BW Alligator

An improved version of the classic Alligator indicator by Bill Williams.

Description

The Alligator technical indicator is a combination of moving averages (balance lines).

• Blue line (Alligator Jaw) is a 13-period smoothed moving average, shifted by 8 bars into the future;
• Red line (Alligator Teeth) is an 8-period smoothed moving average, shifted by 5 bars into the future;
• Green line (Alligator Lips) is a 5-period smoothed moving average, shifted by 3 bars into the future;
• Purple line (Fast Gator) is a 3-period smoothed moving average, shifted by 1 bar into the future.

Lips, Teeth and Jaws of the Alligator illustrate the interaction of different time periods. Since the market trends can be identified only for 15-30 percent of the time, we must follow the trends, and not work on markets that fluctuate only within certain price periods.

The Median price is used to plot these moving averages.

The Alligator is said to be sleeping when the indicator lines intersect each other. The longer it sleeps, the hungrier is becomes.

In other words, a long-term intersection of moving averages is the price consolidation period.

After the Alligator sleeps, "interesting" things happen: it wakes up and starts yawning first, opening its mouth. Having smelled its prey (bull or bear), it begins to hunt. When the Alligator's hunger is quenched, the interest in food decreases, and the lines of the indicator are again intertwined (this is the moment for fixing the profit).

In terms of technical analysis, this is a breakout of the trading range, with its strength depending on the duration of consolidation.

During a downtrend, the blue line (Alligator Jaw) changes its color to red (can be changed in the settings), which allows for visual identification of the current price movement direction.

It is possible to display the trend changes earlier when trading on lower timeframes (M1-M30). In this case, the intersection of the Fast Gator (purple line) and Alligator Lips (green line) are used on contrast to the classic version - intersection of Alligator Lips (green line) and Alligator Teeth (red line) with Alligator Jaw (blue line).

The Alligator indicator is used for determining the trend, as well as in conjunction with other indicators by Bill Williams, such as Awesome Oscillator, Accelerator Oscillator and Fractal.

Indicator parameters

• Global Settings
• Show Gator Fast - display Fast Gator
• true;
• false;
• Visualization Settings
• Show trend change - display the trend changes
• Auto (M1-H30->Faster, H1-MN->Classic).
• Faster - intersection of Fast Gator and Alligator Lips with Alligator Jaw.
• Classic - intersection of Alligator Lips and Alligator Teeth with Alligator Jaw.
• none - trend changes are not displayed.
• Gator width - thickness of the Alligator lines.
• Increase width of Jaw - increase thickness of the Alligator Jaw line relative to other Alligator lines.
• Trend UP - color of the Alligator Jaw line during an uptrend (default is blue).
• Trend DOWN - color of the Alligator Jaw line during a downtrend (default is red).
• Alligator Settings - Moving Average settings
• Gator Fast period - smoothing period of the Fast Gator line (3).
• Gator Fast shift - shift of the Fast Gator line (1).
• Gator Lips period - smoothing period of the Alligator Lips line (5).
• Gator Lips shift - shift of the Alligator Lips line (3).
• Gator Teeth period - smoothing period of the Alligator Teeth line (8).
• Gator Teeth shift - shift of the Alligator Teeth line (5).
• Gator Jaw period - smoothing period of the Alligator Jaw line (13).
• Gator Jaw shift - shift of the Alligator Jaw line (8).

Happy Trading!