The Whaley Breadth Thrust Indicator (WBT) is a momentum-based technical indicator designed to identify the strength of market trends. It measures the market's breadth by comparing advancing stocks to declining stocks, providing insights into whether a market is in a bullish, neutral, or bearish state. This script calculates the indicator based on the advancing and declining U.S. stocks; however, it can be expanded to other markets as well.
Breadth Thrust Ratio (BTR):
This is calculated as the ratio of advancing stocks to the total number of advancing and declining stocks.
Formula: BTR = Advances / (Advances + Declines + small_offset), where the small offset prevents division errors.
Smoothing:
The BTR is smoothed using a 3-period Exponential Moving Average (EMA) to reduce noise and highlight significant trends.
Thresholds:
0.30: Indicates a strongly bearish market.
0.40: A bearish threshold; crossing below suggests bearish momentum.
0.60: A bullish threshold; crossing above suggests bullish momentum.
0.70: Indicates a strongly bullish market.