Band Touch Grader
Bollinger Bands plot a 20-period simple moving average with the bands set 2 standard deviations above and below it, the convention John Bollinger built in the 1980s. Keltner Channels here use the version traders actually run today: a 20-period EMA with bands built from 2 times a 10-period Average True Range, smoothed the way J. Welles Wilder described it in 1978. Paste your bars, pick the band, and this analyzer tags every touch of either edge, checks whether price got back to the midline within your window or rode the band instead, and grades a fade on your current touch against that history, with the stop and 2 targets.
Basis: 20-period SMA. Bands: price close, times 2 population standard deviations, added to and subtracted from the basis.
One bar per line, oldest first, any timeframe. A leading date or a trailing volume column is fine and gets ignored. Paste at least 30 bars so the moving average has room to settle; 50 or more gives a reversion rate worth trusting.
ATR period only matters for Keltner. Reversion window is how many bars after a touch count as a chance to get back to the basis line.
No read yet
Paste your bars and hit Grade. Or load an example.
How a touch gets graded. A bar touches the upper band when its high reaches or passes the upper line, and the lower band the same way on the low. From the bar after a touch, the analyzer watches up to your reversion window for a close back at or through the basis line. If that happens, the touch is reverted. If the window runs out first, it's a ride: the band absorbed the move instead of turning it. A touch too close to your last bar to have a full window yet is marked incomplete and left out of the rate. The live touch on your most recent bar, if there is one, is what the verdict is built on: with 3 or more resolved touches on that side, a 60% or higher reversion rate calls a fade, 40% or lower calls it a band walk and tells you to skip it, and anything between gets a mixed read. Under 3 resolved touches, there isn't enough history yet and the verdict says so. When a fade is called, entry is the last close, the stop sits 25% of that bar's band width past the touched extreme, and the 2 targets are the basis line then the far band. Note on Keltner: the original 1960 version from Chester Keltner used a 10-day simple moving average of the typical price with a fixed band. What's built into most platforms now, and into this analyzer, is the EMA-and-ATR version popularized decades later. Keyboard: Ctrl+Enter grades, 1 to 3 load the examples, C copies the read.
Educational tool only, not financial advice. A reversion rate here comes from your pasted history, often a short and noisy sample. A high rate is not a guarantee the next touch reverts, and a band walk can end on any bar.
Built by Jason Parker, founder of Trading Ranges.
Built by Jason Parker, founder of Trading Ranges.