Imbalance Detector
By LuxAlgoDec 20, 2022
Imbalance Detector is an indicator on Vela, our next-generation charting platform, written in Pine Script®.
Imbalance Detector finds the three imbalance families price action traders watch, fair value gaps, opening gaps and volume imbalances, and then does something rarer: it counts them. A built-in dashboard reports how frequently each type appears on the current chart and what percentage ends up filled, turning zones that are usually eyeballed into measurable statistics. The highlighted areas double as support/resistance or trade targets, since price often gravitates back to rebalance them.
How to Trade the Imbalance Detector?
- Bullish FVG: a three-candle formation whose current low sits above the high from two bars earlier, a footprint of buying momentum and a zone to watch for support on the return.
- Bearish FVG: the current high below the low from two bars back flags selling pressure and potential resistance overhead.
- Opening gaps: price ranges left untraded when a bar trades entirely beyond the prior bar's extreme; rarer in markets that trade continuously, and prioritized over FVGs when both occur together.
- Volume imbalances: a discontinuity between the open and preceding close without an empty range, a subtler momentum tell, with extra filtering to isolate the meaningful ones.
Check the dashboard's fill percentage before leaning on a zone type: it shows how the current symbol actually treats each imbalance. Alerts are available whenever a new imbalance appears.
Imbalance Detector Settings
- Fair Value Gaps (FVG), Show Opening Gaps (OG) and Show Volume Imbalances (VI): enable or disable each imbalance type independently.
- Min Width (set per type, off by default): the minimum area size (in points, percentages or ATR multiples) that filters out insignificant zones.
- Extend FVG / Extend OG / Extend VI: pushes each type's detected areas a chosen number of bars to the right (0, 0 and 5 bars by default).
- Show Dashboard (off by default): shows or hides the statistics panel, with position and size options to fit your layout.
Frequently Asked Questions
Free to use
Run it on Vela. Go further with a paid plan.
- Up to 500 Custom Alerts, with webhook automation
- Up to 10× the chart history of Free
- Orderflow lookback up to full history
- More Quant usage to customize it, plus extra usage when you need it
- Futures data alongside crypto, stocks, forex and commodities
Also works on
Related indicators
All 39 Fair Value Gap indicatorsRun it on Vela. Make it yours with Quant.
Open this indicator free on Vela, our next-generation charting platform. Then ask Quant, our coding agent built into Vela, to retune it or turn it into a backtested strategy of your own.





