Zig Zag

Zig Zag is a price chart overlay that simplifies the up and down movements and transitions based on a percent change smoothing threshold. [Discuss] 💬

// C# usage syntax
IReadOnlyList<ZigZagResult> results =
  bars.ToZigZag(endType, percentChange);

Parameters

param	type	description
endType	EndType	Determines whether Close or High/Low are used for percent change threshold. Default is EndType.Close.
percentChange	decimal	Percent change required to establish a line endpoint. Example: 3.5% would be entered as 3.5 (not 0.035). Must be greater than 0. Typical values range from 3 to 10. Default is 5.

✨ Tip: adjust percentChange for bar interval sizes

Use a percent change threshold that is appropriate for your price bar interval size. For example, 5% works well for Day-sized price bar aggregates, but Hourly or Minute-sized bars typically need smaller values (e.g., 1% or 0.1%), depending on the asset class and typical price volatility.

Historical price bars requirements

You must have at least two periods of bars to cover the warmup periods, but notably more is needed to be useful.

bars is a collection of generic TBar historical price bars. It should have a consistent frequency (day, hour, minute, etc). See the Guide for more information.

EndType enum options

enum	int	description
EndType.Close	0	Threshold measured from bar Close price
EndType.HighLow	1	Threshold measured from bar High and Low price

Response

IReadOnlyList<ZigZagResult>

• This method returns a time series of all available indicator values for the bars provided.
• It always returns the same number of elements as there are in the historical price bars.
• It does not return a single incremental indicator value.
• If you do not supply enough points to cover the percent change, there will be no Zig Zag points or lines.
• The first line segment starts after the first confirmed point; ZigZag values before the first confirmed point will be null.
• The last line segment is an approximation as the direction is indeterminate.

🚩

depending on the specified endType, the indicator cannot be initialized if the first Bar in bars has a High,Low, or Close value of 0 (zero).

️🖌️ Repaint warning

The last line segment will always be redrawn back to the last known pivot. Do not attempt to calculate incremental values since previous values may change based on newer bars.

ZigZagResult

property	type	description
Timestamp	DateTime	Date from evaluated TBar
ZigZag	decimal	Zig Zag line for percentChange
PointType	string	Zig Zag endpoint type (H for high point, L for low point)
RetraceHigh	decimal	Retrace line for high points
RetraceLow	decimal	Retrace line for low points

Utilities

• .Condense()
• .Find(lookupDate)
• .RemoveWarmupPeriods(removePeriods)

See Utilities and helpers for more information.

Chaining

Results can be further processed on ZigZag with additional chain-enabled indicators.

// example
var results = bars
    .ToZigZag(..)
    .ToSlope(..);

This indicator must be generated from bars and cannot be generated from results of another chain-enabled indicator or method.

See Chaining indicators for more.

Streaming

Streaming is not supported for this indicator. This indicator requires lookahead to confirm reversal points; output repaints as new data arrives, making incremental results undefined. Use the Series (batch) implementation with periodic recalculation instead.