Ichimoku Cloud Indicator: Formula, Settings and How to Read It
Ichimoku Cloud renders the kumo, the band between Senkou span A and Senkou span B, with the Kijun-sen as its middle line. Each span is a midpoint of highs and lows over a fixed number of bars, so the cloud describes where the market has balanced its extremes rather than where it closed.
Senzoukria · Indicators · Updated September 2026
Ichimoku Cloud ships with the Senzoukria desktop app, in the Averages & volatility group of the indicator catalogue. It is drawn on the price chart.
What Ichimoku Cloud measures
Tenkan-sen is the midpoint of the highest high and the lowest low over 9 bars, Kijun-sen the same over 26, and Senkou span B over 52. Senkou span A is the average of Tenkan and Kijun. Span A forms one edge of the cloud, span B the other, and the Kijun is the basis. On the displacement: the spans are by definition projected 26 bars forward, but a series here has to attach to the timestamp of a bar that exists, and fabricating 26 future timestamps would break on session gaps and irregular timeframes. The cloud is therefore drawn at its standard display position instead of being projected, so at bar i the plot shows the spans computed at bar i - 26. The above, inside or below reading is identical to other platforms; only the forward tail beyond the last bar is absent. The Kijun is never displaced and is read at the current bar.
The formula, as implemented
This is not a description of how the indicator is usually defined elsewhere — it is what the shipped code computes, documented next to the implementation:
Ichimoku Kinkō Hyō (Goichi Hosoda) — le NUAGE (kumo) en `bands` : Tenkan-sen = (max high 9 + min low 9) / 2 Kijun-sen = (max high 26 + min low 26) / 2 Senkou A = (Tenkan + Kijun) / 2 Senkou B = (max high 52 + min low 52) / 2 upper = Senkou A, lower = Senkou B, basis = Kijun. DÉCALAGE — ce que fait cette implémentation, et pourquoi : Les deux Senkou sont, par définition, projetées 26 barres EN AVANT. Le contrat de série impose `time` = `bucketTsNs` d'une barre EXISTANTE : les 26 horodatages futurs n'existent pas et les fabriquer (extrapoler le pas depuis la dernière barre) casserait sur les trous de session et les timeframes irréguliers — on refuse d'inventer une abscisse. Donc : le nuage est rendu À SA PLACE D'AFFICHAGE STANDARD, pas projeté. Concrètement, à la barre i on trace Senkou A/B CALCULÉES À LA BARRE i−26, ce qui est EXACTEMENT ce qu'un chart Ichimoku affiche sous la barre i. La lecture « prix au-dessus / dans / sous le nuage » est donc identique à celle d'ATAS/TradingView ; SEULE la queue projetée au-delà de la dernière barre (la partie « future » du kumo) est absente, faute d'abscisse. Le Kijun (basis), lui, n'est jamais décalé — il se lit à la barre courante. Tenkan n'a pas de ligne propre : il n'entre ici que par Senkou A (la consigne de la famille est de rendre le nuage, pas le jeu complet des 5 lignes — les ajouter désynchroniserait les warm-up d'une même sortie). WARM-UP : trou synchronisé (règle `bandsOut`). Avec les défauts, la première barre définie est l'indice 77 = (52−1) + 26 : il faut 52 barres pour Senkou B, puis 26 de plus pour la décaler.
How to read it
- Position relative to the cloud is the primary reading: above the kumo, inside it, or below it, in that order of clarity.
- A thick cloud means the 52-bar midpoint and the average of the 9- and 26-bar midpoints are far apart; a thin one means they nearly agree, and thin sections are where price crosses most easily.
- Span A above span B is the bullish orientation of the cloud and the reverse below it; the point where they swap is a change of orientation, not a trade.
- The Kijun is the only line here that reads at the current bar, so watch the distance between price and Kijun for how stretched the move is against its 26-bar midpoint.
- Closes play no part in any of these lines, which makes the indicator a slow structural frame rather than a timing tool.
Parameters and defaults
The defaults are Tenkan 9, Kijun 26, Senkou B 52 and displacement 26, Hosoda's original set. A longer Senkou B period makes that span slower to move and rarer to change. Raising the displacement moves the whole cloud further from the bars that produced it and lengthens the warm-up by the same number of bars. With the defaults the first plotted value is at bar index 77: 51 bars to complete the 52-bar span, plus 26 for the displacement.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tenkan | number | 9 | 1 – 200 |
| Kijun | number | 26 | 1 – 400 |
| Senkou B | number | 52 | 1 – 600 |
| Displacement | number | 26 | 0 – 200 |
What it does not show
This indicator renders the cloud only. Tenkan has no line of its own and enters the plot solely through Senkou A, and there is no Chikou span, because lines with different warm-ups in one output would desynchronise the series. The projected tail ahead of the last bar is not drawn, so the classic view of the future kumo is unavailable here. The spans are built from highs and lows, which lets one spike bar set a level for many bars, and neither traded volume nor aggressor side enters the calculation. It also needs a long history before it starts, which matters on a short session or when the loaded depth is limited by what your data provider supplies.
Using it in Senzoukria
Add it from the Indicators panel of any footprint chart or candle chart. It runs on futures data from Rithmic or Databento and on crypto pairs from Binance and Bybit, on the same engine — the calculation does not change with the venue, only the data feeding it does. Market data subscriptions are billed by the provider, separately from the app.
Related indicators
- SMA — Averages & volatility
- EMA — Averages & volatility
- WMA — Averages & volatility
- Hull MA — Averages & volatility
- ATR (Wilder) — Averages & volatility
- Bollinger — Averages & volatility
See the full indicator library, or start with the order flow guide if you are new to reading aggression, delta and absorption.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is the future part of the Ichimoku cloud missing?
- The forward tail would need 26 timestamps that do not exist yet. Inventing them by extrapolating the bar interval would go wrong on session gaps and on non-time-based bars, so the implementation draws the cloud at its normal display position and leaves the projection out. The reading under the existing bars is unchanged.
- What do the Ichimoku numbers 9, 26 and 52 mean?
- They are the lookback lengths of Tenkan-sen, Kijun-sen and Senkou span B, and 26 also serves as the displacement. They are the values Goichi Hosoda published and they have been kept as conventional defaults since. All four can be changed here, up to 200, 400, 600 and 200 respectively.
- Is the Ichimoku cloud calculated from closing prices?
- No. Every span is the midpoint between the highest high and the lowest low of its lookback, so closes play no part. That is why the lines hold flat sections and change only when a new extreme enters the window or an old one leaves it.