Tools · Support and resistance
Pivot Point Calculator, Classic, Woodie and Camarilla Levels
Enter the previous session’s high, low and close to get the pivot and its support and resistance levels, classic, Woodie, Camarilla and Fibonacci, computed side by side so you can see how far apart the methods actually place them.
Pivot point calculator
How the levels are derived
Every figure the pivot point calculator returns comes from three numbers and one session, and the arithmetic is worth following once so the output is something you can check.
Every variant starts from the same three numbers (the previous session’s high, low and close), and differs only in how it weights them and how far it spaces the levels apart. The pivot itself is a consensus price for the session just finished; the supports and resistances are reflections of the range around it.
| Method | Pivot | First levels | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classic | (H + L + C) ÷ 3 | R1 = 2P − L · S1 = 2P − H | The default nearly everyone sees. Levels spaced by the full range. |
| Woodie | (H + L + 2C) ÷ 4 | R1 = 2P − L · S1 = 2P − H | Close counts double, so the pivot sits nearer where the session ended. |
| Camarilla | (H + L + C) ÷ 3 | R1 = C + R × 1.1 ÷ 12 | A tight cluster around the close, built for mean reversion inside the day. |
| Fibonacci | (H + L + C) ÷ 3 | R1 = P + 0.382 × R | Levels spaced by ratio rather than by the raw range. |
What the levels are and are not
A pivot level is a prior, computed before the session opens and fixed for its duration. Nothing about it adapts to what price then does, which is unusual among the tools on this site and is the source of both its appeal and its limits. It cannot be curve-fitted intraday, because there is nothing left to fit; equally, it knows nothing about the news, the volume, or how the session is actually trading.
That makes the informative event not the touch but the reaction. Price reaching R1 says only that the previous range projected that far. Price reaching R1 on expanding volume and holding above it is one message; reaching R1 on thinning volume and falling straight back through the pivot is a different one. This is where pivots pair naturally with the volume work the rest of this site covers: the level tells you where to look, the volume tells you what happened when you got there.
Treat the count of levels honestly, too. Classic pivots put seven lines on a chart, and Camarilla puts nine. On any given day price will touch several of them, and a method that marks enough places will always appear to have marked the right one in hindsight. The test worth applying is whether the level mattered before it was reached.
Classic, Woodie and Camarilla in full
All four start from the previous session and differ in what they weight and how far apart they space the result. Knowing the differences matters mostly for one reason: a level quoted from one variant means nothing on a chart drawn with another.
Classic (floor-trader)
P = (H + L + C) ÷ 3, then the range reflected around it: R1 = 2P − L, S1 = 2P − H, R2 = P + (H − L), S2 = P − (H − L), and the third pair projecting a further range beyond. Levels are spaced by the full previous range, so a wide session produces a wide ladder. This is the default nearly everyone sees, which is the strongest argument for using it.
Woodie
P = (H + L + 2C) ÷ 4. The close counts twice, so the pivot sits nearer where the session finished rather than at the middle of its range. On a day that closed far from its midpoint the Woodie pivot can sit well away from the classic one, and that gap is the whole of the difference; the supports and resistances are derived the same way from there.
Camarilla
Built around the close rather than around a computed centre, using the range scaled by 1.1 ÷ 12, 1.1 ÷ 6, 1.1 ÷ 4 and 1.1 ÷ 2. The inner pairs sit very close to the close, which makes the set a mean-reversion tool for inside the day rather than a map of where a trend might run. The outer pair is far enough out to function as a breakout marker.
Fibonacci
The classic pivot, with the levels spaced by ratio rather than by the raw range: P ± 0.382 × R, P ± 0.618 × R and P ± R. It inherits the argument about Fibonacci ratios wholesale. The spacing is a convention that works to the extent that people watch it.
The session boundary is the real problem
This is the one input a pivot point calculator cannot check for you: it computes from the high, low and close you supply, and on an instrument that trades around the clock those three numbers depend on where your data provider decided the day ended.
Everything above assumes "the previous session" is a well-defined thing. For a US equity it nearly is: the regular session has a published open and close, and the only decision is whether to include extended hours. For anything trading around the clock (index futures, foreign exchange, crypto) there is no natural close at all, and the levels depend entirely on a convention.
A provider using 17:00 New York, one using 00:00 UTC and one using the exchange settlement window will produce three different highs, lows and closes for the same instrument on the same day, and therefore three different ladders. The disagreement is not small: on a volatile day the pivots can differ by more than the distance between adjacent levels, which means two traders can each be watching "the R1 level" and be looking at different prices.
There is no correct answer, only a consistent one. Establish which convention your data uses, prefer the one most other participants in that instrument are using, and never compare a level computed under one boundary with a chart drawn under another.
A worked reading from the pivot point calculator
The previous session ranged 4498 to 4560 and closed at 4536, giving a classic pivot of 4531.33 and R1 at 4564.67. Today the market opens near the pivot, runs to 4566, and turns back. Three statements follow.
- Supported: the previous range projected to roughly where price stopped. That is what the arithmetic said it would do, and it is the extent of the claim.
- Supported, if the volume agrees: a rejection at R1 on volume heavier than the advance that reached it describes sellers appearing at a level buyers had to work to get to. That is two independent readings of one event, which is the most this field offers.
- Not supported: that R1 caused the turn. Seven lines were on the chart and price stopped near one of them; the same session would look equally instructive if it had turned at R2. The test is whether the level was decided on before it was reached.
Where it misleads
| Situation | What goes wrong |
|---|---|
| 24-hour market | No natural close, so the session boundary, and therefore every level, depends on the data provider’s convention. |
| Gap open | Price opens beyond R2 or S2 and the whole set is behind the market before the first trade; the levels describe a session that no longer applies. |
| Holiday or half session | A truncated range produces compressed levels that look precise and are simply built from too little trading. |
| Extended hours included | Pre- and post-market prints widen the high and low, moving every level relative to the same chart drawn on regular hours only. |
| Thin instrument | The mechanism that makes pivots work, many participants watching the same computed line, is absent. |
Frequently asked questions
Which pivot formula should I use?
Classic (also called floor-trader pivots) is the one most participants have on their screens, and that matters more than any statistical argument: a level is useful partly because others are watching it. Woodie weights the close double, so it tracks a session that closed far from its midpoint more closely. Camarilla produces a tighter cluster of levels aimed at mean reversion within the day. Fibonacci spaces the levels by ratio rather than by the range itself. Pick one and stay with it, switching until a level lines up is a curve fit, not analysis.
What counts as the "previous session" for a 24-hour market?
This is the question that quietly breaks pivots on futures, FX and crypto. There is no natural close, so the levels depend entirely on the session boundary your data provider uses, 17:00 New York, 00:00 UTC and the exchange settlement window all produce different highs, lows and closes and therefore different pivots. Two traders can look at the same instrument and see levels that disagree by a meaningful amount. Fix the convention before you trade the level, and know which one your chart uses.
Do pivot points work on weekly and monthly data?
The arithmetic is identical; only the input period changes. Weekly and monthly pivots are wider apart and are usually treated as context rather than as intraday triggers. The one caution is data hygiene: a holiday-shortened week or a month with an exchange outage produces a range that misrepresents the period, and every level derived from it inherits that distortion.
Do the levels need recalculating during the session?
No, and that is the defining property of the method. Every level is fixed before the open from data that is already complete, and nothing about it adapts to what price then does. It cannot be curve-fitted intraday because there is nothing left to fit, which is unusual among the tools on this site and is the strongest thing that can be said for it. The corollary is that the levels know nothing about today: not the news, not the volume, not how the session is actually trading.
Where did the formula come from?
From the trading floors, before screens. A floor trader needed levels that could be worked out with a pencil before the open from three numbers everyone already had, yesterday's high, low and close, and that every other trader in the pit would arrive at identically. Simplicity was not a compromise, it was the requirement: a level nobody else could compute in their head was useless, because the whole value lay in others watching the same line. That origin explains why the arithmetic is so plain and why the classic variant remains the dominant one.
What is DeMark's variant and when is it different?
It is the only common variant that uses the open as well as the high, low and close, and it produces a pivot that leans in the direction of the previous session. If the close finished below the open, the calculation weights the low more heavily; if above, the high. The result is a single pivot with one support and one resistance rather than a full ladder, and it differs most from the classic version after a session that closed a long way from where it opened, which is exactly when the two disagree about tomorrow.
Do weekly and monthly pivots behave differently?
The arithmetic is identical; only the input period changes. The practical difference is that the levels are much further apart and change rarely, so they function as context rather than as intraday reference points. The trap is data hygiene: a holiday-shortened week or a month containing an exchange outage produces a range that misrepresents the period, and every level derived from it inherits the distortion for the whole of the next one.
Should I use the regular session or include extended hours?
Pick one and never mix, because the two produce visibly different levels. Extended-hours prints widen the high and low, which pushes every level outward, and on a day with a large after-hours move the pivot itself can shift meaningfully. Regular-hours-only is the more common convention for equities and matches what most other participants will be looking at, which — given that the mechanism is coordination — is an argument in its own right.
Why does my platform show different pivot values?
Almost always one of three things, in this order: a different session boundary, a different variant selected, or extended-hours data included in the previous session. All three are settings rather than errors. Check them in that order before concluding anything is broken; the arithmetic itself is too simple to go wrong.
How many levels should be on the chart?
Fewer than the calculator produces. Classic pivots give seven lines and Camarilla nine, and across a session price will touch several of them, after which hindsight will find the one that "worked". The discipline that makes the tool useful is deciding which one or two matter before the session opens, usually the pivot itself and the first level in the direction of the prevailing trend, and ignoring the rest.
Do pivots work on individual stocks as well as indices?
Less well, and for a structural reason. The mechanism is that many participants compute the same level from public data and place orders near it; that coordination is strongest on heavily traded instruments (index futures, major ETFs, the largest stocks), and weakest on a thinly traded name where almost nobody is watching the same lines. The formula applies everywhere; the effect it relies on does not.
What does it mean when price opens beyond R2 or S2?
That the levels were computed from a session that no longer describes the market. A gap through the outer levels means overnight information has repriced the instrument, and the entire ladder is behind the market before the first trade. Some practitioners treat the outer level as support in that case; the more honest reading is that the previous range has stopped being a useful prior and today needs its own.
Is the pivot itself more meaningful than the supports and resistances?
It has a better claim. The pivot is an average of the previous session's high, low and close, a consensus price for that session, computed from what traded. The supports and resistances are projections: the range reflected around that centre, which is a geometric construction rather than a measurement of anything. Whether the reflections mean anything is an empirical question; the centre at least summarises real data.
How should I combine pivots with the rest of this site?
Use the level to decide where to look and the volume to decide what happened there. A pivot marks a place at which a question will be asked before the session opens; the reaction answers it. Price reaching R1 on expanding volume and holding is one market, and reaching R1 on thinning volume and falling back through the pivot is another, and the level alone cannot tell them apart, because nothing about it adapts to what price does.
Are pivot levels self-fulfilling?
Partly, and that is not a criticism. A level that a large number of participants can compute from public data, and that appears identically on their screens, becomes a place where orders cluster, which is a real mechanism, not magic. It also means the effect is strongest for the most widely used variant on the most widely traded instruments, and weakest on a thinly traded name where almost nobody is watching the same lines.