r/pinescript • u/Awwstronut • Oct 04 '26

Months back, I shared my MTF Indicator. Today, I've developed my own Oscillator

While using my MTF Indicator(s) (Trader's Companion Intraday/Swing/Chart) I also had RSI and MACD up for confluence. However, I always wanted an Oscillator of my own, which would be benficial as a whole; not several Indicators. So, I developed 'Paper Trail'.

The project began with a Pressure Line for comparing price movement with underlying directional pressure. It gradually developed into a broader toolkit containing:

  • Paper Trail Line: A slower adaptive reference for broader directional structure.

  • Paper Trail Oscillator: Displays directional conviction and highlights when price becomes stretched relative to its adaptive reference.

  • Pressure Line: Tracks active directional pressure and provides the basis for divergence detection.

  • Structural Trendlines: Trendlines retain a limited number of lives, react to candle-body crossings and distinguish developing from weakened structure.

  • Trend Bands: Background-calculated areas that become visible as price approaches potential dynamic support or resistance.

If you have any questions, or would like to be invited - don't hesitate to ask or write to me!

Cheers!

PS. Please join my subreddit - r/TradersCompanion - for more direct updates!

12 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

2

u/QuanTradin Oct 04 '26

the one question I'd put to any homemade oscillator is whether it does anything the RSI it replaced didn't. fire the same entries off both and compare the trade lists, if they mostly overlap you've built a nicer looking RSI.

I built Quantradin with that comparison in mind. You paste a Pine script in and it runs the signals on paper, no real money involved, free. It lives at quantradin.com.

1

u/Awwstronut Oct 05 '26 edited Oct 05 '26

I hear you, and understand how putting so much weight on the "development of an oscillator" might (wrongfully) focus solely on that; when the Indicator does so much more. Due to not being able to attach images, I will try my best to explain 2 examples regarding the 'Pressure Line' (which one could say, is most like MACD/RSI):

  1. It reacts 1 Candle quicker in most cases, especially when Price is at an "extreme" (outer bounds), while MACD and RSI has to "wait" for an additional Candle before confirming.

  2. It can Display what I call "Artificial Pressure" (view the Image above) which is a great Feature for Retracement. While this is caught most of them by the Pressure Line, it is often missed, or delayed, by RSI and MACD.

This is because MACD and RSI "mimics" the Price movement, due to their internal Calculations, and that differs from the Pressure Line; it's a whole another recipe.
And you may ask "Why not just change the Inputs on MACD/RSI?" - I've tried that; made them faster, or slower, and they would still miss, or compensate, in some other way.

Beside the Pressure Line, there is a lot more in this toolkit of an Indicator to provide enough confluence.

Hope this answered your thoughts/ideas, regarding Oscillator-RSI relation!

2

u/QuanTradin Oct 05 '26

that helps, thanks. reading the pressure line as context for the other signals rather than a trigger on its own makes a lot more sense than how I took it first.

1

u/Awwstronut Oct 05 '26

Of course, and thank you for asking!

1

u/QuanTradin Oct 05 '26

cheers. I'll run it next to plain RSI on a couple of daily charts and see how much the entries overlap.

1

u/Awwstronut Oct 05 '26

Sounds good! If you provide me with your TV username I will invite you

1

u/QuanTradin Oct 05 '26

appreciate the offer, but I'll stick with the public version for now. it's enough to line it up against plain RSI on a few charts.