Pivot points are an old floor-trader tool: a few levels worked out from yesterday's high, low and close, watched as places where price might stall or turn. The Pivot Levels node computes the classic set, or the Camarilla or Woodie variants, from the last finished session, week or month, and holds them steady until the next one closes.
- Takes
- Nothing. It reads the prior period's high, low and close
- Gives
- The pivot point and up to three levels above and below it
- Reach for it
- Support and resistance from yesterday, last week or last month
How it works
Pick a method and an anchor. The anchor is the finished period the levels come from: the prior Session (18:00 to 17:00 on ES and NQ), the prior RTH session (09:30 to 16:00 only, so overnight trading is ignored), the prior Week or the prior Month. From that period's high (H), low (L) and close (C) the node works out its levels once, holds them flat through the next period, and moves them one bar after that period closes. Before the first finished period in your data, they're empty.
| Method | Pivot point (PP) | The levels |
|---|---|---|
| Classic | (H + L + C) ÷ 3 | R1 = 2PP − L and S1 = 2PP − H; R2 and S2 = PP ± (H − L); R3 = H + 2(PP − L) and S3 = L − 2(H − PP) |
| Camarilla | (H + L + C) ÷ 3 | R1 and S1 = C ± 1.1 × (H − L) ÷ 4; R2 and S2 = C ± 1.1 × (H − L) ÷ 2 |
| Woodie | (H + L + 2C) ÷ 4 | The classic R1, S1, R2 and S2, built on Woodie's pivot |
A few things the table hides. Camarilla's levels hang off the close rather than the pivot, and its two levels a side are the ones Camarilla traders call H3, H4, L3 and L4, so the ports read R1 (H3), R2 (H4) and so on. Woodie counts the close twice, which pulls its pivot toward where the period finished. Both stop at two levels a side, so the node hides R3 and S3 for them.
On ES and NQ, Session against RTH is a real choice. Session pivots include the overnight trading, RTH pivots only the cash hours, so an overnight high or low moves one set and not the other. Neither is the "right" one. Pick the one your idea is about.
On the chart the levels draw as one family of steps: the pivot point in the node's color, the resistances warmer and dashed, the supports cooler.
Example: long between the pivot and R1
Say you have a long entry on NQ 5m and want it to respect the day's pivots: buy only while price is above yesterday's pivot point, aim for R1, and get out if price falls back through the pivot.
Add Pivot Levels (Classic, Session). Build "between" from two Comparison nodes: Current Price Greater Than PP, and Current Price Less Than R1. AND both with your signal through a Logic node into the Entry. On the Bracket Order, measure the target from a Level: wire R1 into its level input with a distance of 0. Do the same for the stop with PP.
The second Comparison isn't decoration. A trade taken above R1 would have its target behind it, and the engine won't open a trade whose target is already passed. Both bracket levels are read once, at the fill, so they don't jump when the next session's pivots arrive.
Settings
Outputs
Use something else when
When it doesn't behave
My pivots change in the evening, not at the open
On ES and NQ a session runs 18:00 to 17:00, so with the Session anchor the new levels arrive one bar into the evening session, not at 09:30. If you think of yesterday as the cash session, switch the anchor to RTH.
R3 and S3 stopped working
You switched to Camarilla or Woodie, which only define two levels a side. Anything still reading R3 or S3 gets an empty value, and a comparison against an empty value never fires.
The builder won't take RTH pivots on 1-hour bars
The levels are read off the session calendar, so the bars have to close on the period's edges. No 60-minute bar closes at 09:30. Use 30-minute bars or finer (or, on ES and NQ, the Session anchor).
Going further
The method and the anchor can't be swept, and that's deliberate: they're different ideas about where support lives, not one idea's parameters. You can still try all three by hand, but then you've run an optimization, and the honest move is to treat it as one before you believe the winner.
Pivots are read off the exchange calendar by the backtest engine, so Preview Mode and Signal Research can't compute them. Run a backtest to see them on the chart.