How to use External Indicator Sources in Pine Script

hey Traders welcome back to the channel
my name is Matthew from the art of
trading and in today's video I'm going
to be showing you a brand new Pine
script feature that has unlocked a whole
world of new capabilities but before I
do that I want to apologize it's been a
while since the last video I've been
really busy the past few weeks with
family stuff but I'm back to work now
and before we get into today's lesson I
just want to tease next week's video
where I'm going to break down the script
you see on my chart which is a monthly
performance table and what this table
here is doing is breaking down my
strategy test data on a month by month
and year by year basis and it's showing
me the total return for each year the
max drawdown for each year all these
numbers here are percentage returns for
each month so here we have a 2.34 gain
here we have a minus 3.9 percent loss
and then this column here is the
intra-year drawdown so the worst
drawdown the system experienced
throughout the year and then down here
we have some performance metrics that
aren't given by the default trading view
strategy tester such as our compounded
annual growth rate our Max draw down for
the entire system on a realized Equity
basis I'll explain what that means in
next week's video we have our ma ratio
which gives us an indication of the pain
to gain ratio of the system so in other
words how much money did we make versus
how much do we suffer to make that money
every system has some point of suffering
and the whole point of trading is to
balance the suffering with the gain and
this my ratio can give you a really
quick indication of how good the system
is so this system here isn't fantastic
ideally you want to see a ma ratio well
above 0.5 but anyway we'll cover all of
this in next week's video when I have
time to record it you honestly have no
idea how long it took to build this tool
out it took several weeks of intense
head scratching and dozens of coffees
but I got it done and I'm really excited
to release it to you guys next week so
make sure to subscribe to the channel if
you haven't already so that you don't
miss next week's lesson for those of you
who are in the Mastery course the source
code of the script is already up in
there so go and check that out if you're
a Mastery course student there'll be a
link below in the video description and
pin comment so anyway with all of that
out of the way let's get to the content
of today's lesson and that is this brand
new update from the training view team
and we can now connect our scripts to
more external inputs this unlocks a
whole new world of possibilities so I'll
just quickly read through this we're
very happy to announce that our
indicator on indicator feature now
supports multiple external inputs up
from the previous limit of one these
multiple external inputs can even
originate from different indicators so
here's a sample strategy script with two
input source calls and the default
inputs are the low and high of price
action but you could for example link
this strategy with sources from the
session volume profile so let's copy
this code and I'll show you what that
means so let's apply this code to my
chart so with the default settings we're
just entering long and short after price
crosses the low and high but what we can
do now is if I throw on the volume
profile which is here session volume
profile let me drop down to say a five
minute chart we can now come up to the
settings menu of this strategy script
and change our sources to to the session
volume profile developing high and
developing low and now I can hide the
session volume profile and we can see
that we have a script that is entering
long and short whenever price action
closes above or below the volume
profiles high and low here's a good
example price close below the volume
profile low for that session and we
entered short so this is a really cool
and really powerful feature now you can
see I can use the price Source or the
the number value from any indicator that
I have added onto my chart including
closed Source indicators so that's where
things get really interesting so what I
mean is if you find a script on the
trading view script library that is
closed Source you can't actually see the
source code you can actually use this
feature to reference values that that
closed Source indicator generates now at
the end of this video I'll demonstrate
how that works but before we do that let
me cover another really valuable use
case of this new feature which is adding
alert functionality to scripts that
don't have it so let's get rid of this
strategy for a moment and for this
example I'm going to use my Dynamic
structure indicator now this indicator
automatically detects or attempts to
detect support resistance zones in the
markets major swing lows and swing highs
that create levels of structure this
script happens to be open source so if I
add this to my chart here you can see
the script is detecting the most recent
support and resistance zones now in this
case my script is open source and it
also has alert functionality so if I
select my alerts I can detect when
resistance is touched or Price breaks
through it but what if this script was
closed source and didn't have alerts
that's where this new indicator on
indicator or indicator value sources
comes into play so for this example I'm
going to copy this source code create a
new script paste that source code in and
I'm going to delete all of these alerts
conditions save the script remove the
original script and add this one to my
chart now if I come up to the alert
dialog and select the script
there is no option to select the inbuilt
alerts and now let's say I wanted to
detect when price is rejected from this
resistance Zone
let me open up the pine editor open a
new script I'll call this TSI rejection
alerts
and what I can do here is add a add to
price sources
input.source I'll give it a default
value of close and a title of Source One
copy this and name this source2
and now let's say let's create a new
Boolean value here called signal and
signal is going to be true if the
current bar is high is greater than
Source One and the current bars highs
lower than Source 2 and the current bars
close is lower than Source One now what
this should detect is a bar that's High
Falls Within These two red lines but its
closing price Falls below this bottom
line and that will detect a rejection
from this Zone and so now I can plot
shape signal I'll give it a title of
cell style of shape dot triangle down
location of location dot above bar and a
color of color dot red and we'll give it
text of
cell and now if I save my code hopefully
this compiles I need to set overlay to
true
um actually before we continue let me
also plot
Source one with the color of color.red
and Source two with a color of red as
well
save that code let's hide the original
script the dynamic structure indicator
and now if I come up to the settings of
this new script I can actually select
from this drop down box any indicator
value that I have added to my chart I
can reference any of these values in my
script regardless of whether I have
access to the source code of that script
so let me select R1 and R2 here so I've
actually got these around the wrong way
I need this to be R2 and this to be R1
and now you can see that we're detecting
rejections
from within this
automatic Dynamic resistance Zone that's
being detected by my DSI script and I
can do this regardless of whether I have
access to the indicator source code or
not which is really powerful let me show
you another example so here I've just
gone on to the tradingview script
library and found a random script that
is closed source so here you can see
it's a protected script it's closed
source so we can use it freely but I
can't see the source code to the script
I can't see how these moving averages
zones are being calculated so let's add
this script to my chart moving average
Zone indicator here it is now notice I
can't see the source code to the script
but if I bring up my Pine editor and
paste in some code I wrote up earlier
add this to my chart and hide the Mazzy
indicator now if I come up into the
settings menu of my script here I can
select moving average Zone indicator
bottom and indicator top and now you can
see that my script is drawing the exact
same moving average values of this
closed Source script and also detecting
Hammer candles within that zone so I'll
quickly go over the source code here
we've just got a standard indicator
script I'm importing my zen Library just
because it makes it really easy to
detect Hammer candles without having to
write out a bunch of Candlestick pattern
checks here we've got two price inputs
they're set to close by default but we
need to override these to the Mazzy
indicator here which I've already done
then we're detecting Hammer candles so
is the current bar a hammer candle so a
candle that looks like this with a large
Wick to the downside and a small body on
top
and is the open of this candle Above
This lower band and is the open below
this upper band so we need the bar to
have opened within the band in order to
be detected as a valid Hammer signal
then we're just drawing the Mazzy low
and high
and drawing a shape below any Hammer
signals and we're also adding alert
conditions to this signal so if I come
up to my alerts dialog I can select
Mazzy signals this is my script and here
we have Buy Signal and so this will
trigger an alert whenever a hammer
signal is detected again all based on a
script that I don't have the source code
to now in order to do this I need to
keep the original script on my chart The
Source script on my chart at all times
you can hide it so that you don't see
its values being plotted but you need to
have it added onto your chart so that
this script can reference that script
now notice if I remove this Mazzy script
it'll say do you really want to delete
study and all of its children this
script is now a child of the Mazzy
script if I click yes we lose our script
from our chart now that's just a couple
of somewhat useful applications of this
new indicator on indicator feature but
one really cool ability of this new
feature is being able to create strategy
scripts based on other people's closed
Source indicators so again using the
Mazzy script let me copy over some code
that I wrote earlier now this code is
identical to the code I just showed you
with one major difference it is now a
strategy script that buys the market
whenever a hammer is detected within
that Mazzy zone so now if I save this
script and add it to my chart and I add
back on the Mazzy indicator I can hide
the Mazzy indicator come up to my
settings select bottom and top and now
we have a strategy script that is buying
these Hammer candles and selling
whenever price closes Above This upper
band so it's somewhat of a mean
reversion system that we've written here
and now it's not very profitable but
that's not the point but if you took the
time to code out a proper system based
on a closed Source script that you like
it is possible to create a profitable
system out of this so this was just a
really quick example script I threw
together here you can see that over the
past 48 trades on the daily chart it has
been profitable slightly if we go over
to a stock market and cycle through a
few we're unlikely to find any to be
very profitable because this is such a
simple script but here we go 107 return
over 59 trades with a 33 Max drawdown
now this is completely random because
the script is so simple but hopefully
you get the idea I have created a
strategy script here based on a
completely different indicator that is
buying based on indicated conditions on
that other indicator and selling
whenever price closes Above This upper
band or below this lower band which is
why this trade exited here now there's a
few other random applications of this
new feature so for example I could
create an RSI indicator that is based on
volume for example so now we have an RSI
that is calculating its values based on
volume which is not necessarily an
unreasonable method for detecting spikes
in volume now I think this particular
feature has been in punscript for a
while but the real Improvement of this
latest update is the fact that we can
reference multiple indicator values now
as Source inputs in our scripts in my
opinion the most useful application of
this new feature is being able to
reference the indicator values of closed
Source scripts now this also means that
for those of you who like to automate
your scripts through a tool like Pine
connector for example you can now do so
even if you don't have access to the
source code of the script so if it's a
closed Source script but it's publicly
available to add to your chart with this
new feature you can actually add
automation through the use of a
secondary script that references the
values that the first script generates
now depending on the script this could
be quite a simple thing to do or it
could be very complex but theoretically
this should be possible to achieve with
any closed Source script so if you know
of a closed Source script or strategy
that interests you that you've wanted to
automate let me know in the comments
section below and if I find time maybe
I'll do a video showing how to add Pine
connector automation capabilities to a
closed source script now this method
will only work on public scripts that
are closed Source private scripts that
require
authorization to access will not work
with this method but there are quite a
number of closed Source scripts on the
tradingview script library that are very
useful for certain use cases and many
students in the Mastery course have
reached out to ask me how they can
reference closed Source values in the
past this was impossible but now it is
possible so anyway with all that said
I'll wrap this video up here I'll speak
with you next week where we will be
breaking down the source code to this
performance table that I mentioned at
the beginning of this video make sure to
subscribe if you haven't already because
I think you're going to love next week's
lesson with all that said take care best
of luck with your trading I'll speak
with you then