The one candle that traded far more volume than everything around it is where the most buying and selling got done, and Volume Spike Levels turns those candles into support and resistance levels on your TradingView chart for you.
It runs six realtime slots on your own chart plus eight higher timeframes, from 15 minutes up to yearly, with one shaded important volume zone for each, so the heavy volume levels are already waiting before price gets there.
Below you’ll see how the levels are built, how to trade them, exactly when they lock in and what every setting does, from Lane Dotson, an active futures trader since 2013 who builds every Trend Friend indicator himself.
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UNDER THE HOOD
Inside every window it watches, the indicator looks for one candle: the one that carried the most volume. That candle’s prices become your levels, and they stay on the chart so you can plan around them.
You get six realtime slots, and each one watches its own window of time on your chart. You pick the window for each slot, anywhere from 15 minutes up to 12 months. When a candle closes with the highest volume of its window, the indicator draws a line at that candle’s closing price.
Each line is as long as the window it came from, so a 1 hour slot draws a line that covers one hour of chart time. Out of the box, slots 3 to 6 are on and watch the 4 hour, 8 hour, 12 hour and daily windows. Slots 1 and 2 are set to 30 minutes and 1 hour and stay off until you turn them on.
The display mode only changes the realtime levels. The higher timeframe levels always look the same.
Static Horizontal Lines Only (the default): every spike draws its own fixed line that never updates, so you build up a history of separate levels on your chart.
Variable Lines + Trend Coloring: each slot keeps one line that jumps to the new level every time a new spike prints, and the chart keeps the trail of those jumps. The area between price and each level is shaded green when price is at or above the level and red when it’s below, so you can tell at a glance which side of the heavy volume price is on. You can change both colors in the settings.
The higher timeframe side looks back at every finished 15 minute, hourly, four hour, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly period. When one of those periods closes, the indicator digs through it at a few smaller chart timeframes, finds the heaviest volume candle at each one, and draws a level at those prices. That’s why one day or one week can leave you several levels instead of just one, and each of them marks a spot where volume piled up.
A fresh set of levels shows up the moment each new period opens. The daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly levels are on by default. The 15 minute, hourly and four hour levels are ready to turn on when you trade faster charts.
Every higher timeframe also gets one important volume zone. It’s built from the high and low of the heaviest volume candle at the smallest chart timeframe that group uses, with a color fill between the two lines so it stands out on your chart. These are the indicator’s most important areas, so they’re the ones to watch the closest.
Keep in mind price will often chop around inside or near a zone while the market makes up its mind, and when it finally breaks away, the move can be fast. So it pays to always know where the nearest zone is sitting.
HOW TO TRADE WITH IT
These levels do the waiting for you. If you can be patient and let price come to them instead of chasing candles in the middle of nowhere, your entries sit at prices that actually mean something, and you cut out a lot of the overtrading that happens in between levels.
When price breaks out of its range and starts to run, wait for a new volume spike level to print and for price to pull back to it. Then enter in the direction of the trend, with your stop just beyond the pivot that bounced off the level.
When the market is stuck in a range, find the spike levels near the top and bottom of it. Wait for price to reach one and start turning, enter on the turn, and put your stop just past the pivot price made at the level.
When price has been chopping inside or near an important zone and then builds a small, tight range just outside of it, trade the breakout in the same direction price moved away from the zone. These breakouts can move quickly, so make sure your plan is ready before it goes.
Whichever setup you trade, the next major spike level or zone is a natural target, so plan your exit at or just before it. Then use a lower timeframe slot’s levels to trail your stop, moving it to each level as price holds there and moves past it. So the whole plan sits on the levels: enter at one, stop past the pivot, target the next one and trail behind the smaller ones.
CONFIGURATION
Every setting has a tooltip, so hover over the “i” icon next to any setting and a popup will explain exactly what it does.
Stay Notified
The alerts are split into three types so you always know exactly what fired, and every alert is named the same way as its levels in the settings.
A few things to know before you set them up:
Alerts only work for levels that are turned on. So if you want alerts for Realtime 2, make sure the Realtime 2 levels are on in the settings.
New to TradingView alerts? Here’s how to set up alerts on TradingView, step by step.
No Surprises
The levels don’t repaint. Here’s exactly how each part behaves:
The script never uses lookahead, so it never reads data that wasn’t there yet. Every value it pulls from other timeframes comes from finished candles.
The only way a line leaves your chart is when it gets older than your number of lines setting and the oldest one is removed to make room for the newest.
Good To Know
Get Access
Access the full Premium Indicator Suite on your TradingView charts. All 10 indicators, chart templates, and priority support.
COMMON QUESTIONS
EXPLORE THE SUITE
Premium Suite
Generates directional trade signals based on price action and momentum. Combine with Volume Spike Levels to confirm entries at high-volume support and resistance zones.
Premium Suite
Designed for fast scalping on the 1-minute chart. Pairs naturally with Volume Spike Levels’ real-time levels for scalp entries at volume-confirmed price zones.
Premium Suite
Identifies trend direction and momentum shifts across multiple timeframes. Use alongside Volume Spike Levels to confirm that volume-detected support and resistance levels align with the broader trend direction.
