Equal highs and equal lows (EQH, EQL) explained, and how to use them
When price turns at the same place twice, the two swings make a level. Chartists call it a double top or bottom; smart-money traders call it equal highs or equal lows and read it as a pool of stops. This guide covers how the app decides two swings are equal, how long it watches the level, and the five things it can say about price coming back to it.
What equal highs and lows are
A swing high is a bar whose high stands above a set number of bars on either side of it. Equal highs are two consecutive swing highs within a small distance of each other in price, with nothing in between having traded above them. Equal lows are the mirror. The level is the more extreme of the two, the higher high or the lower low, because that is the price that has to be exceeded for either to be taken.
The idea behind watching one is that stops collect just beyond a price that held twice, and that a move into them is worth knowing about. Whether it is, on your market, is a claim to test. What the app does is find the level by rule rather than by eye, and report exactly what price did when it came back.
The swings come from the same scan Market Structure and Auto Fib Retracement read, so all three agree on where a swing is. A swing is confirmed only once that many bars have closed after it. That means a level is known a few bars after the second swing, and it is never revised.
Equal highs and lows settings
- Swing strength (bars). How many bars on each side a high has to stand above, or a low below, to be a swing: five by default, from 2 to 20.
- Tolerance (x ATR). How close two swings have to be to count as equal, as a multiple of ATR(14), the average range of a bar: 0.1 by default, meaning within a tenth of a typical bar. A tolerance in price would mean something different on every market, and one in percent something different on every timeframe; in ATR it means the same thing everywhere.
- Max level age (bars). 100 by default, from 10 to 300. The two swings have to be within this many bars of each other to be compared, and a level stops being read once it is older than this.
- Touch distance (x ATR). How near price has to come to count as touching the level: 0.25 ATR by default. Only the touch and rejection comparisons use it; a sweep and a break are judged against the level exactly.
How to use equal highs and lows in a strategy
These are the comparisons SixOne8 offers, in the builder's own words. Each comes in a high and a low version; the high one is described.
- Equal highs form. A swing high was confirmed within the tolerance of the swing high before it, and price has not traded above either since. True only on the bar the second swing is confirmed, a few bars after the high itself.
- Price touches the high. The bar's high came within the touch distance below the level without trading above it. True on every bar that reaches that close and no further.
- Price rejects the high. The previous bar touched the level and this one stayed below the touch distance: price came up to it and turned away. True only on that bar.
- Price sweeps the high. The bar traded above the level and closed back below it. True only on that bar.
- Price breaks above. The bar traded above the level and closed above it. True only on that bar.
Equal Highs/Lows(strength 5, 0.1 ATR) on 1h · price sweeps the high
Read it as a sentence: on the 1-hour chart, the bar that just closed traded above a pair of equal highs and closed back under them. That is what the scanner evaluates at each hourly close.
The life of an equal-highs level
A level exists from the bar its second swing is confirmed on. On that bar only "equal highs form" answers; the other comparisons read the level from the next bar. It then stays live until a bar's wick trades beyond it. That bar is a sweep if it closed back inside, and a break if it closed beyond. A bar that trades beyond the level is never a touch or a rejection, so the events never fire together. When the newest level ends, the indicator falls back to an older one that is still live, if there is one inside the age limit.
Two related indicators read similar ground. Liquidity Sweep needs only one swing, so it has a level far more often. Double Top / Bottom also asks for a deep enough trough between the two peaks and a neckline, which makes it a chart pattern rather than a level.
Do equal highs and lows work on your market?
Run an entry check. It will tell you whether, on the market you care about, the moments this condition fired moved any differently from a random moment over the history tested. That is a fact about the past on that market, and it is the only kind of fact a test here produces.