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Three Inside Trading System - MANUAL

21 February 2026, 07:26

Ich Khiem Nguyen

Three Inside Trading System | Buy Trading Indicator for MetaTrader 5

PART	Section	Description
1	INTRODUCTION	Product introduction, what the product helps you with

2	INSTALLATION & SETUP	System requirements, step-by-step installation guide
	Guide to Installing Free Indicators and EAs Included with the Mirage Trading System Purchase
3	INTERFACE DISPLAY	Explanation of the components displayed on the chart
	User Guide: Trading Lines & Signal Tracking System	The system automatically draws Entry, Stop Loss, and Take Profit lines (TP 1–4) on the chart, tracks price action for hits, records Win/Loss results, and displays real-time performance statistics.
	User Guide : Visualization, Zone Fill, Signal Dashboard & Cancelled Signals	When you attach an indicator to a chart, the system renders the following visual components for each detected signal
	User Guide: MTF SCAN & Dashboard User Guide	MTF SCAN automatically scans all Market Watch symbols across 8 timeframes (M1 to W1) and displays results on a Dashboard grid directly on your chart.
	User Guide : Chart Theme User Guide	Chart Theme is a feature that changes the entire chart color scheme in MetaTrader 5 — including the background, candles, grid, text, and Bid/Ask lines — with a single click.
4	CORE CONCEPTS	Fundamental concepts that the system is built upon
	User Guide: Market Structure Functionality in the Trading System	Identifies trend direction (Uptrend, Downtrend, Ranging) by analyzing swing highs/lows, and detects key events: BOS (trend continuation) and CHoCH (potential trend reversal).
	User Guide : Signal Types, States, and Lifecycle	A signal is the system's notification when it detects a qualifying candlestick pattern on the chart. Each signal tells you the expected price direction and provides suggested entry, stop loss, an d take profit levels.
5	SIGNAL FILTERS	Filters that refine and validate trading signals
	User Guide: Trade Direction (Direction Filter) in the Trading System	Defines the allowed trading direction (Buy only, Sell only, both, or neither) as the first filter before searching for entry signals, based on current market trend.
	User Guide: Signal Zone Filter in the Trading System	Eliminates signals not near important price zones, retaining only those connected to market structures (swing high/low, BOS, CHoCH) to reduce noise.
	User Guide: StoplossHunt Filter User Guide — Filtering "SL Sweep" Signals	Identifies higher-probability signals by checking whether price "swept stoploss" before forming a pattern.
	User Guide : Extreme Zone Filter	Extreme Zone Filter is a signal filtering feature that helps avoid entering trades when price is at the top or bottom of a Donchian price channel.
	User Guide: Opposite Signal Filter	The Opposite Signal Filter is an automatic feature that prevents new signals from appearing when you already have an active trade running in the opposite direction.The principle is very simple: Don't buy when you're selling. Don't sell when you're buying.
	User Guide : Quality Filter User Guide	Quality Filter is a feature that helps you receive only the best signals — price patterns formed clearly, with balanced proportions and high reliability — and reject weak signals, dull patterns, and those below standard.
6	TRADE MANAGEMENT
	User Guide : Risk/Reward & SL Method User Guide	Risk/Reward (R:R) is the ratio between the amount of money you accept losing (Risk) and the amount of money you expect to gain (Reward) in a single trade.
	User Guide: Trailing Stop Loss (TSL) User Guide	Regular Stop Loss (SL) stays fixed in one place. You set SL at 1990.00, and it stays there forever — even if price has risen to 2030.00.Trailing Stop Loss (TSL) is different. It automatically moves in your favor when price advances. As price moves up, TSL moves up with it. When price stalls or reverses, TSL holds the best position it reached.
7	CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS GUIDE	Detailed guide to each configuration parameter
	SIGNAL SCANNING CONFIGURATION GUIDE - MIRAGE TRADING SYSTEM EA	Guide to mastering signal scanning settings within the Inputs tab, optimizing trade discovery on a single chart or across the entire market.
8	ALERTS & NOTIFICATIONS
	User Guide: Alerts & Notifications User Guide	Configure push notifications, and on-screen popups when new signals are detected.
7	SYSTEM RISKS & LIMITATIONS	Notes on system risks and limitations

1. INTRODUCTION

What is Three Inside Trading System?

This indicator helps you catch reliable reversal moments in the market by automatically detecting Three Inside Up and Three Inside Down patterns. It filters out weak setups and shows you only high-quality harami reversal opportunities with entry points, stop losses, and profit targets already calculated. Perfect for swing traders and position traders who want to enter new trends early when the market shows clear signs of direction change.

Three Inside Trading System helps you spot these powerful harami reversal patterns on your MetaTrader 5 charts — automatically. The indicator scans every candle, filters out weak setups, and shows you only the best trading opportunities with clear entry points, stop losses, and profit targets already calculated. It works on any market and any timeframe, giving you more time to focus on your trading decisions instead of searching for patterns.

What Are Three Inside Patterns?

Three Inside patterns are powerful reversal patterns that appear when market momentum shifts from one direction to the other. These patterns show a two-bar harami indecision followed by a third candle that confirms the new direction, making them more reliable signals of real trend changes.

Three Inside Up (Bullish Reversal)

Appears after a downtrend when buyers begin to take control. The pattern consists of three consecutive candles where:

Mother candle (bar 2): A large bearish candle showing sellers in control, with strong body and clear downward momentum
Inside candle (bar 1): A smaller candle whose body is fully contained within the mother candle's body, showing indecision and weakening seller momentum (classic harami structure)
Confirmation candle (bar 0): A bullish candle that closes above the mother candle's open price, confirming buyers have taken control

The inside candle creates a pause in the downtrend, and the confirmation candle breaks upward, signaling exhaustion of sellers and new buyer dominance. When you see this pattern forming near a support level, it signals that sellers are exhausted and buyers are ready to push prices higher.

Three Inside Down (Bearish Reversal)

Appears after an uptrend when sellers begin to take control. The pattern consists of three consecutive candles where:

Mother candle (bar 2): A large bullish candle showing buyers in control, with strong body and clear upward momentum
Inside candle (bar 1): A smaller candle whose body is fully contained within the mother candle's body, showing indecision and weakening buyer momentum (classic harami structure)
Confirmation candle (bar 0): A bearish candle that closes below the mother candle's open price, confirming sellers have taken control

The inside candle creates a pause in the uptrend, and the confirmation candle breaks downward, signaling exhaustion of buyers and new seller dominance. When you see this pattern forming near a resistance level, it signals that buyers are exhausted and sellers are ready to push prices lower.

When you see these patterns forming near important support or resistance levels, they become even more reliable signals for potential trend reversals.

How the Indicator Finds Patterns

The indicator scans your charts in real-time and checks each potential pattern against multiple quality requirements:

Mother Bar Structure Check: Verifies that the mother candle has a strong solid body (body/range ≥ 50%) with a range at least 0.5× ATR, showing clear directional conviction
Inside Bar Containment Check: Confirms that the inside bar's body is fully within the mother body (body-only containment, wicks can extend), and that the inside body is smaller than 60% of mother body
Confirmation Breakout Check: Ensures the confirmation candle has a strong body (body/range ≥ 35%) and closes beyond the mother candle's open, breaking out of the harami structure
Quality Scoring Check: Calculates a score from 0% to 100% based on mother body strength, containment tightness, confirmation strength, and breakout depth

Only patterns that pass all these checks appear on your chart, so you don't waste time on weak or invalid setups.

Quality Score — How Good Is the Pattern?

Every pattern gets a quality score from 0% to 100%, like a grade on a test. This helps you focus on the best trading opportunities.

What the Score Means

The indicator checks four key factors to calculate the quality score:

Mother Body Strength (25% weight): How large the mother candle's body is compared to recent market volatility (ATR). Ideal range is 0.50-1.50× ATR. Larger bodies show stronger initial trend momentum. Weak mother candles reduce the score.

Containment Tightness (25% weight): How tightly the inside bar is contained within the mother body. Calculated as (1.0 - inside_body/mother_body). Ideal range is 0.50-0.95. Tighter containment (smaller inside bar) shows stronger indecision and pause. Larger inside bars reduce the score.

Confirmation Strength (25% weight): How strong the confirmation candle's body is relative to ATR. Ideal range is 0.35-1.20× ATR. Stronger confirmation candles show decisive breakout and directional conviction. Weak confirmation bodies reduce the score.

Breakout Depth (25% weight): How far the confirmation candle closes beyond the mother candle's open, measured as a ratio of mother body size. Ideal range is 0.30-1.00. Deeper penetration shows stronger momentum shift. Shallow breakouts reduce the score.

Grade	Score Range	Quality Level
A	80-100%	Excellent — Best signals
B	60-79%	Good — Reliable setups
C	40-59%	Average — Needs confirmation
D	20-39%	Below Average — Risky
F	0-19%	Poor — Avoid

Quality Threshold Setting

By default, the indicator only shows patterns scoring 0.35 (35%) or higher. You can adjust this in the settings:

Raise to 0.50-0.70: See only the best signals (fewer but higher quality)
Lower to 0.20: See more signals (more frequent but mixed quality)
Tip: Start with the default 0.35 and adjust based on your backtest results

What You See on the Chart

When the indicator detects a Three Inside pattern, it draws everything you need to know directly on the chart:

Signal Markers

Arrow icons: Green arrows pointing up mark Three Inside Up (bullish) signals. Red arrows pointing down mark Three Inside Down (bearish) signals. The arrow appears at the confirmation candle of the pattern.
Quality labels: A small percentage label appears near the arrow showing the quality score (e.g., "73%") so you can quickly assess signal strength

Trading Lines

Entry line: A blue horizontal line shows your entry price. This is positioned above the pattern high (for bullish signals) or below the pattern low (for bearish signals) with a buffer zone
Stop Loss line: A red horizontal line shows where to place your stop loss. This is calculated based on pattern structure and volatility, with a clear "SL" label
Take Profit lines: Two green horizontal lines show your profit targets. TP1 is the first conservative target, TP2 is the extended target for strong trends. Both are labeled clearly

Visual Zones

Pattern highlight: A subtle shaded vertical zone highlights the three candles that form the pattern, making it easy to see the structure at a glance
Tracking dots: Small colored dots appear during the signal lifecycle to show progress. Blue = pending entry, yellow = entry triggered, green = profit target hit, red = stop loss hit

Signal Lifecycle

Signals progress through different states, shown by changing colors and tracking dots:

Pending: Pattern just detected, waiting for entry confirmation. Signal shows with blue tracking dot.
Triggered: Entry price reached, trade is active. Tracking dot turns yellow.
Target Hit: Price reached take profit level. Signal turns green, tracking dot green.
Stop Hit: Price hit stop loss. Signal turns red, tracking dot red.
Cancelled: Signal invalidated before entry (pattern broke down). Signal disappears or grays out.

You can watch your signals evolve in real-time without opening any menus or panels.

Settings You Can Adjust

Here are the main settings that control how the indicator finds and displays Three Inside patterns:

Setting	What It Does	Default	When to Change It
ATR Period	How many candles to measure average volatility	14	Use 20 for smoother results on volatile pairs
Max Bars to Scan	How far back in history to search	3000	Increase to 5000 for deeper analysis
Min Bars Between Patterns	Minimum gap between two signals	5	Increase to 10 to reduce signal frequency
Min Mother Body Ratio	How much of mother candle must be solid body (body/range)	0.50	Raise to 0.60 for stronger mother candles only
Min Range/ATR	Minimum mother candle size relative to volatility	0.50	Lower to 0.40 on low-volatility pairs
Max Inside Body Ratio	Maximum inside body vs mother body	0.60	Lower to 0.50 for tighter containment only
Min Confirm Body Ratio	Minimum confirmation candle body strength (body/range)	0.35	Raise to 0.50 for stronger confirmation only
Entry Buffer	Distance above/below pattern for entry (× ATR)	0.05	Increase to 0.10 for wider entries on volatile markets
SL Buffer	Safety distance for stop loss (× ATR)	0.10	Increase to 0.20 in volatile markets

Settings Tips

Start with all default settings and let the indicator run for a few days to see how it performs on your chosen market and timeframe
If you get too many signals, raise the quality threshold to 0.50 or increase the Min Mother Body Ratio to 0.60
If signals are too rare, lower the quality threshold to 0.25 or increase the Max Inside Body Ratio to 0.70
On high-volatility pairs like XAUUSD, you might need slightly wider Entry Buffer (0.10) and SL Buffer (0.20)
Always backtest any setting changes on historical data before using them on a live account

Best Timeframes and Markets

Recommended Timeframes

Timeframe	Signal Quality	Signal Frequency	Best For
M15	Good	Frequent	Scalping, day trading
H1	Very Good	Moderate	Intraday trading
H4	Excellent	8-12 per month	Swing trading (recommended)
D1	Excellent	3-5 per month	Position trading

Best Markets

XAUUSD (Gold): Excellent pattern clarity on H1 and H4 timeframes. Strong mother candles make detection reliable.
EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY: Major forex pairs work well on all timeframes above M15. Best results on H4.
US30, NAS100: Stock indices show clear Three Inside patterns on H4 and Daily timeframes during trend reversals.
Cryptocurrency (BTCUSD, ETHUSD): Use Daily timeframe for clearer signals. Lower timeframes are too noisy.

The indicator works on any symbol and timeframe, but these combinations tend to produce the most reliable signals.

Getting Started — Quick Setup

Follow these steps to start using Three Inside Trading System:

Open MetaTrader 5 and load the chart for the market you want to trade (we recommend starting with XAUUSD on H4)
In the Navigator panel (left side), expand "Indicators" and find "Three Inside Trading System"
Drag the indicator onto your chart
A settings window appears — for your first time, click OK to use the default settings
Watch for signals over the next few hours or days. Green arrows = buy opportunities (Three Inside Up), red arrows = sell opportunities (Three Inside Down)
After observing initial signals, adjust the Quality Threshold if you're getting too many or too few signals
Set up alerts by opening the indicator settings again and enabling "Push Notifications" to get alerts on your phone when patterns appear

That's it! The indicator is now scanning your charts automatically and will alert you when high-quality Three Inside patterns appear.

All Features at a Glance

Pattern-Specific Features

✓ Three-candle harami reversal detection with mother body strength, inside containment, and confirmation breakout validation
✓ Quality scoring 0-100% based on equal-weight factors (mother strength 25%, containment tightness 25%, confirmation strength 25%, breakout depth 25%)
✓ Automatic entry buffer zones calculated from pattern structure + ATR for optimal entry timing
✓ Dual profit targets (TP1 conservative, TP2 extended) based on pattern height and breakout strength
✓ Volatility-adaptive thresholds that adjust detection criteria based on recent ATR (average true range)
✓ Body-only containment validation ensuring inside candle body fully within mother body (wicks allowed to extend)

The following professional-grade features are available across all our indicators:

3	INTERFACE DISPLAY	Explanation of the components displayed on the chart
	User Guide: Trading Lines & Signal Tracking System	The system automatically draws Entry, Stop Loss, and Take Profit lines (TP 1–4) on the chart, tracks price action for hits, records Win/Loss results, and displays real-time performance statistics.
	User Guide : Visualization, Zone Fill, Signal Dashboard & Cancelled Signals	When you attach an indicator to a chart, the system renders the following visual components for each detected signal
	User Guide: MTF SCAN & Dashboard User Guide	MTF SCAN automatically scans all Market Watch symbols across 8 timeframes (M1 to W1) and displays results on a Dashboard grid directly on your chart.
	User Guide : Chart Theme User Guide	Chart Theme is a feature that changes the entire chart color scheme in MetaTrader 5 — including the background, candles, grid, text, and Bid/Ask lines — with a single click.
4	CORE CONCEPTS	Fundamental concepts that the system is built upon
	User Guide: Market Structure Functionality in the Trading System	Identifies trend direction (Uptrend, Downtrend, Ranging) by analyzing swing highs/lows, and detects key events: BOS (trend continuation) and CHoCH (potential trend reversal).
	User Guide : Signal Types, States, and Lifecycle	A signal is the system's notification when it detects a qualifying candlestick pattern on the chart. Each signal tells you the expected price direction and provides suggested entry, stop loss, an d take profit levels.
5	SIGNAL FILTERS	Filters that refine and validate trading signals
	User Guide: Trade Direction (Direction Filter) in the Trading System	Defines the allowed trading direction (Buy only, Sell only, both, or neither) as the first filter before searching for entry signals, based on current market trend.
	User Guide: Signal Zone Filter in the Trading System	Eliminates signals not near important price zones, retaining only those connected to market structures (swing high/low, BOS, CHoCH) to reduce noise.
	User Guide: StoplossHunt Filter User Guide — Filtering "SL Sweep" Signals	Identifies higher-probability signals by checking whether price "swept stoploss" before forming a pattern.
	User Guide : Extreme Zone Filter	Extreme Zone Filter is a signal filtering feature that helps avoid entering trades when price is at the top or bottom of a Donchian price channel.
	User Guide: Opposite Signal Filter	The Opposite Signal Filter is an automatic feature that prevents new signals from appearing when you already have an active trade running in the opposite direction.The principle is very simple: Don't buy when you're selling. Don't sell when you're buying.
	User Guide : Quality Filter User Guide	Quality Filter is a feature that helps you receive only the best signals — price patterns formed clearly, with balanced proportions and high reliability — and reject weak signals, dull patterns, and those below standard.
6	TRADE MANAGEMENT
	User Guide : Risk/Reward & SL Method User Guide	Risk/Reward (R:R) is the ratio between the amount of money you accept losing (Risk) and the amount of money you expect to gain (Reward) in a single trade.
	User Guide: Trailing Stop Loss (TSL) User Guide	Regular Stop Loss (SL) stays fixed in one place. You set SL at 1990.00, and it stays there forever — even if price has risen to 2030.00.Trailing Stop Loss (TSL) is different. It automatically moves in your favor when price advances. As price moves up, TSL moves up with it. When price stalls or reverses, TSL holds the best position it reached.
7	CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS GUIDE	Detailed guide to each configuration parameter
	SIGNAL SCANNING CONFIGURATION GUIDE - MIRAGE TRADING SYSTEM EA	Guide to mastering signal scanning settings within the Inputs tab, optimizing trade discovery on a single chart or across the entire market.
8	ALERTS & NOTIFICATIONS
	User Guide: Alerts & Notifications User Guide	Configure push notifications, and on-screen popups when new signals are detected.

Common Questions

Q: Why does the stop loss seem wide sometimes?

The indicator calculates stop loss based on the entire three-candle pattern structure plus recent volatility (ATR). Wider stops protect against normal market noise and prevent premature stop-outs during small pullbacks within the larger trend. Three-candle patterns naturally create larger structures than single-candle patterns. You can adjust the SL Method in settings to "ATR Only" for tighter stops, but be aware this may increase the risk of false stop-outs, especially during initial pullbacks after the pattern completes.

Q: What's the best timeframe for this pattern?

H4 gives the best balance of signal quality and frequency. You'll typically get 8-12 high-quality signals per month on major pairs, with excellent reliability. Start there and adjust based on your trading style. If you're a day trader, H1 works well but requires tighter quality filters (raise threshold to 50%). For position trading, Daily timeframe provides the strongest signals but you'll wait longer between opportunities.

Q: How can I get fewer signals?

Raise the quality threshold from 0.35 to 0.50-0.70 in the settings. You can also increase "Min Bars Between Patterns" from 5 to 10, which prevents signals from appearing too close together. Another option is to raise "Min Mother Body Ratio" to 0.60 and lower "Max Inside Body Ratio" to 0.50 — this will only show patterns with very strong mother candles and tight inside containment. Finally, enable the "Extreme Zone Filter" to only get signals near key support/resistance areas.

Q: How is this different from just a harami candlestick?

The indicator checks far more than just a classic two-candle harami. It verifies that the mother candle has strong body strength and sufficient size relative to ATR, that the inside candle is truly contained (body-only, not just range), that a third confirmation candle breaks out decisively beyond the mother's open (not just any close), and that the breakout depth is meaningful. A random harami without confirmation might fail all these tests. The quality score tells you exactly how well the pattern meets professional technical analysis criteria.

Q: Can I use this with other indicators?

Yes. The built-in Market Structure filter adds BOS (Break of Structure) and CHOCH (Change of Character) context to signals, helping you understand if the reversal is likely to hold. Many traders combine this indicator with support/resistance levels or moving averages for additional confirmation. The EA Signal Buffers feature lets automated trading systems read the indicator's signals, so you can build expert advisors that trade these patterns automatically.

What's New — Version v1.00

This is the v1.00 release of Three Inside Trading System. Key features include:

Automatic Three Inside Up and Three Inside Down harami reversal pattern detection on all timeframes
Quality scoring from 0-100% based on mother body strength, containment tightness, confirmation strength, and breakout depth
Five filter systems (Quality, Extreme Zone, Direction, Stoploss Hunt, Signal Zone) to reduce false signals
Multi-timeframe scanner to find patterns across 50+ symbols and 8 timeframes simultaneously
Donchian and ATR stop loss calculation methods for flexible risk management
Trailing stop loss with automatic adjustment as price moves in your favor
Real-time alerts: popup, sound, email, and push notifications to your mobile device
Signal dashboard showing live statistics and pattern counts
Full EA integration with 10 buffer outputs for automated trading systems
Chart theme support (dark, light, custom) for comfortable viewing
No repainting — all signals are final and locked after the confirmation candle completes

Getting Help

If you have questions or need support:

Documentation: Check the detailed user guides linked in the Features section above
MQL5 Profile: https://www.mql5.com/en/users/khiemni/seller
Direct Contact: Message me through MQL5 for technical support

I'm committed to helping you get the most out of this indicator.

Ready to Start?

Three Inside Trading System is designed to save you time and help you find high-probability harami reversal patterns automatically. Attach the indicator to your chart and start with the default settings — you can fine-tune everything later as you get comfortable with how it works.

Happy trading!

Ich Khiem Nguyen

#trading system, Three Inside

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