Dorschden Swing Volatility Solver

The Dorschden Swing Volatility solver measures volatility as the distance from swing top to swing bottom, to tell whether the market is moving enough to trade.

Swing points come from the Swings Highs & Lows indicator, included with BloodHound. Volatility has no direction, so the Long and Short outputs are normally the same. Useful for spotting range-bound or choppy markets.

Properties tab

The essential settings for the node.

Modifiers

Buttons for the most common output modifiers. They change only the selected instance of a node on a Logic Board, so they appear only when a node is selected there, not when a solver is selected in the Solvers panel. That keeps the solver’s original output unchanged everywhere else it’s used, much like changing an SMA’s plot color on one chart leaves it unchanged on your other charts.

Button	What it does
Enable	Turns the node on or off. When it’s off, the node is left out of the system’s calculations. It still looks connected on the Logic Board, but it’s ignored.
Invert	Inverts the node’s output. The same calculation as the Inverter function node, without its extra options.
Swap	Swaps the outputs: Long becomes Short and Short becomes Long. The same as the Long/Short Modifier function node with Mode: Swap.

Global Properties

These settings apply to every instance of the solver: change one instance and they all change. To change just one, make a copy of the solver. The copy is a separate solver, with a number added to the end of its name.

Behavior

Turns off the Long or the Short output.

Setting	What it does
Evaluate	Which outputs the solver calculates. Both: Long and Short. Long only: only Long; the Short output is removed. Short only: only Short; the Long output is removed.

SwingTrend Parameters

Setting	What it does
Number of Swings	How many recent swings to measure, combined as set by Evaluation Mode. With 4 and Average, the last four swing lengths are averaged.
Swing type	The formula that detects swing points: Standard, Gann, Ticks or Percent. These come from the original author (Dorschden), who didn’t document them.
Swing strength	How sensitive swing detection is. 1 is very sensitive (many small swings), 7 (the default) suits most intraday charts, 14 finds larger swings. Practical values: 1 to 15 intraday and 15 to 25 on daily charts for Standard, Gann and Ticks; for Percent, 0.15 to 0.4 intraday and 2 to 20 daily.
Double Top/Bottom strength	How close (in price) two swing highs or two swing lows must be to count as a double top or bottom, as a percentage of the 14-period ATR: ATR(14) × (value ÷ 100).
Use Close prices	Detect swings from the Close only, instead of the High and Low.
Swing Start Ago	How many swings back to start. 0 (the default) starts with the most recently completed swing.

Target Parameters

Setting	What it does
Minimum Volatility	The swing length needed for any output. Set the unit in Measured In (see Measuring distance).
Target Volatility	The swing length for an output of 1. Between the minimum and the target, the output rises gradually.

Output

Setting	What it does
Calc Swing Directions Separately	Off: up and down swings are measured together, and the Long and Short outputs are equal. On: up swings set the Long output and down swings the Short output.
Evaluation Mode	How the swings in Number of Swings are combined: the Average length, the smallest (Minimum) or the largest (Maximum).

Options tab

Secondary settings shared by all nodes.

Weight

Changes the node’s final output value. Only needed when designing a fuzzy logic system, or a fuzzy logic part of a system.

How Weight works

Weight changes only the selected instance of a node on a Logic Board. So the controls appear only when a node is selected there, not when a solver is selected in the Solvers panel: a solver’s original output can’t be changed globally.

Control	What it does
Multiply Output	Multiplies the node’s internal Long and Short values (set by the Output Rules on the Properties tab) by this number. The final output still can’t go above 1 (see Slider).
Slider	Limits the final output to between 0 and 1. The left handle sets a minimum output, given whether or not the condition is true. The right handle sets the maximum; the output is capped there.
Hedge Operation	Applies a formula to the internal value. None: unchanged. Very: squares it (value²). Somewhat: takes the square root (√value).

Example: two out of three

Three solvers check three indicator conditions, but only two need to be true. Connect them to an Additive logic node and set each solver’s maximum (the slider’s right handle) to 0.5. When any two are true, the Additive node adds 0.5 + 0.5 + 0 = 1, which means the two-out-of-three condition is met.

Description

Free text for describing what the node does or what it’s for. The Description is shared by every instance of the node, unlike Weight, which is set per instance.

Help tab

Shows this page for the selected node, inside BloodHound. Click the node’s image at the top of the page to open it in a bigger window. The built-in web viewer needs NinjaTrader 8.0.26.0 or newer.

Tutorial video

From the weekly workshop “Solvers 12-13”, September 2012. It shows BloodHound v1, but the settings and how they work are the same. This solver is covered from 1:15:29.