Value Migration Bands [AGPro Series]Value Migration Bands
Value Migration Bands is a chart-first value migration engine that visualizes where the market's accepted-value region has been drifting over time. Instead of a single moving average, it builds a three-layer band (upper / middle / lower) from a rolling percentile window of typical price, then classifies the current environment as Rising, Flat, or Falling Value using an ATR-normalized slope of the migration midline. The result is a scale-invariant, regime-aware view of how "fair value" migrates across trending and ranging conditions — on crypto, equities, indices, forex and futures alike.
🔷 OVERVIEW
Most band-style indicators build their envelope from volatility (Bollinger, Keltner, Donchian). Value Migration Bands is built from acceptance — the region where price has actually spent its time during the lookback, captured as a percentile window of typical price (hlc3). The outer bands mark the edges of that accepted-value region. The midline marks its core. When the whole region drifts upward, the market is accepting higher prices (Rising Value). When it drifts downward, lower prices are being accepted (Falling Value). When it stays level, participants are agreeing on a stable range (Flat Value).
This reframes the classic "trend vs range" question in terms of value migration, which is a cleaner structural signal than price slope alone. You see not just where price is going, but where the market's center of gravity is going.
🔶 UNIQUE EDGE
Value Migration Bands is distinct from moving-average envelopes, volatility bands and standard channels in several structural ways:
• Percentile-based construction — the band is a percentile window of typical price, not a standard deviation or ATR multiple. This directly captures acceptance, not dispersion.
• Three-state migration classification — Rising / Flat / Falling Value, driven by an ATR-normalized slope of the midline. The classification is scale-invariant, so the same sensitivity works across BTC, SPX, EURUSD, gold and small-cap equities without retuning.
• Regime-aware event markers — Reclaim and Lost markers are filtered by the current regime. Reclaim events are suppressed when the market is in Falling Value; Lost events are suppressed in Rising Value. You only see the events that matter for the active regime.
• Strict Value Filter — during extreme compression, the indicator refuses to classify a regime until the band is meaningfully wide relative to ATR. This prevents false regime flags in low-volatility micro-bands.
• Distance + cooldown gating — new event markers require a minimum ATR distance from the previous event and a minimum bar spacing, producing a clean chart even on long histories.
🔷 METHODOLOGY
Band construction:
1. Typical price (hlc3) is sampled across a configurable lookback window (Band Length).
2. Two percentiles are computed — a lower percentile and an upper percentile, selected by the Band Width Mode (Tight, Balanced, Wide).
3. The midline is the mean of those two percentiles.
4. Light EMA smoothing (adaptive to Band Length) stabilizes the visual without adding structural lag.
Regime classification:
1. The midline slope is measured over a rolling window (adaptive to Band Length).
2. The slope is normalized by ATR(14) to make the threshold scale-invariant.
3. A user-controlled Migration Slope Sensitivity divides the normalized slope into Rising / Flat / Falling bands.
4. A 2-bar confirmation layer prevents rapid regime flipping during transitions.
Event detection:
• Reclaim — price re-enters the band from below after previously being lost.
• Lost — price falls out of the band after previously being inside.
Both pass a regime gate, an ATR-distance gate and a bar-cooldown gate before being plotted or alerted.
🔶 SIGNALS & ALERTS
Four built-in alert conditions:
• Value Band Shifted Up — fires when the confirmed regime transitions into Rising Value.
• Value Band Shifted Down — fires when the confirmed regime transitions into Falling Value.
• Band Reclaimed — fires when price re-enters the accepted-value region (regime-gated).
• Band Lost — fires when price falls out of the accepted-value region (regime-gated).
Alerts and on-chart markers share identical gating, so the alert log and the chart stay in sync.
🔷 KEY INPUTS
Band Engine:
• Band Length (default 100) — lookback for the percentile window.
• Band Width Mode — Tight, Balanced, Wide. Selects the percentile pair.
• Strict Value Filter — requires a minimum band width vs ATR before classifying a regime.
• Migration Slope Sensitivity (default 0.5) — threshold between Rising / Flat / Falling.
Visuals:
• Show Midline, Show Band Fill, Active State Label, Show Reclaim / Lost Markers, Show Info Panel.
• Panel Location — six options (Top / Middle / Bottom × Right / Left).
• Panel Font Size and Label Font Size — default Normal.
Colors:
• Rising Value Color, Falling Value Color, Flat Value Color.
• Band Fill Opacity.
Alerts:
• Individual toggles for the four alert conditions above.
🔶 HOW TO USE
Structural reading:
• Rising Value — treat Reclaim events as continuation confirmations, not counter-trend signals. Expect pullbacks to the midline to be bought.
• Falling Value — treat Lost events as continuation confirmations. Expect rallies back to the midline to be sold.
• Flat Value — neither regime is active. The band can be used as a range reference; directional events are suppressed because they do not carry regime confirmation.
Location reading:
• Inside Band — price is trading within the accepted-value region. This is the default state.
• Above Band — price is trading above accepted value. In Rising Value, this is constructive; in Falling Value, it is a rally to be evaluated.
• Below Band — price is trading below accepted value. In Falling Value, this is the dominant state; in Rising Value, it is a dip.
Timeframe guidance:
• 1H–4H — best balance for swing use with the default Band Length of 100.
• 15m–1H — reduce Band Length to 40–60 for intraday use.
• Daily — Band Length 100 gives a structural multi-month migration view.
Pairing suggestions:
• Higher-timeframe VMB for bias, lower-timeframe execution tools for entry.
• Combining with volume-based or anchored-VWAP tools can confirm whether value migration is participation-backed.
🔷 LIMITATIONS & TRANSPARENCY
• This is an analytical visualization tool, not a strategy. It does not backtest, does not place orders and does not generate buy / sell recommendations.
• Regime classification is based on historical midline slope. Like all rolling measures, it is a lagging read of structure — it describes what has been happening, not what will happen.
• During abrupt regime changes, the 2-bar confirmation layer introduces a small delay by design, trading reactivity for stability.
• Percentile bands are descriptive of past acceptance. Future acceptance may differ, especially around news events, regime breaks and illiquid sessions.
• The Strict Value Filter can force a Flat reading during extreme compression even when a visual direction appears present; this is intentional and protects against false regime flags.
🔶 RISK DISCLOSURE
This indicator is published for educational and analytical purposes. It is not financial advice, not a trading recommendation and not a guarantee of performance. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the risk of total loss. Past behaviour of any instrument does not guarantee future results. Users are solely responsible for their own decisions and should perform their own due diligence, including independent risk management and position sizing.
Published as open-source under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. Feedback, questions and discussion are welcome in the comments.
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