Liquidity Grab X
- Indicators
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Looi Kah Fung
I'm an independent algorithmic trading systems developer specializing in MetaTrader 5 Expert Advisor design, based in Malaysia. Under the A1 brand, I build institutional-style automated trading systems from the ground up — strategy logic, risk management, licensing infrastructure, and dashboard - Version: 2.1
Liquidity Grab X automatically detects buyside and sellside liquidity sweeps (stop-hunts) at swing pivots and classifies each grab by strength — helping you spot exhaustion moves and potential reversal zones in real time, with instant push notifications to your phone.
Full Description
Liquidity Grab X is a free rule-based indicator for MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 that identifies liquidity grabs — moments where price sweeps above a prior swing high or below a prior swing low, triggers resting stop orders, and then rejects back into range. These sweeps are commonly used by price-action and smart-money-concept (SMC) traders as a sign of exhaustion or a potential reversal trigger.
How It Works
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Pivot Detection — The indicator scans a configurable lookback window ( PivotLength ) to identify swing highs and swing lows. Each confirmed pivot is stored as an active liquidity level (buyside above price, sellside below price), with the 5 most recent levels on each side tracked at any time.
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Grab Detection — On every new bar, price is checked against the stored liquidity levels:
- A buyside grab fires when the candle wicks above a stored swing high but closes back below it.
- A sellside grab fires when the candle wicks below a stored swing low but closes back above it.
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Strength Classification — Each grab is measured using a wick-to-body ratio ( WickBodyRatio ). The longer and more decisive the rejection wick relative to the candle body, the higher the classified strength:
- Small — a modest sweep, weak rejection
- Medium — a clear sweep with solid rejection
- Large — an aggressive sweep with a dominant rejection wick
This lets you filter out noise and focus only on the more decisive sweeps if you choose.
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Visual Markers — Grabs are plotted directly on the chart as color-coded dots (size scales with strength), so you can see exactly where liquidity was taken without cluttering the chart with every minor wick.
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Push & Alert Notifications — Every new liquidity grab can trigger a push notification straight to your phone (MT4/MT5 mobile app) and/or an on-screen popup alert, so you don't need to sit and watch the chart.
How This Helps Your Trading
Liquidity sweeps are a well-known behavior around swing highs/lows, where stop-loss and breakout orders cluster. Liquidity Grab X doesn't predict direction or guarantee outcomes — instead, it removes the manual guesswork of spotting these sweeps by applying a consistent, objective rule set every single time, across every pair and timeframe you run it on. Many traders use sweep/grab signals as confluence — combined with structure, order blocks, session timing, or other confirmation — rather than as a standalone entry trigger. Used this way, the indicator can help you:
- React faster to sweeps instead of missing them while multitasking
- Apply the same objective wick/body threshold every time, reducing subjective "is this a real sweep?" judgment calls
- Filter out weak/noisy wicks using the Small/Medium/Large classification
- Get notified on your phone the moment a sweep completes, even away from the desk
Key Features
- Works on any symbol and any timeframe
- Adjustable pivot lookback ( PivotLength ) to tune sensitivity to your trading style
- Adjustable wick-to-body ratio ( WickBodyRatio ) to control how strict the rejection filter is
- 3-tier strength classification (Small / Medium / Large) with separate colors and marker sizes
- Separate buyside (red) and sellside (green) color inputs
- Visual dot cooldown ( CooldownBars ) to avoid marker clutter, independent of notification firing
- Push notification support (MT4 & MT5 mobile apps)
- Optional on-screen popup alert
- CPU-optimized — buffers are only rewritten when values actually change, and the pivot scan exits early once a bar is ruled out
- 100% native MQL — no DLLs, no WebRequest, no external dependencies
Inputs
| Input | Description |
|---|---|
| BuysideColor | Color of buyside (sell-signal / resistance sweep) markers |
| SellsideColor | Color of sellside (buy-signal / support sweep) markers |
| PivotLength | Number of bars left/right required to confirm a swing pivot |
| WickBodyRatio | Minimum wick-to-body ratio required to classify a valid grab |
| EnableNotifications | Turns phone push notifications on/off |
| EnableAlertPopup | Turns on-screen popup alerts on/off |
| CooldownBars | Minimum bars between plotted dots on the same side (visual only — does not block notifications) |
Recommended Usage
- Start with the default settings ( PivotLength = 25 , WickBodyRatio = 0.5 ) and adjust to taste per instrument/timeframe
- Higher PivotLength = fewer, more significant swing levels; lower = more frequent, shorter-term levels
- Higher WickBodyRatio = stricter filter, fewer but more decisive grabs
- Best used as a confluence tool alongside your existing structure/entry model, not as a standalone signal
Disclaimer
This indicator is a technical analysis and alerting tool only. It does not place trades, manage risk, or guarantee any trading outcome. Liquidity sweep patterns are historically observed market behaviors, not predictive guarantees — past patterns do not ensure future results. Always test on a demo account and manage risk according to your own trading plan.
Tutorial: Setting Up Mobile Push Notifications (MT4 & MT5)
The push notification setup process is identical on MT4 and MT5 — only the folder names differ when installing the indicator itself.
Step 1 — Install the Mobile App
Download MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5 from the App Store (iOS) or Google Play (Android), matching whichever platform your desktop terminal uses.
Step 2 — Find Your MetaQuotes ID
- Open the mobile app.
- Go to the Settings tab (or Message/Chat tab — the exact label depends on app version).
- Your MetaQuotes ID is shown near the top — a long alphanumeric code.
- Tap it to copy, or write it down.
You don't need to be logged into a trading account for this to work — the ID is tied to the app install itself.
Step 3 — Enable Push Notifications on Desktop
- Open your MT4 or MT5 desktop terminal.
- Go to Tools → Options → Notifications tab.
- Tick "Enable Push Notifications."
- Paste your MetaQuotes ID into the field.
- Click Test — you should receive a test push notification on your phone within a few seconds. If it doesn't arrive, double-check the ID and that the mobile app has notification permissions enabled at the OS level.
- Click OK to save.
Step 4 — Install Liquidity Grab X
- In the desktop terminal, go to File → Open Data Folder.
- Navigate to:
- MT4: MQL4 → Indicators
- MT5: MQL5 → Indicators
- Copy Liquidity_Grab_X.mq4 (MT4) or Liquidity_Grab_X.mq5 (MT5) into that folder.
- Back in the terminal, right-click Indicators in the Navigator panel and select Refresh (or restart the terminal).
- Open MetaEditor (F4), open the file, and press F7 to compile. Confirm there are 0 errors.
Step 5 — Attach It and Confirm Notifications Are On
- Drag Liquidity Grab X from the Navigator onto your chart.
- In the input dialog, make sure EnableNotifications is set to true .
- Click OK.
- Confirm AutoTrading/Algo Trading is enabled in the terminal toolbar (this needs to be on for SendNotification() calls to fire).
That's it — every new confirmed liquidity grab will now push straight to your phone, on both MT4 and MT5.
Tip: If you run the indicator on many symbols at once, notifications are throttled by MetaTrader's own push service, so extremely frequent signals across dozens of charts may be delayed slightly during high-volatility periods — this is a platform-level limit, not something the indicator controls.
