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Visualizing Ask Prices and Bid-Ask Spreads on Candlestick Charts

Article MQL5 code base
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Summary

This listing explains a chart indicator intended to make the ask side of the market visible. It draws candle upper shadows using the ask price, allowing a trader to see the gap between bid and ask on the chart. The stated use case is short time frames, where spread size matters when placing chart-based orders such as buy stops.

The document gives no tested results, execution analysis, or guidance on how to incorporate the displayed spread into a strategy. It describes a visualization aid rather than a trading method, and does not specify asset classes, data-feed assumptions, or how the indicator behaves when quotes are unavailable or stale. Its practical value therefore depends on the chart and price data available to the trader.

Key ideas

  • The indicator plots ask prices as candle upper shadows.
  • The display makes the bid-ask spread easier to inspect visually.
  • The stated application is assessing spread when setting short-term chart-based orders.
  • No performance evidence or trading rules are provided.

Tags

Technical indicatorsExecutionMarket microstructure

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