
Not a substitute for sizing. An account can be lost following perfectly good signals at the wrong size. The risk of ruin calculator makes that concrete faster than any indicator can.
Not accompanied by performance claims. We publish no win rate and no returns, because no vendor can prove those to you and you should not buy a number you cannot verify.How to check all of this
Add the indicator to a market and timeframe you trade.
Run the repaint test — five minutes in bar replay.
Log 100 replay trades using the testing method.
Subtract your real costs, then decide.The 7-day money-back guarantee exists so that sequence fits inside the window. That's a better reason to subscribe than any screenshot we could show you.
We publish no win rates, no return figures and no backtest statistics — for our own tools or anyone else's — because no vendor can prove those numbers to you and you should not trade on a number you cannot verify. Everything above is educational. Trading carries a substantial risk of loss. SimpleAlgo is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by TradingView. TradingView is a trademark of TradingView, Inc.
