Meander Bands: Short-Term Bands from Percentage OHLC Changes

Summary

Meander Bands are presented as a short-term alternative to Bollinger Bands. Instead of measuring price dispersion in absolute points using closes alone, the method calculates each bar’s open, high, low, and close as percentage changes from the preceding close. It averages those observations over a five-bar lookback, calculates their standard deviation, and scales a center line and upper and lower bands around the current close. A deviation multiplier controls band width; the example sets it to two.

The rationale is to include more of each bar’s price range and make readings more comparable across price levels, while allowing a shorter lookback than the author considers practical for conventional standard-deviation bands. The material explains the calculation but supplies no trading rules, backtest, or evidence that the bands improve results. Its code is manually expanded for a fixed five-bar window because the target platform lacks the array support used by the original implementation, so changing the lookback requires editing the calculation.

Key ideas

• The method measures open, high, low, and close changes as percentages of the preceding close.
• It averages these observations over a five-bar window and uses their standard deviation to set band width.
• The middle line and outer bands are scaled around the current close.
• The provided implementation fixes the lookback at five bars and requires manual changes to alter it.
• The document gives no tested entry or exit rules and no performance evidence.

Tags

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.