SuperTrend Indicator: Formula, Settings and How to Read It
SuperTrend (Olivier Seban) places a stop line a fixed number of ATRs away from the midpoint of each bar and flips it from below price to above price when the close breaks through. Senzoukria computes it with Wilder's ATR over 10 bars and a multiplier of 3 by default.
Senzoukria · Indicators · Updated September 2026
SuperTrend ships with the Senzoukria desktop app, in the Averages & volatility group of the indicator catalogue. It is drawn on the price chart.
What SuperTrend measures
Two raw bands are derived from hl2, the average of the bar's high and low, plus and minus the multiplier times ATR. Each band is then ratcheted: the upper band can only move down, and the lower band only up, until the close of the previous bar breaks it, which stops the line from loosening while a trend holds. The state flips to bearish when the close pierces the final lower band, and back to bullish when it clears the final upper band; otherwise it is carried forward. The first state, on the bar where ATR becomes defined, is bullish if the close is at or above hl2 and bearish otherwise, a documented choice that avoids an arbitrary first bar pointing the wrong way.
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:
SuperTrend (Olivier Seban) — ATR de Wilder (atrSeries d'averages.ts) : hl2 = (high + low)/2 ; bu = hl2 + k·ATR_N ; bl = hl2 − k·ATR_N ratchet : fu[i] = (bu[i] < fu[i−1] OU close[i−1] > fu[i−1]) ? bu[i] : fu[i−1] fl[i] = (bl[i] > fl[i−1] OU close[i−1] < fl[i−1]) ? bl[i] : fl[i−1] RÈGLE DE BASCULE : en tendance haussière, close[i] < fl[i] → baissière ; en baissière, close[i] > fu[i] → haussière ; sinon inchangée. Amorce (au premier ATR défini) : haussière si close ≥ hl2, sinon baissière — choix documenté (TradingView amorce arbitrairement haussier ; ancrer sur hl2 évite une première barre à contre-sens). CONTINUITÉ : sortie = 2 lignes (up = fl sous le prix en hausse, down = fu au-dessus en baisse), chacune null hors de sa tendance. Au flip, une série s'arrête et l'autre démarre — AUCUN connecteur vertical mensonger : la continuité n'existe QUE dans une tendance (le ratchet garantit fl monotone ↑ en hausse, fu monotone ↓ en baisse). Warm-up ATR → null. Défauts N=10, k=3.
How to read it
- The plotted line is a trailing stop level, not a target: in an uptrend it sits below price and only ever rises until the state flips.
- A flip is a close-based event. Price can trade through the line inside the bar and leave the state unchanged if the bar does not close beyond it.
- When the line hugs price, ATR has contracted and the stop is tight; a wide distance means volatility has expanded and the stop has been pushed away.
- The up and down lines are drawn as separate series, each undefined outside its own trend, so a flip appears as one line ending and another starting at a different level.
Parameters and defaults
ATR period defaults to 10 in a 1 to 200 range and sets how quickly the volatility estimate responds. The multiplier defaults to 3 and accepts 0.5 to 10: a low multiplier keeps the stop near price and produces frequent flips, a high one widens the band and holds a state longer, at the cost of giving back more of a move before the flip.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| ATR period | number | 10 | 1 – 200 |
| ATR multiplier | number | 3 | 0.5 – 10 |
What it does not show
SuperTrend reports which side of a ratcheted volatility band the last close ended on, and nothing else: it carries no measure of trend strength and no view of what comes next. In a range, price crosses the band repeatedly and the state alternates, producing flips that correspond to no move. The ATR estimate needs its warm-up, so the first bars of a history carry no line, and the ratchet is recursive, so a history loaded from a different first bar can place the flips differently. The decision uses high, low and close alone: the traded delta of the bar has no influence on where it happens.
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
- WMA — Averages & volatility
- Hull MA — Averages & volatility
- ATR (Wilder) — Averages & volatility
- Bollinger — Averages & volatility
- Keltner — Averages & volatility
- Donchian — 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
- How does SuperTrend decide when to flip?
- In an uptrend the state flips to bearish when the close of a bar falls under the final lower band; in a downtrend it flips to bullish when the close rises above the final upper band. In every other case the previous state is carried forward unchanged. The test uses the close, so an excursion through the line inside the bar is not by itself a flip.
- What do the ATR period and the multiplier change?
- The ATR period, 10 by default, sets how fast the volatility estimate reacts to recent ranges. The multiplier, 3 by default, sets how many of those ATRs separate the stop from the bar midpoint. Lowering either keeps the line closer to price and increases the number of flips; raising them keeps a state in place longer.
- Why does the SuperTrend line stop instead of jumping across price?
- The indicator outputs two independent series, one for the uptrend line below price and one for the downtrend line above it, each undefined outside its own trend. At a flip one series ends and the other begins, with no vertical connector drawn between them. A connecting segment would suggest a continuity that does not exist, since the ratchet only guarantees monotonic movement within a single trend.