Oscillators MomentumBuying PressureHistogram Available in Builder
Bulls Power
Bulls Power measures how far buyers can push the bar's high above an EMA baseline. It isolates one side of the market rather than netting both, which is why it is normally read together with Bears Power as the two halves of Elder's Ray system.
- Default period
- 13
- Centre
- Zero line
- Pairs with
- Bears Power
Illustrative — synthetic data, not a live quote.
What Bulls Power tells you
Most oscillators net buying and selling into one number. Bulls Power deliberately does not: it reports only how far above a moving baseline the buyers managed to take the bar. Read alone it is one-sided by design; read next to Bears Power it shows which side is actually doing the work.
- Above zero: buyers pushed the high past the baseline
- Below zero: even the high stayed under it — unusual, and a strong bearish reading
- Rising while still negative: selling pressure is easing
- 1 Take an EMA of the close over 13 bars
- 2 Subtract it from the bar's high
- 3 Draw the difference around zero
Show the formula & calculation detail
Bulls Power is a one-line calculation measured against a moving baseline:
- Compute an exponential moving average of the close over the chosen period — 13 bars by default.
- Subtract it from the current bar’s high:
Bulls Power = High − EMA(Close, 13). - Draw the result as a histogram around zero on buffer 0.
Using the high rather than the close is the whole idea. The close tells you where the bar settled after both sides had finished; the high tells you the furthest point buyers managed to reach at any moment during it. Measuring that reach against a lagging average turns it into a question about pressure rather than about outcome — buyers may have failed to hold the level, but Bulls Power records that they got there.
The reading is unbounded and scales with the instrument, so a value of 0.0009 on EUR/USD and 3.2 on an index can describe equally strong buying. Only the sign, the direction of change, and the comparison against Bears Power transfer between symbols.
In MQL5 the call is iBullsPower(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 Bulls Power gives — and the regime each one suits.
Turning Up Below Zero
Builder readyPaired With Bears 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 | High minus the EMA of the same period, drawn as a histogram around zero. Positive means buyers pushed the bar above the baseline. One buffer and one colour — MT5 does not recolour the bars that cross to the negative side, and there is no signal line to cross. |
Platform notes
Works best / use carefully
No indicator is a universal edge. Here is where Bulls Power helps — and where it misleads.
Works best
- Alongside Bears 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 Bulls Power
Wire the signal into entry and exit rules, then export a compilable MT5 EA — no code.
- Bulls Power (13)
- Bears Power (13)
- Bulls Power above zero → Open Buy · SL 40 / TP 80
- Bears Power below zero → Open Sell
Combine Bulls Power with other indicators
One indicator rarely stands alone. These pairings cover Bulls Power's blind spots.
Bulls Power + Bears Power
- Bulls Power above zero
- Bears Power below zero
- Two-sided rule
Bulls Power + Moving Average
- Price > MA
- Bulls Power turning up
- Buy
No single-flow template pairs Bulls Power with a moving average. Start from Elder Ray and add an MA node with a Price node into a Compare.
Open Builder →Bulls Power + MACD
- MACD above zero
- Bulls Power above zero
- Buy
No single-flow template pairs Bulls Power with MACD — the portfolio template that holds both runs them as separate legs. Start from Elder Ray and add MACD nodes.
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 high 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 is the natural reference because it 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 Bulls Power works, where it fails, and how a filter changes the outcome.
Both halves agree
Bulls Power holds above zero while Bears Power lifts off its lows — buyers are reaching past the baseline and sellers are losing depth.
One side read alone
Bulls Power is positive during a downtrend simply because the bar's high sits above a lagging EMA. Without the other half the reading looks bullish and is not.
Trend filter supplies direction
With a moving-average condition attached, the same positive readings inside a downtrend are all skipped — pressure and direction are different questions.
Related indicators
FAQ
- Should I use Bulls Power on its own?
- It is not designed for that. Elder's Ray is a two-part system: Bulls Power measures how far buyers reach above a baseline, Bears Power how far sellers reach below 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.
- Why does Bulls Power have no applied-price setting in MT5?
- Because the MQL5 signature dropped it. iBullsPower takes only symbol, timeframe and MA period — the EMA baseline is on the close and the measurement is from the high. MT4's version did accept an applied price, so a ported strategy loses that argument with no error and no warning.
- What does a negative Bulls Power mean?
- That even the bar's high failed to reach the EMA baseline — buyers could not lift price to its own recent average at any point in the bar. It is a genuinely weak reading and comparatively rare, which is why 'rising while still negative' is a more useful signal than the sign alone.
- What period should I use?
- 13 is Elder's default and the Builder template's baseline. Shortening it makes the EMA hug price so closely that Bulls Power collapses toward zero and stops distinguishing anything; lengthening it produces larger, rarer excursions. Re-validate on your own pair and timeframe rather than porting a number.
- Can I build a Bulls Power EA without coding?
- Yes. The Elder Ray template wires both Bulls and Bears 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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