The Movement Index was first proposed by Steve Breese and described in his book “The Commitments of Traders Bible: How To Profit from Insider Market Intelligence”. Very quickly, it gained popularity among traders analyzing CFTC reports, and became a classic, and in many ways a unique tool for searching for sharp changes that lead to an imbalance of positions between market participants.

The indicator shows the change in the relative position of the participants in the form of a histogram, expressed as a percentage. It ranges from -100% to 100% and is calculated on the data of the COT Index or Willco Index indicator. Reversal signals occur when the absolute values of the indicator exceed the threshold level, which is 40% by default.

While other indicators of the MetaCOT series are trend indicators, the Movement Index is an indicator of momentum, i.e. it shows a sharp change in the positions of market participants. Thus, the indicator becomes indispensable for analysis in combination with other indicators of the MetaCOT series. In addition, Movement Index is not available in other programs that provide access to CFTC reports. Thus, the MetaTrader platform and the MetaCOT suite are an alternative solution for comprehensive analysis of CFTC reports.

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For more information about how to use this indicator, read the book by Larry Williams: “Secrets of trading in the futures market. Act together with insiders”, as well as in the article of the same nameMeta COT project – new horizons for analyzing CFTC reports in the MetaTrader 4 terminal.

Below are the main parameters of the indicator and their value:

• Source of Report – Type of COT report. There are two types of reports: Futures Only and Futures And Options.);
• Group of Traders – A group of participants in the COT report. Includes the groups listed above;
• Calculation On Data – Allows you to select one of two indicators as data for calculation: COT Index (classic version) or Willco Index (advanced version);
• Period of COT Index – The period of calculation of the COT index, the indicator on which the Movement Index itself is calculated. Recommended values: 25, 52, and 156 weeks;
• The Movement Period is the difference between the current value of the COT Index and its same value N periods ago.

For advanced users, additional parameters are also available, making the indicator configuration more flexible.:

• Release Day-sets the day of the indicator update. If the default value is ‘Release by Friday’, the indicator updates its values on Friday (the day the data is published). If the value is ‘Release by Thursday’, it is on Tuesday (the day when the data was received).
• DataType-selects the data to build the indicator. With the default value, ‘Contracts of Traders’, this indicator calculates the quantity-based contracts, with a value of ‘Number of Traders’ based on the number of values number of traders.
• Subgroup of Traders – A subgroup of participants. It is divided into all (All), old (Old) and other (Other);
• Auto Detect Report Name – If this parameter is true, the indicator automatically loads the report corresponding to the symbol of the market on which it is launched. If no report matching the current symbol could be identified, the default report specified in the Report Name parameter is loaded;
• Report Name – The name of the report to load if the Auto Detect Report Name parameter is set to false. As the report name, you must specify the name of one of the MetaCOT database files without the file extension.;
• Mirror Mode – Mirror mode of the indicator. If it is true, the highs of the indicator become the lows, and the lows-on the contrary, the highs.

This indicator can be combined with other indicators of the MetaCOT series, including displaying several groups of participants in a single, common indicator subwindow.

For the indicator to work, you need to download and install CFTC reports on your computer, for which you can use the specialized report installation utility MetaCOT 2 Install CFTC Reports MT4.

You can learn more about the values of the indicator settings in the blog “MetaCOT 2: Settings and Possibility“.

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