I Was Staring at Candles Without a Clue — Until I Built This ThinkorSwim Indicator That Actually Helped

 

I Was Tired of Guessing. Every Candle Looked Like a “Maybe.”

You ever open ThinkorSwim, slap on some Heiken Ashi candles, and think:

“Okay… red means down… green means up… unless it fakes me out and absolutely ruins my day.”

That was me. Every single morning. Staring at charts. Second-guessing entries. Squinting at wicks like they were trying to lie to me (and sometimes they were).

What I wanted was simple:

• A visual signal when the trend looked clean

• A way to spot candles with no wicks (because those are often strong continuation signals)

• An alert — sound, arrow, anything — so I didn’t have to watch the screen like a caffeinated hawk

But when I tried to search “how to make this in ThinkorSwim,” I got bombarded with ThinkScript posts that looked like a 2007 Stack Overflow nightmare.

So I sat down, got my hands dirty, and built a custom candle indicator in ThinkorSwim that actually makes sense. And you can too — no programming background required.

Let me show you how.

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🔧 PART 1: What We’re Building (And Why It Works)

We’re going to build an indicator that:

✅ Detects Heiken Ashi candles with no upper or lower shadows
✅ Draws up or down arrows to highlight those candles
✅ Triggers an optional sound alert when it appears
✅ Works on any time frame
✅ Can be customized — without wanting to cry

But first, what’s so special about these “no-tail” candles?

⚠️ Why No-Wick Heiken Ashi Candles Matter

In Heiken Ashi land:

• A green candle with no bottom wick = strong bullish momentum

• A red candle with no top wick = strong bearish momentum

They often show up in the middle of trends, and help you avoid getting faked out too early.

So instead of guessing when to enter or exit… your chart can gently whisper:

“Hey. This trend? It’s for real right now.”

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🧠 PART 2: ThinkScript Without the Headache

I used to think building a custom indicator in ThinkorSwim required a PhD. Turns out — you just need to copy, paste, and tweak.

Here’s the code you can use right now:

thinkscript

# Heiken Ashi No-Wick Candle Detector with Arrows and Alerts
# Author: A Formerly Confused Human

declare lower;

def o = HeikinAshiOpen();
def c = HeikinAshiClose();
def h = HeikinAshiHigh();
def l = HeikinAshiLow();

def bullishCandle = c > o;
def bearishCandle = c < o;

def noLowerWick = l >= o and bullishCandle;
def noUpperWick = h <= o and bearishCandle;

plot upArrow = noLowerWick;
plot downArrow = noUpperWick;

upArrow.SetPaintingStrategy(PaintingStrategy.BOOLEAN_ARROW_UP);
upArrow.SetDefaultColor(Color.GREEN);

downArrow.SetPaintingStrategy(PaintingStrategy.BOOLEAN_ARROW_DOWN);
downArrow.SetDefaultColor(Color.RED);

# Alerts
Alert(upArrow, "No-Lower-Wick Bullish Candle", Alert.BAR, Sound.Ding);
Alert(downArrow, "No-Upper-Wick Bearish Candle", Alert.BAR, Sound.Bell);

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🧪 PART 3: How to Add This to Your ThinkorSwim Platform

⚠️ Don’t worry — this part sounds harder than it is. Just follow these exact steps:

1. Open ThinkorSwim

2. Go to Charts > Studies > Edit Studies

3. Click Create (bottom left)

4. Paste the code above into the ThinkScript editor

5. Name it something like: NoWick HA Arrows

6. Click OK and Apply it to your chart

🎯 Boom. You’ll now see arrows anytime a strong momentum candle forms.

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🧘‍♂️ PART 4: Emotionally Speaking — This Changed My Trading Mindset

Before this, I was doing what every beginner does:

• Random indicators that conflicted with each other

• No visual signal I could trust

• Feeling anxious that I missed “the real move”

This simple script helped me stop overtrading and start waiting for candles that actually matter.

Even if you don’t use Heiken Ashi as your main chart style — just having a visual and audible confirmation when these momentum candles form can:

• Reinforce patience

• Improve trend entries

• And reduce that “Did I just enter into a trap?” feeling

Master the Markets: A Step-by-Step Beginner's Guide to Using thinkorswim: Unlock Your Trading Potential: The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to thinkorswim

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💬 Final Thoughts: You Don’t Need 10 Indicators. You Need 1 That Makes Sense.

ThinkorSwim can feel overwhelming at first. But when you take just one tool — one thing that clicks with your brain — it starts making sense.

This custom candle indicator didn’t just improve my charts.

It gave me something more valuable:

✅ Confidence to trust the trend
✅ Peace of mind that I wouldn’t miss it
✅ Less screen-staring and more signal-waiting

If that sounds like what you need too, try this script. Tweak it. Make it yours.

And next time someone says, “ThinkScript is too hard,” you can smile and say:

“Not anymore.”