“Strong Contrarian Zones” only draws zones where buyers or sellers overextended

Throw a support and resistance indicator on a chart and you often end up with so many lines you have no idea which ones to trust. I’ve been there more times than I can count. When I first loaded “Strong Contrarian Zones”, I honestly braced myself for yet another zone indicator.

Once I actually used it, though, it felt different. “Strong Contrarian Zones” doesn’t draw a line at every swing high and low. The moment a swing forms, it scores how overextended the move was from seven angles, and only swings that clear the bar are kept as zones. Ordinary pullbacks and bounces get nothing.

There are two kinds of zones. Teal zones form at swing lows and are labeled “BUY-DIP” (buy-the-dip candidates). Magenta zones form at swing highs and are labeled “SELL-RIP” (sell-the-rip candidates). On top of that, the indicator watches for price to push out of a zone and then come back in, the classic sweep and reclaim, and treats that as the contrarian trigger.

Only stretched swings survive as zones — Default settings (Min Conviction To Draw Zone 4.5). Two factors fire on swing high ③ as well, but the weighted average of all seven comes to just 2.4, short of the bar. Zones extend to the latest bar, and the label prints three bars to its right.

In the figure above, zones only appear at the high with a long upper wick Figure ① and at the low bought up by a long lower wick Figure ②. The prominent high in between Figure ③ also has two factors firing, but the total score falls short, so nothing is drawn. That idea, that some swings deliberately get no zone, is the single most important thing to understand before you use “Strong Contrarian Zones”.

In this review I walk through everything I verified on TradingView, from how to read the zones and labels to entries and settings.

Strong Contrarian Zones on a 5-minute chart. Only overextended swings become teal and magenta zones.

All you get on the chart is a band and a four-line label

“Strong Contrarian Zones” doesn’t use a separate pane, and it doesn’t plot moving averages or a dashboard. The only things on screen are the zone bands and the labels to their right. The trade-off is that each label packs in a lot of information.

Three-layer bands, with the dotted midline at the swing price

Zones print three bars late, then extend back to the swing bar — With the defaults of Pivot Left 10 / Pivot Right 3, a swing needs three bars on the right to confirm. On a historical chart the zone looks like it was there all along, but in real time it shows up three bars late.

The center of each zone is the swing high or low itself. For a zone at a low, the dotted line sits exactly at the tip of the lower wick Figure ①. By default every zone is normalized to 0.6 × ATR(200), so they all have the same thickness.

Each band is built from three stacked layers: outer, middle and core. The closer to the center, the darker the color, and a higher zone score darkens it further. That said, the difference is subtle. Put a FORMING zone next to a STRONG one and you can’t really tell them apart at a glance. It’s safer to treat the number on the label as the real measure of strength.

Zones show up three bars late

A swing needs 10 bars on the left and 3 on the right to qualify. So nothing appears on the bar that prints the low; the zone is drawn only once three bars have closed to its right Figure ②. The left edge is then extended back to the swing bar, so on a historical chart it looks like the zone was there all along. Keep that three-bar lag in mind when you trade it live.

Reading the label top to bottom: grade, origin, history, price

With default settings the label sits outside the zone on the right, three bars past the latest candle Figure ②. Here’s what the four lines mean.

Line	Example	Meaning
Line 1	▲ BUY-DIP ★★ 4.1/10 WEAK	Zone side, stars, current strength (0–10) and tier
Line 2	Conv 5.8/10 · WICK VOL STR BB	The score at birth and the factors that fired at that moment
Line 3	Retest 1 · Defend 0 · BROKEN	Retest count, defended reclaims and current state
Line 4	@ 84420.59	The zone’s anchor price (the swing high or low)

There are three states that can appear at the end of line 3. “SWEEPING” means price has pushed outside the zone and the indicator is waiting for it to come back. “RECLAIM” means price came back and the reversal is confirmed, with a score attached. “BROKEN” means the zone gave way and flipped to the other side. Once Defend reaches 1 or more, a ⚡ icon is added.

Want the label inside the zone?

The default for Label Placement is “Outside · Right”, so the label prints outside the zone on the right. If you’d rather keep it inside the box, pick “Inside · Right” or “Inside · Center” in the settings.

Whether a swing becomes a zone comes down to seven contrarian factors

Every time a swing confirms, “Strong Contrarian Zones” scores the swing bar from 0 to 1 on seven factors, takes a weighted average and scales it to 10. That’s the “Conv” on line 2 of the label. The default Min Conviction To Draw Zone is 4.5, so any swing with Conv below 4.5 never becomes a zone.

The abbreviations after Conv on line 2 are only the factors that scored 0.5 or more on that swing. They tell you at a glance what built the zone, so I think of it as the zone’s fingerprint. Here’s roughly where each factor shows up in the fingerprint for a swing low at default settings (swing highs are the mirror image).

Tag	What it measures	Shows in fingerprint when (swing low)	Weight
RSI	RSI(14) oversold	RSI at or below 21	1.0
DIV	Divergence vs the previous swing low	Price makes a lower low while RSI is at least 4 points higher	1.3
WICK	Lower wick of the swing bar	Lower wick is at least 22.5% of the bar’s range	1.0
VOL	Volume spike	Volume at least 1.6× its 20-bar average	1.0
STR	Stretch from the 50-bar mean (z-score)	−1.1σ or lower	1.0
PRS	Buying pressure over the last 20 bars	Buy share at 59% or higher	0.9
BB	Bollinger Band (20, 2σ) pierce	Low pokes below the lower band by 0.25 ATR or more	0.9

DIV (divergence) carries the heaviest weight. Swings where price makes a new low but RSI refuses to follow are the ones that push Conv up fastest.

“RSI” rarely shows up in the fingerprint

The tooltip for Oversold Reference (RSI ≤) reads as if RSI at or below 42 earns full credit. When I checked the actual behavior, full credit only happens at RSI 0, and RSI 42 scores zero. “RSI” only appears in the fingerprint when RSI is 21 or lower at a swing low, or 79 or higher at a swing high. Comparing fingerprints across my screenshots, RSI barely ever shows up, so don’t read “no RSI tag” as “not oversold.”

Volume is the other thing to watch. On symbols with no volume data, VOL and PRS always score zero. In that case Conv tops out at about 7.3 even if the other five factors are maxed. If you trade FX or index CFDs, check whether your symbol actually shows volume first. It saves you from wondering why so few zones appear.

The headline score and Conv are two different things, and mixing them up leads to misreads

This is what threw me the most when I first played with “Strong Contrarian Zones”. Conv was above 6, yet the line-1 score was in the 2s and labeled FORMING. My first thought was that I’d messed up a setting. Most of the zones on my 5-minute screenshot look exactly like that.

The reason is that the line-1 score is driven mainly by what happened afterwards, not by how good the zone looked at birth. Here’s the breakdown.

Component	Weight	Maxes out at
Conv (score at birth)	35%	Conv 10
Retest	25%	4 retests
Defend (defended reclaims)	25%	2 defends
Wick / penetration depth	7.5%	Average of the birth wick and retest penetrations reaches 1 ATR
Volume	7.5%	Average volume over the zone’s life reaches the current 20-bar average

With that weighting, a zone that has never been touched caps out at 5.0 even with Conv 10. A fresh zone with Conv 5–6 typically sits somewhere in the 2s or 3s. On the flip side, the “★★★★ 7.4/10 STRONG” zone I saw on the 30-minute chart had a Conv of just 5, but it built up its score through 4 retests and 3 defends.

Scores are meant to grow

The line-1 score and stars grow each time price tests the zone and it holds. A new zone showing FORMING or WEAK simply means it has no track record yet. Read line 2 (Conv and the fingerprint) to judge where a zone came from, and line 1 to judge how much it has earned since. Keeping those separate clears up most of the confusion.

Score	Stars	Tier
8.0+	★★★★★	ELITE
6.5+	★★★★	STRONG
5.0+	★★★	PRIMED
3.0+	★★	WEAK
1.5+	★	FORMING
Below 1.5	·	FORMING

Those are the only five tiers.

The retest count has a quirk too. For a zone at a low, every bar whose low dips into the zone and closes above the lower edge counts as one retest. Three bars of chop inside the zone is Retest 3 on its own. The “Retest 11” in my screenshot means eleven bars touched the zone. It isn’t the number of separate bounces.

Zones that get ignored slowly lose score. By default the score decays over 300 bars from the last touch down to 0.65×, then stops there. Only the score drops; the band itself stays on the chart.

The entry trigger is the sweep and reclaim: pierce the zone, then take it back

The contrarian trigger in “Strong Contrarian Zones” isn’t a simple touch of the zone. It’s price pushing through, running the stops sitting just beyond it, and then coming back. Following a zone at a low, the sequence plays out in three steps.

1Price approaches and touches the zone

When the close comes within 0.10% of price from the zone’s midline, the Proximity alert condition is met. When the low dips into the zone and the bar closes above the lower edge, Retest goes up by one.

2Price pierces the lower edge (SWEEPING)

RECLAIM confirms on the bar that closes back inside — RECLAIM is judged on the close, so it lands on the bar that takes the level back, not on the sweep bar itself. If price can't close back above within the 6 bars of Max Reclaim Window (bars), the zone is treated as broken.

When the low trades 0.15 ATR or more below the zone’s lower edge, the state switches to SWEEPING Figure ①. Nothing is confirmed at this point. This is where you wait.

3Close back inside for the RECLAIM

RECLAIM confirms when a bar after the sweep bar closes back above the lower edge Figure ②. This part is easy to miss. The bar that wicks through with a long lower shadow never gets the RECLAIM itself. Checking only starts on the next bar, so even a one-candle wick-and-recover confirms one bar later at the earliest.

On confirmation, Defend goes up by one and line 3 shows a score such as “⚡RECLAIM 6.4” Figure ③. That score is built from the six items below. It’s a different number from the zone score, so don’t mix the two up when reading them side by side.

How deep price pushed beyond the zone (full credit at 1 ATR)
How fast it came back (full credit if it reclaims on the bar right after the sweep)
The lower-wick share of the reclaim bar
How much volume expanded versus average
The zone’s Conv (the heaviest weight of the six)
How far the close pushed back above the lower edge (full credit at 0.6 ATR)

Past RECLAIMs don’t stay on the label

The label only shows the current state. The next time price touches the zone, the RECLAIM tag disappears and there’s no way to tell from the chart when the reversal was confirmed. Turning on Show Reclaim Triggers puts a small triangle on the bar where each RECLAIM confirmed. It’s off by default, so I recommend switching it on if you want to review past reversals.

Zones that fail to reclaim flip to the other side

A broken zone doesn't disappear, it flips to the other side — This is the default behavior with Flip Broken Zones (breakers) turned on. The Conv score and the factors on the label keep the values from when the zone was born teal.

If price can’t take the zone back after a sweep, it counts as a break. That happens either when a bar closes 0.9 ATR or more below the lower edge Figure ①, or when price is still closing below the lower edge six bars after the sweep.

With Flip Broken Zones (breakers) on (the default), the broken zone doesn’t disappear; it flips to a magenta SELL-RIP. The whole zone is repainted magenta, so no trace of the original teal is left Figure ②. The only clue is “BROKEN” on the label, which is easy to overlook Figure ③.

A flipped zone starts counting Retest and Defend from zero again, and its score drops back into the 2s. Conv and the fingerprint, however, keep the values from when it was born as a teal zone. That’s why you’ll see a magenta zone whose fingerprint lists swing-low reasons like “WICK VOL STR BB.” The BROKEN tag also disappears the next time price touches the zone.

Enter on the reclaim, or fade the first touch?

There are two broad ways to trade these zones: wait for the reclaim, or fade the first touch. Both make sense on paper. Once you line them up against how the scores actually behave, though, they play out very differently.

Trading the reclaim works as-is

Buy when price sweeps below a BUY-DIP zone and reclaims it; sell when price sweeps above a SELL-RIP zone and falls back in. The playbook looks like this.

Entry on the close of the reclaim bar
Stop beyond the low (or high) set by the sweep
Target at the mean, the other side of the range, or the next zone

The big plus is that the stop goes beyond a breakout that has already failed, so there’s no guesswork on placement. The catch is that “Strong Contrarian Zones” doesn’t plot the “mean” you’d use as a target. The 50 SMA covered later in this article fills that gap.

Fading the first touch needs a different read

If you’re going to fade a first touch, the natural move is to look for untested zones graded ELITE or STRONG. But as the breakdown above shows, an untested zone tops out at 5.0 with default settings, short of both ELITE (8.0) and STRONG (6.5). Even after the first touch bumps Retest to 1, the ceiling is only around 5.6.

On a first touch, look at Conv and the fingerprint

With default settings, an untested zone will almost never reach ELITE or STRONG. If you want to fade a first touch, check whether line 2 shows a high Conv with DIV or WICK in the fingerprint rather than relying on the line-1 tier. You can change the weights so tiers show up differently, but that dilutes the whole “earn it through the track record” design.

When to sit on your hands is pretty clear

FORMING or WEAK zones with neither DIV nor WICK in the fingerprint
Zones still SWEEPING with no close back inside yet (wait for confirmation)
Price stuck mid-range between zones with nothing nearby
Zones that have gone untouched for a long time and decayed

I use these myself as my “when in doubt, stay out” rules.

Strong in back-and-forth markets, broken again and again in one-way trends

A STRONG zone in Strong Contrarian Zones. Retests and reclaims pushed the score into the 7s.

Because “Strong Contrarian Zones” is built on contrarian logic, its fit with market conditions is very clear-cut. In ranges, or when an uptrend keeps printing pullbacks, the “stretch then snap back” behavior repeats. Zones get tested, their scores grow, and reclaims tend to work.

Where it struggles is a market that just keeps going one way.

In a persistent downtrend, dip zones get taken out one after another — In a market that keeps grinding one way, contrarian dip zones fail and turn into zones for the other side. The newest teal zone at the bottom is still only WEAK.

In a stair-step selloff, teal zones at the lows get swept one after another and flip to breaks without ever reclaiming Figure ①. The next zone goes the same way Figure ②, and before long there’s a stack of magenta BROKEN zones overhead. The newest zone at the bottom is still only WEAK, so I’d want to see a bounce before acting on it Figure ③.

In conditions like this, using the flipped magenta zones as sell-the-rally levels fits the flow much better. A zone that failed as a reversal now works as a break-and-retest level.

Strong Contrarian Zones on a 4-hour chart. On swing timeframes the higher-scoring zones stand out.

Timeframe-wise, I found it easiest to read somewhere between the 1-hour and the daily. It works on the 5-minute too, but zones and labels pile up and overlap, and the three-bar confirmation lag matters more. On the weekly, STRONG and PRIMED zones remained at major past lows, which makes it handy for checking long-term levels as well.

Strong Contrarian Zones on a weekly chart. STRONG zones remain at long-term levels.

Where it shines

Only overextended swings survive, so the number of zones stays manageable
The fingerprint tells you why each zone exists, so you can check divergence or a long wick instantly
The sweep and reclaim gives you a clear “confirmed” signal and an obvious place for the stop
Broken zones flip sides and double as trend-following levels
Everything is ATR-based, so the defaults hold up well when you switch symbols

Watch out for

The four-line label is packed with abbreviations and takes time to learn
New zones score low, so reading line 1 alone makes them easy to underrate
In a one-way trend, contrarian zones get broken back to back
Zones appear three bars late but look earlier on historical charts
On symbols without volume, two of the seven factors never fire

Add the 50 SMA and you can see how far price stretched and where it’s likely to snap back

If I had to pair it with one thing, I’d pick the 50-period simple moving average (SMA). Two reasons.

First, the STR factor in “Strong Contrarian Zones” measures exactly how far the close is from its 50-bar mean. With the 50 SMA on the chart, you can see for yourself how stretched price was when a zone with STR in its fingerprint was born. Second, it gives you the “mean” you’d use as a post-reclaim target as an actual line on the chart.

Add the 50 SMA to see how far price stretched and where it snaps back — The low that created the zone sits far below the 50 SMA, and STR shows up in its fingerprint. The bounce stalls once it tags the 50 SMA and then goes sideways. While the 50 SMA is sloping down, treating it as the bounce target is the sensible read.

In this figure, the zone forms at a low stretched far below a falling 50 SMA Figure ①. The bounce from there runs out of steam once it tags the 50 SMA Figure ②.

The slope of the 50 SMA also tells you how aggressive to be with the contrarian trade. If the 50 SMA is rising, a teal zone is a pullback in an uptrend, so there’s room to hold for a move beyond the 50 SMA. If it’s falling, bank some profit at the 50 SMA and give the magenta zones more weight. Making that switch keeps you from stacking dip buys in the relentless selloffs described earlier.

Plenty of settings, but only a handful really matter

“Strong Contrarian Zones” has close to 70 settings. You don’t need to learn them all. Below I focus on the ones that affect the display and the ones that meaningfully change the results. For finer items like the scoring weights, I recommend starting with the defaults and only adjusting what bothers you.

Display and swing detection

Setting	Default	Suggested	Effect
Zone Side	Both	Both	Which zones to show. Bullish Only shows teal only, Bearish Only shows magenta only
Show In-Zone Labels	On	On	Shows the labels. Turn off for bands only
Label Size	Normal	Small on busy charts	Label text size
Lookback (bars, 0 = all loaded)	2500	2500	How many bars back from the latest bar zones are built
Max Live Zones	30	15–30	Maximum zones kept at once. Oldest ones drop off first
Hide Overlapping Zones	On	On	Skips new zones that overlap an existing one
Overlap Threshold (%)	25	25	How much of the thinner zone must overlap to count as a duplicate
Pivot Left	10	10	Bars on the left used to detect a swing
Pivot Right	3	3 (5 for more reliability)	Bars on the right needed to confirm a swing. Higher is more reliable but lags more
Max Zone Life (bars)	700	Adjust to your timeframe	How many bars after birth a zone is removed

The 700 bars of Max Zone Life (bars) is about 58 hours on a 5-minute chart and over 10 years on the weekly. On lower timeframes zones vanish after two and a half days, so raise it if you want to keep last week’s levels around. Setting Pivot Right to 5 delays confirmation by two bars, but cuts down on cases where price makes a new low right after the swing confirms.

Zone height

Setting	Default	Suggested	Effect
Normalize All Zone Heights	On	On	Gives every zone the same height, centered on the swing price
Height Method	ATR Based	ATR Based	Basis for height. Fixed Percentage uses a percent of price
Zone Height (ATR Mult)	0.6	0.6	Height as a multiple of ATR
Zone Height (% of Price)	0.30	—	Height when using Fixed Percentage
ATR Length	200	200	ATR period used for height and sweep detection

With Normalize All Zone Heights off, zones at lows extend upward from the low and zones at highs extend downward from the high. The ATR is used not just for height but also for the sweep and break thresholds, so shortening ATR Length makes zones thinner and sweep detection more sensitive.

What it takes to form a zone (Contrarian Conviction)

Setting	Default	Suggested	Effect
Min Conviction To Draw Zone	4.5	4.5 (5.5 to be pickier)	Only swings at or above this score become zones
RSI Length	14	14	RSI period
Oversold Reference (RSI ≤)	42	42	Reference for the RSI factor at swing lows
Overbought Reference (RSI ≥)	58	58	Reference for the RSI factor at swing highs
Mean-Reversion Length (z-score)	50	50	Period used to measure distance from the mean
Stretch Reference (z σ)	2.2	2.2	How many σ away earns full credit
Bollinger Length	20	20	Bollinger Band period
Bollinger StdDev	2.0	2.0	Bollinger Band width
Band-Pierce Reference (ATR)	0.5	0.5	How many ATR beyond the band earns full credit
Volume Baseline Length	20	20	Period for the volume average
Volume Climax Reference (x)	2.2	2.2	Volume multiple of the average that earns full credit
Rejection Wick Reference	0.45	0.45	Wick share of the bar’s range that earns full credit
Order-Flow Pressure Lookback	20	20	Period for measuring buying pressure
Pressure Reference (% past 50)	18.0	18.0	How many points away from 50% earns full credit
Divergence Reference (RSI pts)	8.0	8.0	RSI improvement vs the prior swing low (high) that earns full credit

Min Conviction To Draw Zone has the biggest impact on how many zones you see. If you’re getting too many candidates on something like a 5-minute chart, raising it in 0.5 steps is the easiest way to dial it in. On lower timeframes I run it around 5.5 so that zones with DIV or WICK make up most of what’s left. Keep in mind the ceiling drops to about 7.3 on symbols without volume, so push it too high and hardly any zones will print.

Factor weights (Conviction Weights)

Setting	Default	Suggested	Effect
Weight · RSI Extreme	1.0	1.0	Weight of the RSI factor
Weight · Momentum Divergence	1.3	1.3–1.6	Weight of the divergence factor
Weight · Rejection Wick	1.0	1.0	Weight of the wick factor
Weight · Volume Climax	1.0	0 on symbols without volume	Weight of the volume factor
Weight · Mean-Reversion Stretch	1.0	1.0	Weight of the stretch factor
Weight · Order-Flow Pressure	0.9	0 on symbols without volume	Weight of the buying-pressure factor
Weight · Bollinger Pierce	0.9	0.9	Weight of the band-pierce factor

On symbols without volume, setting Weight · Volume Climax and Weight · Order-Flow Pressure to 0 means the average is taken over the remaining five factors only. That lets Conv reach 10 again. If you want divergence to count for more, raise Weight · Momentum Divergence.

Sweep and reclaim detection

Setting	Default	Suggested	Effect
Fire Reclaim Alerts	On	On	Enables the reclaim alert conditions. Turning it off also hides the RECLAIM triangles
Min Sweep Depth (ATR)	0.15	0.15	How many ATR beyond the lower (upper) edge counts as a sweep
Max Reclaim Window (bars)	6	6	How many bars after the sweep a reclaim is allowed
Reclaim Confirmation	Border	Border (Midline to be stricter)	How far back the close must get to confirm. Midline is the center line, Far Border is the opposite edge
Decisive Break Acceptance (ATR)	0.9	0.9	How many ATR beyond the edge on a close triggers an immediate break
Flip Broken Zones (breakers)	On	On	Keeps broken zones and flips them to the other side. Off deletes them
Only Alert Strong Reclaims	Off	On once you’re comfortable	Only alerts when the reclaim score clears the threshold
Strong Reclaim Threshold	6.5	6.5	Reclaim score threshold used by the setting above
Show Reclaim Triggers	Off	On	Plots a triangle on the bar where a reclaim confirms

Setting Reclaim Confirmation to Midline or Far Border means the close has to get deeper back into the zone to confirm. In that case a zone can stay in SWEEPING even after six bars if price hasn’t reclaimed enough but also isn’t closing below the lower edge. With Only Alert Strong Reclaims on, reclaims below the threshold won’t get a triangle either.

There are also nine settings that change how the reclaim score is built (Grab Depth Ref (ATR), Weight · Zone Conviction and so on). The defaults worked fine for me, so I haven’t touched them.

Zone strength (Live Zone Strength)

Setting	Default	Suggested	Effect
Show Only Strong Zones	Off	Off	Hides zones below the threshold
Strong Threshold (score)	5.0	5.0	Score threshold used by the setting above
Retests For Full Score	4.0	4.0	Retests needed for full credit
Defended Reclaims For Full Score	2.0	2.0	Defended reclaims needed for full credit
Weight: Birth Conviction	0.35	0.35	Weight of Conv
Weight: Retests	0.25	0.25	Weight of retests
Weight: Sweep Defense	0.25	0.25	Weight of defended reclaims
Weight: Rejection Wick	0.075	0.075	Weight of wicks
Weight: Volume	0.075	0.075	Weight of volume
Decay Strength While Ignored	On	On	Lowers the score of zones that go untouched
Full Decay Over (idle bars)	300	300	Bars it takes to decay down to the floor
Decay Floor	0.65	0.65	Lowest multiple the score can decay to

Turn on “Show Only Strong Zones” and most zones vanish

Untested zones top out at 5.0, so with Show Only Strong Zones on, almost every new zone gets hidden. What’s left are zones whose scores grew through retests or reclaims, plus zones that are currently SWEEPING or just reclaimed. Hidden zones still exist under the hood and still count toward the overlap check and Max Live Zones. What you see on screen is not the full picture.

Appearance and alerts

Setting	Default	Suggested	Effect
Bullish Zone Tone	#21c997	Your choice	Color of BUY-DIP zones
Bearish Zone Tone	#cc24e2	Your choice	Color of SELL-RIP zones
Gradient (double-shaded) Fill	On	On	Fills with three shaded layers
Zone Transparency	84	84	Band transparency
Show Zone Borders	On	On	Band border
Border Transparency	35	35	Border transparency
Show Zone Midline	On	On	Dotted center line
Label Placement	Outside · Right	Outside · Right	Label position
Label Gap From Zone (bars)	3	3	Bars between the zone’s right edge and the label
Label Background Transparency	22	22	Label background transparency
Label Text Colour	#F2F7FF	#F2F7FF	Label text color
Proximity (% of price)	0.10	0.10	Proximity alert condition is met when the close is within this range of the midline
Strong / Institutional Score	7.0	7.0	Zone score used for the Strong proximity alerts

If your candle colors are close to the zone colors, candles inside the bands get hard to read. My down candles are purple-ish, and I found changing the candle color worked better than making the zones more transparent.

Ten alert conditions, so you don’t have to stare at the chart

Since nothing but zones and labels goes on the chart, the alerts do a lot of the heavy lifting. Here are the ten alert conditions available.

Alert name	Fires when
Bullish Zone Proximity / Bearish Zone Proximity	The close gets near the midline of a teal / magenta zone
Strong Bullish Zone Proximity / Strong Bearish Zone Proximity	Same as above, for zones scoring 7.0 or higher
Zone Touch / Retest	A retest is counted on any zone
Zone Sweep (liquidity grab)	Any zone gets swept
Zone Break (accepted)	Any zone is confirmed as broken
Bullish Reclaim / Bearish Reclaim	A reclaim confirms on a teal / magenta zone
Any Reclaim	Either kind of reclaim confirms

To set one up, open TradingView’s Create Alert dialog, choose “Strong Contrarian Zones” as the condition, then pick the one you want from the list above.

Set the frequency to “Once Per Bar Close”

Reclaims and sweeps can change until the bar closes. Setting the alert frequency to “Once Per Bar Close” keeps you from getting whipsawed by conditions that were only true for a moment mid-bar. Also, as TradingView’s help center notes, if you change the indicator’s settings after creating an alert, the alert keeps running on the old settings. Recreate your alerts whenever you change settings.

The Strong proximity alerts require a zone score of 7.0 or more, so they won’t fire on fresh zones. Think of them as alerts that only ping you for zones that have earned their score through retests and reclaims.

Repainting and when things appear

I saw no sign of “Strong Contrarian Zones” using future data to draw zones. A swing confirms once three bars have closed to its right, and the price of a confirmed zone never moves afterwards. That said, there are three behaviors worth knowing about.

Back-anchored left edge. Zones confirm three bars late, but they’re drawn starting from the swing bar. On a historical chart, it looks like the zone existed three bars earlier than it really did.
Real-time bar evaluation. Sweeps, reclaims and retests can change before the bar closes. Once the bar is closed, they don’t move.
Scores and zones get reshuffled. Scores move up and down with retests and time, and once Max Live Zones is exceeded the oldest zones drop off. Lookback (bars, 0 = all loaded) is also counted from the latest bar, so if you reload the chart a few days later, some older zones may be gone.

The three-bar confirmation delay, the fact that a real-time reclaim can change until the close, and the reshuffling of scores and shading are all stated as intended behavior on the script’s public page.

Use Bar Replay to see how states changed over time

Since the label only shows the current state, scrolling back won’t tell you where a zone went SWEEPING or where a RECLAIM confirmed. TradingView’s Bar Replay lets you step forward one bar at a time and watch the label change. As of 2026/9/27, though, Bar Replay on the free plan is limited to daily and higher, and intraday replay requires a paid plan. How far back you can go also depends on your plan and timeframe.

Also, “Strong Contrarian Zones” is built as an indicator, so it has no way to tally results in the Strategy Tester. Verification mostly comes down to eyeballing it in Bar Replay.

A contrarian map for traders willing to wait for zones to earn their score

Strong Contrarian Zones | ProjectSyndicate

After spending real time with “Strong Contrarian Zones”, I don’t see these as zones you jump on the moment they’re drawn. They’re zones you follow as they get tested, hold, and build up their score. Newborn zones score low and look understated. Pick the ones with a high Conv and DIV or WICK in the fingerprint, then wait for the sweep and reclaim to confirm. Get into that rhythm and the hardest part of fading moves, deciding where and when to get in, becomes a lot easier.

On the downside, reading the labels takes practice, and in one-way markets teal zones get taken out one after another. Pair it with a trend gauge like the 50 SMA, and switch broken zones over to sell-the-rally or buy-the-dip levels. With that in place, it becomes a solid decision aid for anything from day trading to swing trading ranges and trend pullbacks.

Start with the defaults, turn on just Show Reclaim Triggers, and look at where past RECLAIMs landed on a 1-hour or 4-hour chart. Once the scores start making sense, you’ll see the zones differently.