Indicator 19

Bar Pressure Ratio

Was the top of that bar bought or rejected? The volume split says what the candle can't.

Chart overlay · Intraday, 1m to 1h · Liquid futures, stocks and ETFs

The Bar Pressure Ratio splits each bar's volume by where it traded within the bar, which tells you whether the high was bought or rejected. Two bars can close identically and mean opposite things; the volume split is what separates them.

What it shows

For each bar: the share of volume that traded in the top of its range versus the bottom.
A compact ratio printed only on the bars where it matters (thresholds are yours to set).
Rejection and defense readings at swing extremes, with alerts.

How it reads the market

A wick tells you price visited a level; the volume split tells you what happened there. Heavy volume at the highs of a bar that closed poorly reads as rejection; heavy volume at the lows of a bar that held reads as defense. This study does that arithmetic on every bar.

Settings

Setting	Default	What it does
Extreme zone	top/bottom 25%	How much of the bar's range counts as the extreme.
Rejection / defense thresholds	3.0 / 0.33	The ratio levels that earn a printed reading.
Lower timeframe	auto	The intrabar resolution behind the split.

Everything is an input: colors, thresholds and time windows adjust from the indicator's settings panel, no code needed.

Built-in alerts

Rejection reading
Defense reading

Set them once from TradingView's alert dialog and get notified on your phone, no chart-watching required.

Comes with the membership

The whole indicator suite is included with the paid plan, $20/month or $200/year. Subscribe, submit your TradingView username, and the scripts land in your TradingView library.

Get full access

How to add it to your chart

Request access above with your TradingView username (one request covers the whole suite).
We grant it on TradingView, usually within 24 hours; TradingView notifies you.
On your chart, open Indicators → Invite-only scripts and add Bar Pressure Ratio.

When to use it, and when not to

It earns its place when

You read intraday tape and want to know who won each bar.
Price is testing a level and you need to see whether the test is being absorbed.
You want a volume read that works on any liquid instrument without a full order book.

Leave it off the chart when

Volume data is unreliable or thin. The ratio is only as good as the volume behind it.
You are looking at a daily chart. A day's volume split hides everything that happened inside it.
The bar is a gap or an opening print. There is no meaningful intrabar distribution to split.

Common questions

What does buying pressure mean on a single bar?

That most of the bar's volume traded in its upper portion, so buyers were paying up and the close held near the high. The opposite distribution, volume concentrated near the low with a close well off the high, is rejection.

How is this different from just looking at the close?

Two bars with the same open and close can have completely different volume distributions. One was accumulated all the way up. The other spiked, got sold, and closed back where it started. The close alone cannot tell them apart.

Do I need level 2 or order flow data?

No. This is inferred from the bar's own high, low, close and volume. It is an approximation of what a real order book would show, and it works on any chart with reliable volume.

What timeframe works best?

One minute to one hour. Below a minute the noise dominates. Above an hour, too much happens inside the bar for a single split to describe it.