The HiLo Activator was introduced by Robert Krausz with his FibonacciTrader and first described by him in “The New Gann Swing Chartist”, which was published in the TASC magazine (Stocks & Commodities V16:2, pp 57-66) in 1998.
Indicator Description
The original Gann HiLo Activator was a three day simple moving average calculated from the daily high / lows. The Gann HiLow Activator gives a reversal signal when the bar closes below the low average in an uptrend or above the high average in a downtrend. Of course, you should use the Gann HiLo Activator in combination with other indicators.
This version may be used for intra day trading, either as a trailing stop, or as a trend filter. Rather than simply taking a three day simple moving average of the daily highs and lows, the indicator allows you to choose from 30 different averages.
Furthermore, the Gann HiLo Activator allows you to work with, displaced moving averages. Therefore, the trailing stop does not have to be recalculated with each tick (improving CPU efficiency).
You may use the indicator to detect a trend change when:
– A close breaks the trailing stop level (default setting). A trend change will then plot after the bar closes.
– The first tick breaks the trailing stop level (reverse intra-bar). A trend change will then plot immediately and two trailing stop levels will be visible simultaneously.
The Gann HiLo Activator will also display the trend via paint-bars. Down-close bars are filled, whereas up-close bars are hollow. For better visibility, you may adjust the opacity for up-close bars.
Other Library Indicators
Other than the HiLo Activator the following indicators are available from the trailing stop loss category: ATR Trailing Stop, Chande Kroll Stop, Chandelier Stop, Deviation Stop, SuperTrend M11, SuperTrend U11 and the Wilders Volatility Stop. The Indicator Spotlight newsletter previuosly discussed the ATR Trailing Stop, the Wilder Volatility Stop and the Chande Kroll.
You may consider using the HiLo Activator with a Donchian Channel strategy or Swing Trend Analysis.
The HiLo Activator indicator is available for NinjaTrader 8.
