Smart Money Concepts Reaching #1 Indicator on TradingView

LuxAlgo released the Smart Money Concepts (SMC) indicator in late 2022, and it is available now on Quant Charts by LuxAlgo, where every LuxAlgo indicator is hosted. It is also available on TradingView, where it is the number-one indicator of all time, with 165,000 boosts as of September 15, 2026. When this post was first published in May 2025 it had just passed SuperTrend by KivancOzbilgic and ChrisMoody's custom indicators and was closing in on LazyBear’s 2014 classic 'Squeeze Momentum Indicator', proof that modern price-action analytics now outshine legacy technical indicators.

Indicator	Author	Year Published
Smart Money Concepts (SMC)	LuxAlgo	2022
MACD Custom MTF	ChrisMoody	2014
Squeeze Momentum	LazyBear	2014

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Why Traders Are Using SMC More

Shift Toward ICT-Style Price Action
In the last few years, ICT (Inner Circle Trader) has reshaped retail trading by turning the spotlight onto institutional order flow. His YouTube deep-dives on Break of Structure (BOS), Change of Character (CHoCH), and liquidity grabs inspired an entire generation of forex traders to abandon lagging oscillators for pure price-action models.

That wave spilled into the booming prop-firm challenge scene—FundedNext, MyForexFunds, FTMO—where passing an evaluation often hinges on keeping risk tight and strike-rate high. ICT’s minimalist, line-on-price approach fits that mandate perfectly, and traders wanted a tool that could mark up those concepts instantly. LuxAlgo’s Smart Money Concepts indicator became the first one-click automation of ICT’s workflow, letting challengers map liquidity pools, order blocks, and market structure in seconds instead of hours.

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Inside the SMC Indicator — What It Actually Does

Module	Function	Trading Edge
Market-Structure Labels	Detects swing & internal Break of Structure (BOS) and Change of Character (CHoCH) in real time	Instantly spots trend continuations or flips
Automatic Order Blocks	Highlights bullish & bearish OBs, tagging mitigation status	Identifies high-liquidity zones for entries, exits, or stop placement
Liquidity Levels	Plots Equal Highs/Lows, daily-to-monthly highs/lows	Maps where stops cluster—prime targets for smart money
Fair-Value Gap Scanner	Flags imbalances that often get “filled” before continuation	Fine-tunes retracement entries
Premium/Discount Zones	Shows relative value inside current range	Keeps you from buying tops or selling bottoms

Add it to a Quant Chart and you’re handed an institutional-style markup—no boxes to draw, no trend lines to babysit.

How to Trade Smart Money Concepts

Smart Money Concepts work best when you combine three core ideas—direction, location, and confirmation—into a repeatable checklist. Here’s a field-tested blueprint you can overlay on any market or time-frame:

Phase	What to Look For	Why It Matters	SMC Tools Involved
1. Frame the Bias	A fresh swing-level BOS or CHoCH	Establishes bullish vs. bearish control	Market-Structure Engine
2. Mark Liquidity	Nearby EQH/EQL clusters, daily–monthly highs/lows	Shows where stops sit and price may gravitate	Liquidity Pools
3. Find Value	Price trading inside discount (for longs) or premium (for shorts) zones	Buying low / selling high within the range	Premium/Discount Bands
4. Isolate a Zone	A recently printed order block or fair-value gap	Institutional entry zones or imbalance fills	Order-Block & FVG Scanner
5. Wait for Confirmation	Internal BOS/CHoCH inside your chosen zone, OR a candle close rejecting the block	Filters false signals and tightens risk	Internal Structure + Alerts
6. Execute & Manage	Enter on the confirmation; stop beyond the far side of the block; target the next opposing liquidity pool or OB	Keeps R-multiple favorable and emotions contained	Built-in Alerts & MTF Overlay

Example Workflow (15 m → 4 h Confluence)

1. 4-hour CHoCH down flips bias bearish.
2. Price rallies into a premium band and tags a fresh bearish order block that aligns with the 4 h fair-value gap.
3. Drop to 15 m: an internal BOS down prints inside that block—confirmation.
4. Entry: Short at the close of the BOS candle.
5. Stop: 5–10 pips (or 0.25 ATR) above the order block.
6. Targets: First take-profit at the nearest bullish OB; runner to sweep the prior EQL cluster.

This rinse-and-repeat logic works whether you’re scalping BTC, swing-trading EURUSD, or executing positional plays on S&P minis.

Master these steps and the Smart Money Concepts indicator becomes more than a chart overlay—it’s a full trading framework that syncs you with institutional liquidity flows.

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Beyond SMC: Price Action Tools in the Library

SMC’s meteoric rise underscores LuxAlgo’s expanding influence as the world’s largest provider of trading indicators. For those who need to go deeper, the LuxAlgo Library hosts hundreds of market-structure and price-action tools that:

• Add breaker blocks and mitigation tracking for stronger confirmation
• Map multi-time-frame liquidity up to daily automatically
• Bring trend-line and pattern liquidity detection, plus inversion fair value gaps
• Scan any market on a Quant Chart, compressing hours of manual markup into seconds

These tools give you the same SMC logic, extended with volume analytics and cross-timeframe confluence, built into Quant Charts, free to start.

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The Bottom Line

• Smart Money Concepts has become TradingView’s most-liked free indicator in record time, signaling a generational pivot toward automated price-action analysis.
• Its one-click combination of market structure, liquidity pools, and order blocks helps traders trade with institutional flow instead of against it.
• The Library extends that edge with hundreds more market-structure and price-action tools, one click from a Quant Chart.

Ready to see why tens of thousands of traders have switched? Add Smart Money Concepts to a Quant Chart for free.

Smart Money Concepts indicator is free on Quant Charts and one click from the LuxAlgo Library.