Parabolic SAR (PSAR)

• Overview
• Adding Indicator
• Indicator Parameters
• Visualization

Overview

Parabolic SAR (SAR - stop and reverse) is a method devised by J. Welles Wilder, Jr, to find trends in market prices or securities. It may be used as a trailing stop loss based on prices tending to stay within a parabolic curve during a strong trend.

Find the mathematical description of the indicator on the Parabolic SAR (PSAR) Mathematical Description page.

Adding Indicator

PSAR indicator is added through the psar() method. It requires a mapping with two fields: "high" and "low". The following sample demonstrates the PSAR indicator applied to an OHLC series:

// create data table on loaded data
var dataTable = anychart.data.table();
dataTable.addData(get_csco_daily_data());

// map loaded data
var mapping = dataTable.mapAs({"open": 1, "high": 2, "low": 3, "close": 4});

// create stock chart
var chart = anychart.stock();

// create plot on the chart
var plot = chart.plot(0);

// create ohlc series
var ohlcSeries = plot.ohlc(mapping);
ohlcSeries.name("CSCO");

// create PSAR indicator
var psar = plot.psar(mapping, 0.08, 0.60, 0.10).series();
psar.stroke("0.5 lightGray");

Here is a live sample:

Indicator Parameters

There are five parameters a PSAR indicator has, one of them is necessary - the mapping. Three other ones are the acceleration factor start, acceleration factor increment, acceleration factor maximum, and the series type.

The series type can be easily changed any time using the seriesType() method. The following code sample demonstrates a CMF indicator with parameters set as default.

var psar = plot.psar(mapping, 0.02, 0.2, 0.2, "marker");

Visualization

Visualization of an indicator depends on series type. Here is a sample where PSAR with different parameters and settings is added to different plots:

// create the PSAR indicator with settings adjusted
var psar_0 = plot_0.psar(mapping, 0.08, 0.60, 0.10).series();
psar_0.stroke("0.5 lightGray");
psar_0.fill("green");
psar_0.type("circle");
psar_0.size(2);

// create and adjust the PSAR indicator with settings adjusted
var psar_1 = plot_1.psar(mapping, 0.03, 0.20, 0.50, "line").series();
psar_1.stroke("2 red");