Demand Zone Finder

Demand Zone Finder is a free MT5 indicator for traders who trade long pullbacks. It draws demand zones as rectangles on your main chart. A zone marks the small base of candles just before a rally of at least 1.5 ATR. Each zone is graded Weak, Medium or Strong by the size of that rally. The Lab ran version 1.00 on MT5 build 6230. It works best when you want every base-and-rally area marked the same way, with an alert when price comes back to it.

A demand zone is a price area where buying was strong enough to push price up quickly. This tool marks that area for you. It does not teach the method; the glossary covers the concept.

What the boxes, colors and panel show

Each zone is a rectangle drawn from the base candle(s) and extended to the right. The color shows how hard price rallied away from the base, measured in ATR (average true range, the indicator's volatility unit):

• Strong (green): rally above 3.5 ATR
• Medium (cyan): rally from 2.0 to 3.5 ATR
• Weak (grey): rally below 2.0 ATR

If you turn on ShowHTFZone, a second set of boxes, HTF Demand Zones, shows the demand zones of a higher timeframe on the same chart. A Zones panel in the corner lists:

• the last zone event
• the number of active zones
• the distance in ATR and the status of the nearest active zone
• your impulse and touch settings
• the HTF zone count

The chart below shows the shape to look for. The prices are illustrative, not a Lab recording. Price drops into a single quiet base bar with a 3-pip body. Then a three-bar rally lifts the high 32 pips above the base top by bar 8. With ATR at about 13 pips, that 32-pip rally is about 2.5 ATR, so the zone is graded Medium. Five bars later, price pulls back to a low of 1.0835, against a box top of 1.0836. That is the first touch.

What the Lab recorded and what it did not

The Lab facts record one run: version 1.00 on MT5 build 6230, on 2026-10-05. They do not list the symbol or the timeframe used. Build 6230 is a current MT5 terminal build, so it is a recent version of the platform you are likely running. The Lab facts for this tool include no hit-rate or bounce statistics. Nothing here tells you how often price bounced from these zones, so treat a zone as an area to watch, not as a measured edge.

Touches, breaks and invalidation are all judged on closed bars. A wick that pokes into a zone during a bar does not count until the bar closes. A zone only appears after the rally bars (ImpulseBars, default 3) have closed. That delay is by design, not a fault.

Who it helps

It helps you if you trade long setups from pullbacks and want the same rules applied to every chart. It is also useful if you want a higher-timeframe zone visible while you work on a lower timeframe.

Install: copy the 109.1 KB indicator file into your MQL5/Indicators folder, refresh the Navigator and drag the indicator onto a chart. It draws on the price chart, not in a subwindow.

How one zone forms, lives and disappears

Every zone goes through the same five steps.

It catches both Rally-Base-Rally and Drop-Base-Rally structures. What happens before the base does not matter. Only the base and the rally after it count. The indicator keeps no more than MaxZonesStored (30) zones. Above that, it deletes the oldest zone.

Reading a zone's state

• Fresh: no closed bar has touched the zone since the rally.
• After a touch (counted toward MaxTouches): a closed bar has reached the zone, and the indicator adds one to its touch count. The panel shows the status of the nearest active zone.
• Invalid: a closed bar closed below the zone bottom minus InvalidationBufferATR x ATR, or the zone has used up MaxTouches.
• Expired: the zone stayed untouched for more than MaxAgeBars bars.
• Faded: an Invalid or Expired box. It is history kept on screen briefly, not a level to trade.

HTF zones follow the same touch, break, expiry and fade rules, counted in HTF bars. They are all deleted when you switch ShowHTFZone off. HTFTimeframe must be higher than your chart timeframe.

When you attach the indicator, it applies its Theme (Dark by default) to the chart colors. With RestoreTheme on, your original colors come back when you remove it.

The inputs that change what you see

Alerts and where they appear

Three events can trigger an alert:

• AlertOnNewZone (on): a new zone is confirmed.
• AlertOnFirstTouch (on): a closed bar touches a zone for the first time.
• AlertOnBreak (off): a closed bar closes below a zone.

You choose where alerts arrive. With AlertPopup and AlertSound on, they appear in the terminal's Alert window and play a sound. AlertPush sends them to the MT5 mobile app once your MetaQuotes ID is set in the terminal options.

A decision rule for the first-touch alert

This rule of thumb is a starting point, not a Lab-tested rule. Look at a first-touch alert only when all three of these hold:

1. The zone is Medium or Strong, not grey.
2. The touch bar closed inside or above the box, not near the invalidation line.
3. If HTF zones are on, the touch also sits inside or just above an HTF demand zone.

Skip the alert when the zone is Weak. Also skip it when price reached the box in one large bearish candle that closed near its low. Even when all three hold, the zone only gives you a place to wait for your own entry trigger. It is not an entry by itself.

Three common misreads

• "The box appeared late, so it repaints." A zone appears ImpulseBars bars after its base because the rally has to finish first. Its edges come from candles that have already closed. HTF zones work differently. They are rebuilt from the last 500 closed HTF bars on every new HTF bar, so an HTF box can shift when a new HTF bar opens.
• "Strong means more likely to hold." The grade measures only how hard price left the zone.
• "A faded box is still support." Faded means Invalid or Expired. It stays on screen for ExpiredFadeBars bars only so you can see what happened.