Pivot Point Calculator

What a pivot point is

A pivot point is a single reference price for the session ahead, worked out from the previous period's high, low and close, with a ladder of support levels (S1, S2, S3) below it and resistance levels (R1, R2, R3) above. It is old floor-trader arithmetic: take the prior range and its centre of gravity, and mark the places where price is most likely to pause or turn. Nothing in the maths predicts anything. The value is that the levels are fixed and public, so you and a lot of other traders are watching the same lines. Enter the prior high, low and close and the table gives you all of them at once, in four methods side by side.

The formulas

Classic P = (H+L+C)/3 · R1 = 2P−L · S1 = 2P−H · R2 = P+(H−L) · S2 = P−(H−L) · R3 = H+2(P−L) · S3 = L−2(H−P)

Fibonacci P = (H+L+C)/3 · R1/S1 = P ± 0.382(H−L) · R2/S2 = P ± 0.618(H−L) · R3/S3 = P ± 1.000(H−L)

Camarilla R1/S1 = C ± (H−L)×1.1/12 · R2/S2 = C ± (H−L)×1.1/6 · R3/S3 = C ± (H−L)×1.1/4 · R4/S4 = C ± (H−L)×1.1/2

Woodie P = (H+L+2C)/4 · R1 = 2P−L · S1 = 2P−H · R2 = P+(H−L) · S2 = P−(H−L)

A worked example

Take a session that ranged between 1.0950 and 1.1050 and closed at 1.1020. The classic pivot is (1.1050 + 1.0950 + 1.1020) ÷ 3 = 1.10067. First resistance is 2 × 1.10067 − 1.0950 = 1.10633; first support is 2 × 1.10067 − 1.1050 = 1.09633. Notice the pivot sits below the close: the session finished in the upper half of its range, so price opening above the pivot the next day is the arithmetic default, not a bullish signal. That is the kind of thing worth understanding before reading meaning into a level.

Compare the methods on the same numbers and the difference in character is obvious. Camarilla's R1 and S1 sit far closer to the close than Classic's, because they are scaled fractions of the range rather than reflections of it, which is why Camarilla suits traders fading small moves while Classic suits those trading breaks of wider structure.

Central pivot range and the other variants

Beyond the four methods in the table, two names come up constantly. The central pivot range (CPR), popular on Indian indices, wraps the classic pivot in two extra lines: a bottom-central BC = (H + L) ÷ 2 and a top-central TC = pivot + (pivot − BC). A narrow band between them is read as a trend day, a wide one as a range day. The DeMark method branches on whether the close finished above or below the open, so it needs the open price this calculator does not ask for. Gann and other floor-trader variants exist too, but Classic, Fibonacci, Camarilla and Woodie are the levels the large majority of charting platforms actually plot, which is much of why they are worth watching: their edge is partly that everyone sees them.

Using levels without fooling yourself

Pivots are pre-marked lines, and their honest value is that they are decided before the session starts, when you are calm, rather than mid-trade when you are not. Mark them, decide in advance what you will do if price reaches one, and let the plan run. What they cannot tell you is size: that comes from where your stop sits relative to the level, which the position size calculator turns into lots, and whether the resulting reward justifies the risk, which is what the risk/reward calculator is for. Levels are structure; the edge is in the sizing and the discipline.

Any market, any timeframe

The formula does not care what you feed it, so the same three inputs work for forex pairs, gold and crude oil, the Nifty and other indices, and crypto. What changes is the period you take the high, low and close from, and that sets which session the levels are good for: the previous day for intraday and day trading, the previous week for swing trades, the previous month for position trades. Daily pivots are stale by the next day, so re-run it each session with fresh numbers off your own chart.