Williams Alligator

The Williams Alligator plots three smoothed moving averages of median price — the Jaw, the Teeth, and the Lips — each shifted forward in time, so their order, spread, and slope show whether the market is trending or ranging. Defaults follow Bill Williams' classic setup: SMMA lengths of 13, 8, and 5 applied to hl2, displaced 8, 5, and 3 bars into the future. This is the standard implementation, with the smoothing computed exactly as Williams specified.

Williams' animal metaphor supplies the vocabulary, but on the chart it reduces to geometry: braided lines mean stand aside, an ordered fan means trend.

How to Trade the Williams Alligator?

• Lines intertwined and flat: a ranging market where crosses between the averages carry no information — the phase Williams said to sit out.
• Lips crossing above the Teeth: the first sign of an upside awakening, strongest when the Jaw follows and the lines spread in order.
• Lips crossing below the Teeth: the bearish mirror image, with the fan inverting beneath a falling Jaw.
• An open, ordered fan: continuation is favored; pullbacks holding above the Jaw are watched as re-entry zones.
• Lines converging after a run: a cue to tighten stops or take profits rather than add.

Williams Alligator Settings

• Jaw Length (default 13): smoothing of the slowest line; raising it steadies the read but delays phase changes.
• Teeth Length (default 8): the middle average.
• Lips Length (default 5): the fastest line; shortening it produces earlier but noisier awakenings.
• Jaw Offset (default 8), Teeth Offset (default 5), Lips Offset (default 3): bars each plot is shifted into the future — display only.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do the Awakening alerts fire on?

Two alert conditions, Awakening Up and Awakening Down, trigger when the Lips cross above or below the Teeth — evaluated on the unshifted values, so an alert fires on the bar the cross occurs; the plot offsets affect the drawing only.

Should I change the default 13/8/5 lengths?

Williams published one set of values for all markets, so the defaults are a shared convention rather than a tuned fit. Most traders keep them and change the timeframe instead. Lengthening filters more chop; shortening speeds the phases but multiplies false awakenings.

How is this different from three ordinary moving averages?

Two details separate it. The lines are SMMAs of median price — Wilder-style smoothing far slower than a standard average of the same length setting — and each plot is displaced forward. Ordinary MAs hug price and cross constantly; heavier smoothing plus the shift creates the braided-versus-fanned geometry the phases depend on.