Oscillators MomentumSelling PressureHistogram Available in Builder
Bears Power
Bears Power measures how far sellers can push the bar's low below an EMA baseline. It is the mirror of Bulls Power and the other half of Elder's Ray system — one side of the market isolated on purpose, rather than netted into a single reading.
- Default period
- 13
- Centre
- Zero line
- Pairs with
- Bulls Power
Illustrative — synthetic data, not a live quote.
What Bears Power tells you
Bears Power reports how far below a moving baseline the sellers managed to drive the bar, using the low rather than the close. Like its counterpart it is deliberately one-sided: on its own it says how hard sellers pressed, not whether they won.
- Below zero: sellers pushed the low past the baseline
- Above zero: even the low stayed above it — unusual, and a strong bullish reading
- Falling while still positive: buying pressure is fading
- 1 Take an EMA of the close over 13 bars
- 2 Subtract it from the bar's low
- 3 Draw the difference around zero
Show the formula & calculation detail
Bears Power mirrors its counterpart exactly, measuring downward reach instead of upward:
- Compute an exponential moving average of the close over the chosen period — 13 bars by default.
- Subtract it from the current bar’s low:
Bears Power = Low − EMA(Close, 13). - Draw the result as a histogram around zero on buffer 0.
Using the low rather than the close is what separates this from an ordinary momentum reading. The close records where the bar finished after both sides had spent themselves; the low records the deepest point sellers reached at any moment during it. Measuring that depth against a lagging average asks how hard sellers pressed, not whether they succeeded — a bar can close higher while Bears Power records a serious excursion below the baseline.
The reading is unbounded and scales with the instrument, so a value of −0.0011 on EUR/USD and −4.6 on an index can describe equally strong selling. Only the sign, the direction of change, and the comparison against Bulls Power transfer between symbols.
In MQL5 the call is iBearsPower(symbol, period, ma_period) and it returns a handle to a single buffer. There is no applied-price argument — MT4’s version had one and MT5’s does not. Alexander Elder introduced the Elder-Ray system, of which this is one half, in Trading for a Living.
Signals
The distinct, backtestable signals Bears Power gives — and the regime each one suits.
Turning Down Above Zero
Builder readyPaired With Bulls Power
Builder readyDivergence
Advanced logicMT5 implementation
What MetaTrader 5 itself computes and draws — the reference every rule on this page is written against.
Buffers
| Index | Buffer | Drawn in MT5 as | What it holds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | MAIN_LINE | Histogram | Low minus the EMA of the same period, drawn as a histogram around zero. Negative means sellers pushed the bar below the baseline. One buffer and one colour — MT5 does not recolour the bars that cross to the positive side, and there is no signal line to cross. |
Platform notes
Works best / use carefully
No indicator is a universal edge. Here is where Bears Power helps — and where it misleads.
Works best
- Alongside Bulls Power
- Trending markets
- Higher timeframes
- As a confirmation rather than a trigger
Use carefully
- Read entirely on its own
- Comparing values across instruments
- Very short baseline periods
- Optimised periods without validation
Build a strategy with Bears Power
Wire the signal into entry and exit rules, then export a compilable MT5 EA — no code.
- Bears Power (13)
- Bulls Power (13)
- Bears Power below zero → Open Sell · SL 40 / TP 80
- Bulls Power above zero → Open Buy
Combine Bears Power with other indicators
One indicator rarely stands alone. These pairings cover Bears Power's blind spots.
Bears Power + Bulls Power
- Bears Power below zero
- Bulls Power above zero
- Two-sided rule
Bears Power + Moving Average
- Price < MA
- Bears Power turning down
- Sell
No single-flow template pairs Bears Power with a moving average. Start from Elder Ray and add an MA node with a Price node into a Compare.
Open Builder →Bears Power + RSI
- RSI < 50
- Bears Power below zero
- Sell
No single-flow template pairs Bears Power with RSI. Start from Elder Ray and add an RSI node with a Compare at 50.
Open Builder →Parameters
Starting values to validate on your own pair and timeframe — not guaranteed settings.
| Parameter | Default | Suggested test range | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Period | 13 | 8–21 | Length of the EMA baseline the low is measured against. Elder's 13 is the standard; shorter makes the baseline track price so closely that the reading hovers near zero. |
| Level | 0 | — | Your level, not an indicator input. Zero marks the baseline itself; other levels have no built-in meaning. |
| Shift | 0 | 0–3 | Which bar back the value is read from. Shift 1 compares against a fully closed bar. |
Starting presets
Reactive 8 Baseline tracks price closely
Standard 13 Elder's default baseline
Slow 21 Larger, rarer excursions
Market examples
Where Bears Power works, where it fails, and how a filter changes the outcome.
Both halves agree
Bears Power holds below zero while Bulls Power fades toward it — sellers are reaching past the baseline and buyers are losing their reach.
One side read alone
Bears Power is negative during an uptrend simply because the bar's low sits under a lagging EMA. Without the other half the reading looks bearish and is not.
Trend filter supplies direction
With a moving-average condition attached, the same negative readings inside an uptrend are all skipped — pressure and direction are different questions.
Related indicators
FAQ
- Should I use Bears Power on its own?
- It is not designed for that. Elder's Ray is a two-part system: Bears Power measures how far sellers reach below a baseline, Bulls Power how far buyers reach above it. Either half in isolation describes one side of a market that has two. The Builder's Elder Ray template holds both for exactly this reason.
- What does a positive Bears Power mean?
- That even the bar's low stayed above the EMA baseline — sellers could not push price down to its own recent average at any point in the bar. It is a genuinely strong bullish reading and comparatively rare, which makes 'falling while still positive' more informative than the sign alone.
- Why does Bears Power have no applied-price setting in MT5?
- Because the MQL5 signature dropped it. iBearsPower takes only symbol, timeframe and MA period — the EMA baseline is on the close and the measurement is from the low. MT4's version did accept an applied price, so a ported strategy loses that argument with no error.
- Bears Power or a plain momentum oscillator?
- They answer different questions. A netted oscillator such as MACD tells you the balance of the two sides; Bears Power tells you the depth one side reached, regardless of who won the bar. That makes it a confirmation tool — useful for asking whether an apparent trend has real selling behind it, less useful as a standalone trigger.
- Can I build a Bears Power EA without coding?
- Yes. The Elder Ray template wires both Bears and Bulls nodes into Compare nodes against zero, with the period as an EA input — and because both live in the same flow, a genuine two-sided rule needs nothing extra. Divergence is the exception and requires custom MQL5.
- How should I validate settings before going live?
- Backtest on quality tick data first, then run the EA on a demo account before risking money. When optimising, hold back data the search never saw and prefer settings that stay profitable across periods over the single in-sample peak — chasing that peak is overfitting the noise. No default or preset here is a performance promise; every value is a starting point to re-validate on your own pair and broker.
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