Three-Line Break Indicator for MT4/MT5

Three-Line Break Chart MT4/MT5 indicator is an indicator that can plot a three-line break chart directly in the main window of your normal MetaTrader chart. Three-line break chart is a type of chart that ignores some time intervals and only reflects trending price periods while ignoring consolidation periods.

What is three-line break chart?

Classic Japanese candlesticks offer complete information about the price during each time period. They show high, low, close, and open for each period where there was at least one price quote. Three-line break charts (often called line break charts) have some important differences:

• High and low wicks are completely ignored in three-line break charts.
• Only a close above the previous in an uptrend or a close below the previous close in a downtrend produces a new line break candle. Consolidation periods are omitted from the chart.
• Trend reversal is counted as such only when the previous three candles (hence the name three-line break) is exceeded in the opposite direction.

This makes the line break charts somewhat similar to point-and-figure charts, though the former are more similar to the traditional Japanese candle charts.

Here is an example of clear trends shown by a three-line break chart:



What this means when analyzing three-line break charts is the following:

• You don't get distracted by periods of price consolidation.
• You get to see when the trend becomes exhausted with new lines becoming short.
• A clear trend reversal is always visible with the line color and direction change.

What is Three-Line Break indicator for MT4 and MT5?

Three-Line Break is a free and open-source MT4/MT5 indicator that plots the line break chart in place of the standard MetaTrader chart. The original plot can be removed by switching to the Line chart type and setting its color to None via the chart's properties. As a result, you get to see only the line break chart. It can help you analyze trends by removing extra noise present in normal candlesticks charts.

In addition, Three-Line Break is a highly customizable indicator with an option to calculate and display a moving average based on its lines and to turn on notifications when a trend change is detected.

Three-Line Break indicator's input parameters

The Three-Line Break indicator supports a number of input parameters to offer you some important customization options. The parameters are the same for MT4 and MT5 versions of the indicator. Here you can see the default input parameters window from the MT4 version of Three-Line Break:



• Number of bars to look back lets you define the number of the original chart's bars the indicator will analyze to plot the three-line break chart. You don't need to modify this parameter unless you plan to analyze some older price history.
• Lines to break is the number of lines to exceed in the opposite direction for a trend change to take effect. The standard value is 3. It isn't recommended to change it unless you know what you are doing.
• Rescale chart to fit TLB plot, if set to true, will make the chart rescale automatically based on the line break chart's visible maximum and minimum.
• Enable MA will turn on the three-line break chart's moving average if set to true.
• MA type defines the type of that moving average. It can be exponential, simple, smoothed, linear-weighted, or triple-exponential (TEMA).
• MA period is the period for that moving average.

The remaining input parameters enable different types of notifications when the line break chart changes its direction. The indicator supports native alerts, sound file notifications, email alerts, and push-notifications to mobile devices.

How to configure your chart optimally to work with three-line break chart?

If you simply attach the Three-Line Break indicator to your MetaTrader chart, you will see both the original candlestick charts and the line break chart. In some cases, this might be a good idea and can work for you. In other cases, it makes sense to clear the original chart to leave only the line break one visible.

You can achieve this by switching the chart type to Line and changing the line color to None via the chart's properties:



Here is how this looks in MT5 with a dark chart background:



Download (ver. 1.00, 2025-04-07)

Three-Line Break for MetaTrader 4 in .mq4Download Three-Line Break for MetaTrader 4 in .zipDownload Three-Line Break for MetaTrader 5 in .mq5Download Three-Line Break for MetaTrader 5 in .zipDownload
 

The MT4 version of this indicator works with any MT4 broker. You can use a trading account with any MT5 Forex broker to apply the MT5 version of this indicator.

Discussion

Warning!

If you don't know how to install this indicator, please read the MetaTrader Indicators Tutorial.

Do you have any suggestions or questions regarding this indicator? You can always discuss Three-Line Break with the other traders and coders in our forums.

Changelog

1.00 - 2025-04-07

• First release of the Three-Line Break indicator on EarnForex.com.