// lesson

Psychological levels

The round-number grid the indicator lays over price — the prices humans actually think in, spaced to the size of the market.

The prices people think in

Traders don’t place orders at 5047.25 — they place them at 5050, at 5000, at the round numbers. DarkWave draws that grid explicitly. It sizes the step to the magnitude of price — bigger instruments get wider spacing — and then plots major round levels with minor half-step levels between them, ten either side of the nearest major level to current price.

5100507550505025price
Major round levels bold, half-steps faint; above price bearish, below bullish

Levels above the current price are drawn in the bearish colour and levels below it in the bullish colour, so the grid reads as overhead prices to clear and underfoot prices to hold. Major levels are bold; the minor half-steps are faint, there to show the smaller round numbers without crowding out the big ones. Each level carries its own price label so you never have to count grid lines to know where you are.

Round numbers matter because people believe they matter. The grid just makes that belief visible.