Most trend-following overlays answer only one question: which side of the market should I be on? The Market Structure Trend Matrix, originally by BigBeluga, answers three at once: it detects the moment the market structure flips (Change of Character, or ChoCh), it manages the position with an ATR trailing stop, and it projects a ladder of profit targets that keeps extending for as long as the trend delivers.

The result reads like a Supertrend with a market-structure brain: instead of flipping on a volatility band cross, direction only changes when price closes through the last confirmed swing pivot — a structural event rather than a statistical one.

Theory Behind the Indicator

Market structure and the ChoCh

The indicator tracks swing pivots: a pivot high is a bar whose high is the highest within msLen bars on each side (10 by default), and symmetrically for pivot lows. Pivots are confirmed msLen bars after they print — the standard lookback/lookahead definition.

While the structure is bearish, the indicator watches the last confirmed pivot high. When a candle closes above it, the character of the market has changed: a bullish ChoCh fires. The broken pivot level is drawn as a horizontal line from the pivot bar to the breakout bar, labelled “ChoCh ↑”. The mirror logic applies to bearish flips through the last pivot low.

Because direction is a two-state machine (the bullish trigger is only armed while structure is bearish, and vice versa), each structural flip fires exactly once — no repeated signals while price oscillates around the level.

ATR trailing stop

On every bullish ChoCh the trailing stop is seeded at close − ATR(14) × 4 and from then on can only rise: max(previous stop, close − ATR × multiplier). It never loosens, and it resets to a fresh level on the next flip. The area between price and the stop is filled with the trend colour, so chart reading is immediate: green canvas, bullish structure; magenta canvas, bearish.

Note that the stop is informational — the indicator flips direction on the opposite ChoCh, not on a stop touch. The stop tells you where the trend would be invalidated in volatility terms; the structure tells you when it actually is.

Cascading (“infinite”) targets

At the moment of a bullish ChoCh, the entry reference is the broken pivot level and the first target is placed at entry + ATR × targetStep (2 ATRs by default). When the high touches the target, the level is frozen as a dotted line from the start of the trend to the bar that hit it, labelled with the percentage gained from entry — and the next target is projected one ATR step higher. There is no limit: a strong trend keeps printing +2.3%, +4.1%, +6.0%… while the ladder climbs. The mechanism is symmetric for downtrends.

This converts the eternal “where do I take profits?” question into a measurable ladder, and the chart history into a record of how far each structural trend actually travelled.

How to Read the Indicator

1. ChoCh lines and labels mark every structural flip: a green horizontal segment at the broken pivot high (“ChoCh ↑”), magenta at the broken pivot low (“ChoCh ↓”). The line spans from the pivot bar to the breakout bar, so its length tells you how old the broken structure was.
2. The trailing stop is the thick coloured line riding below (bullish) or above (bearish) the price, with the translucent fill in between. A widening gap between price and stop signals an accelerating trend.
3. The active target is the horizontal line projected ten bars ahead of the last candle. Solid right after a ChoCh, slightly translucent once the first targets have been consumed.
4. Hit targets stay on the chart as dotted lines with their percentage labels stacked at the trend origin — an instant visual census of how productive each trend was.

Practical Applications

1. Trend filter with structural logic. Use the direction (colour) as a regime filter for other strategies: longs only while the structure is bullish. Unlike a moving-average filter, it only flips on confirmed pivot breaks.
2. Position management. The ATR trailing stop gives a volatility-scaled invalidation level that never loosens; the target ladder offers objective partial-profit levels (e.g. scale out a third at each rung).
3. Trend quality audit. The percentage labels accumulated at each trend origin show how far past trends ran before flipping — useful for calibrating expectations (and targetStepMult) per instrument and timeframe.
4. Confluence with S/R. A ChoCh that breaks a pivot aligned with a higher-timeframe level is a far stronger signal than one inside chop. The drawn pivot line makes that check trivial.

Indicator Configuration

| Parameter | Default | Description |
|-----------|---------|-------------|
| `msLen` | 10 | Pivot lookback/lookahead for market structure |
| `atrLength` | 14 | ATR period for stop and target spacing |
| `atrMult` | 4.0 | ATR multiplier for the trailing stop distance |
| `targetStepMult` | 2.0 | Vertical distance between consecutive targets (× ATR) |
| `showHistory` | 1 | Draw the already-hit targets and their % labels |
| `showStop` | 1 | Draw the trailing stop line and the fill |

Code

//----------------------------------------------
// PRC_Market Structure Trend Matrix
// version = 0
// 10.06.26
// Iván González @ www.prorealcode.com
//Original author: BigBeluga
//Sharing ProRealTime knowledge
//----------------------------------------------
// === Parametros (exponer como variables del indicador) ===
//----------------------------------------------
msLen = 10           // longitud de estructura (pivots: lookback y lookahead)
atrLength = 14       // periodo del ATR
atrMult = 4.0        // multiplicador ATR del trailing stop
targetStepMult = 2.0 // distancia entre targets consecutivos (x ATR)
showHistory = 1      // 1 = dibujar los targets ya alcanzados
showStop = 1         // 1 = dibujar trailing stop + relleno
//----------------------------------------------
// === Colores (alcista verde / bajista magenta) ===
//----------------------------------------------
bullR = 52
bullG = 230
bullB = 126
bearR = 255
bearG = 82
bearB = 241
//----------------------------------------------
myAtr = averagetruerange[atrLength]
pivotWindow = 2 * msLen + 1

once direction = 0   // 0 = estructura bajista, 1 = alcista
once started = 0     // 1 tras el primer ChoCh
once phVal = 0
once plVal = 0
once phIndx = 0
once plIndx = 0
once phReady = 0
once plReady = 0
once atrTS = 0
once entryPrice = 0
once currentTarget = 0
once trendStart = 0
once hitCount = 0
//----------------------------------------------
// === Deteccion de pivots (confirmados msLen barras tarde) ===
//----------------------------------------------
if barindex > 2 * msLen then
   if high[msLen] >= highest[pivotWindow](high) then
      phVal = high[msLen]
      phIndx = barindex - msLen
      phReady = 1
   endif
   if low[msLen] <= lowest[pivotWindow](low) then
      plVal = low[msLen]
      plIndx = barindex - msLen
      plReady = 1
   endif
endif
//----------------------------------------------
// === ChoCh alcista: cierre cruza el ultimo pivot high en estructura bajista ===
//----------------------------------------------
if phReady = 1 and direction = 0 and close crosses over phVal then
   direction = 1
   started = 1
   hitCount = 0
   atrTS = close - myAtr * atrMult
   entryPrice = phVal
   currentTarget = entryPrice + myAtr * targetStepMult
   trendStart = barindex
   labelX = round((phIndx + barindex) / 2)
   drawsegment(phIndx, phVal, barindex, phVal) coloured(bullR, bullG, bullB) style(line, 2)
   drawtext("ChoCh ↑", labelX, phVal + myAtr * 0.4) coloured(bullR, bullG, bullB)
endif
//----------------------------------------------
// === ChoCh bajista: cierre cruza el ultimo pivot low en estructura alcista ===
//----------------------------------------------
if plReady = 1 and direction = 1 and close crosses under plVal then
   direction = 0
   started = 1
   hitCount = 0
   atrTS = close + myAtr * atrMult
   entryPrice = plVal
   currentTarget = entryPrice - myAtr * targetStepMult
   trendStart = barindex
   labelX = round((plIndx + barindex) / 2)
   drawsegment(plIndx, plVal, barindex, plVal) coloured(bearR, bearG, bearB) style(line, 2)
   drawtext("ChoCh ↓", labelX, plVal - myAtr * 0.4) coloured(bearR, bearG, bearB)
endif
//----------------------------------------------
directionChange = 0
if started = 1 and direction <> direction[1] then
   directionChange = 1
endif
//----------------------------------------------
// === Trailing stop + cascada de targets ===
//----------------------------------------------
if started = 1 then
   if direction = 1 then
      atrTS = max(atrTS, close - myAtr * atrMult)
      if high >= currentTarget then
         if showHistory = 1 then
            perc = round((currentTarget - entryPrice) / entryPrice * 10000) / 100
            drawsegment(trendStart, currentTarget, barindex, currentTarget) coloured(bullR, bullG, bullB) style(dottedline, 1)
            drawtext("+#perc#%", trendStart, currentTarget) coloured(bullR, bullG, bullB)
         endif
         currentTarget = currentTarget + myAtr * targetStepMult
         hitCount = hitCount + 1
      endif
   else
      atrTS = min(atrTS, close + myAtr * atrMult)
      if low <= currentTarget then
         if showHistory = 1 then
            perc = round((currentTarget - entryPrice) / entryPrice * 10000) / 100
            drawsegment(trendStart, currentTarget, barindex, currentTarget) coloured(bearR, bearG, bearB) style(dottedline, 1)
            drawtext("#perc#%", trendStart, currentTarget) coloured(bearR, bearG, bearB)
         endif
         currentTarget = currentTarget - myAtr * targetStepMult
         hitCount = hitCount + 1
      endif
   endif
else
   atrTS = close   // antes del primer ChoCh: pegado al precio (alpha 0, no distorsiona escala)
endif
//----------------------------------------------
// === Target activo: solo en la ultima barra, proyectado 10 barras ===
//----------------------------------------------
if islastbarupdate and started = 1 then
   if hitCount = 0 then
      activeAlpha = 255
   else
      activeAlpha = 153
   endif
   if direction = 1 then
      drawsegment(trendStart, currentTarget, barindex + 10, currentTarget) coloured(bullR, bullG, bullB, activeAlpha) style(line, 2)
   else
      drawsegment(trendStart, currentTarget, barindex + 10, currentTarget) coloured(bearR, bearG, bearB, activeAlpha) style(line, 2)
   endif
endif
//----------------------------------------------
// === Color + visibilidad del trailing stop (alpha toggle) ===
//----------------------------------------------
if direction = 1 then
   r = bullR
   g = bullG
   b = bullB
else
   r = bearR
   g = bearG
   b = bearB
endif

stopAlpha = 255
if showStop = 0 or started = 0 or directionChange = 1 then
   stopAlpha = 0
endif

areaAlpha = 60
if showStop = 0 or started = 0 then
   areaAlpha = 0
endif

colorbetween(close, atrTS, r, g, b, areaAlpha)
//----------------------------------------------
return atrTS as "ATR Trailing Stop" coloured(r, g, b, stopAlpha) style(line, 2)