Indicators
Ichimoku Cloud Breakout
Five lines built from nothing but rolling highs, lows, and a displaced close. Turn them on one at a time and watch how much of the "cloud" is really just two moving midpoints projected forward.
Build the cloud one layer at a time
All five components below are computed live from generated OHLC data using the real Ichimoku formulas, nothing is drawn by hand. Start with none of the lines showing and click them on one at a time. Each layer you enable unlocks one more row in the alignment score below, which only counts a condition once its underlying lines are actually visible on the chart.
No layers on yet. Toggle a line above to start building the picture.
How it works
- Tenkan-sen and Kijun-sen are both just midpoints, on different lookbacks. Tenkan-sen = (highest high + lowest low over 9 bars) ÷ 2. Kijun-sen is the same formula over 26 bars. Neither one is a moving average of the close, both only look at the extremes of the range.
- The cloud is two more midpoints, plotted 26 bars into the future. Senkou Span A = (Tenkan-sen + Kijun-sen) ÷ 2. Senkou Span B = (highest high + lowest low over 52 bars) ÷ 2. Both get displaced forward 26 periods, which is why the cloud extends past the last real candle, it's a projection, not live price.
- The Kumo is just the space between those two projected lines. Where Span A sits above Span B, the cloud is shaded bullish. Where Span B sits above Span A, it's shaded bearish. A "twist," where the two lines cross, marks a real projected shift in that balance.
- Chikou Span is today's close, plotted 26 bars in the past. It has no lookback calculation at all, it's a direct copy of the close, displaced backward so you can see whether the price from 26 bars ago is above or below today's close at a glance. It's undefined for the most recent 26 bars, since that would require a close that hasn't happened yet.
Where this breaks
The 26-period displacement makes every signal slow by construction
Every forward-looking part of this system, the cloud's edge, the twist, the "cloud ahead" read, is built from data that is itself 26 bars old before it ever gets projected. That lag is not a side effect, it's the entire mechanism, the cloud is deliberately showing you where support and resistance would have formed based on price from over three weeks back on a daily chart. On a fast intraday timeframe that same 26-bar lag compounds the problem: by the time price actually clears the cloud, or Tenkan crosses Kijun, the move behind that crossover is frequently most of the way finished. Ichimoku reads clean on higher timeframes precisely because the noise a 26-period lag would blur out is smaller relative to the move. On a five-minute chart, the same lag can turn a real signal into a late one often enough that the layered "confirmation" this tool scores is confirming a trade that's already stretched.