Ichimoku cloud
What it is
Ichimoku is five lines built from the highs and lows of recent bars. Tenkan is the middle of the range over 9 bars, Kijun — over 26. The cloud between Senkou A and Senkou B is shifted 26 bars forward, so to the right of the last candle you see a cloud already computed from past bars. Chikou is the close shifted 26 bars back. Many look at whether price is above or below the cloud and what color the cloud ahead is.
More: how we compute it
- Tenkan = (high + low) / 2 over 9 bars, Kijun — the same over 26 bars.
- Senkou A = (Tenkan + Kijun) / 2, Senkou B = (high + low) / 2 over 52 bars; both are drawn 26 bars forward.
- Chikou is a bar close drawn 26 bars earlier.
- Parameters 9 / 26 / 52 are the standard ones; change them in “Layers” → “Ichimoku cloud” → the gear. The second number is both Kijun and the shift. The same place has switches for each line, the future cloud and the marks.
- Cloud color: green when Senkou A is above Senkou B, red when it is below; the thicker the cloud, the denser it is. The future cloud to the right of the last candle is muted, with dashed edges. A small diamond on the cloud is where the cloud changes color (kumo twist).
- Tooltip: hover over a line to see its name and value; inside the cloud — both edges.
- Where it is computed — in the browser, from the loaded candles, on any timeframe; in replay — from the candles of that moment. At the left edge of the loaded history the first bars do not have enough past, so there are no lines there; when you scroll left, more history loads and the lines continue.
How it looks in EVA
How it is read
Typical pictures: how people read them and use them. Examples from our history for these pictures will come later — they have not been found by a mechanical search yet, and we did not pick them by hand.
1. Price above the cloud
How it is read: price is above the ranges of past weeks; many treat the move as rising while price stays above the cloud.
An example will come later.
2. Tenkan crosses Kijun
How it is read: the short middle of the range has overtaken the long one; many see a change of pace in it, and read a cross above the cloud and below it differently.
An example will come later.
3. The cloud ahead changes color
How it is read: based on bars that have already passed, the cloud will change direction in 26 bars; many treat this as an early note, not as an event.
An example will come later.
When it does not work
No picture works every time: Ichimoku describes where price is against past ranges, it does not tell where price will go.
Typical traps
- Sideways market: the lines tangle, the cloud is thin, crosses come one after another.
- Lag: every line is built from past bars; on a sharp move they catch up with price.
- Timeframe: the daily cloud and the hourly cloud can say different things.
- Parameters: 9 / 26 / 52 were made for another market and another week; change them and you change the whole picture.
What to look at with it
- VWAP — the volume-weighted average price of the period.
- Volume Profile — where most trading happened.
- Daily and weekly levels — past highs and lows.
- Deviation bands — how far price is from its average.