I may be barking up the wrong tree, but have you checked whether your indicator is plotted by "screen" or "same as symbol". If you have overlaid this indicator on top of another or the price data and it is set to "screen" it will look totally different when you adjust the screen size. I have to be very careful with this on all my charts as I love to squeeze indicators on top of each other to save space.
It seems like we're looking at the difference between a sampled RSI value and a historic RSI value. For an x-minute bar at the time of sampling the stock price can take on more than one value, e.g. at 0937 a stock's price could be 41.35, 41.33, 41.29, 41.23, 41.18. Each of those prices would, obviously, create a different value. When we look at a historical database, the closing price for the 0937 bar is always going to be 41.18. Tradestation (and every other platform) will always use the 'last' price in calculating a metric until the final price / time figures are recorded. Sort of like the major problem inherent with Tradestation - did the high occur before the low or vice versa - am I in the position or am I stopped out? Also, be careful with entries, stops and take profit orders in TS; when backtesting a strategy, TS doesn't recognize that it's long or short until the next bar's close - verrry misleading in that any stop or limit parameters aren't enabled... Cheers, Marc
dvegadvol: Thanks! That definitely solves a big mystery. Because I think in real-time, the RSI or other technical indicators are updated in real-time, whereas when I go home and see in on TS6 it's the CLOSE! whew! I thought there was soemthign seriously wrong here.. But however, it doesn't really solve my problme when I try to backtest etc. Because the values that I see on TS6 is definitely NOT the same ones I see in real-time. So I can't 100% trade off of some of the values I backtest. How does one overcome such a problem? Any suggestions would be most welcomed. trader99
I am not sure what you mean. However it may be a similar problem to what I have had recently. I like to plot the premium that the emini has against the cash S&P500. However if you think about it they both vary tick to tick and you cannot combine one tick chart with another in TS6. So I would have an indicator that plotted the difference in spread that in real time would show me when massively oversold/overbought compared to fair value but in history would not - only the spread in closing value of data1 vs data2 for each bar. So what I did was to reprogram that indicator to display the high and low of the spread for each bar. Perhaps you should do the same (make it 2 plots instead of one so that you get the RSI of the High and the Low instead of or perhaps as well as just the close of the bar in question). In an indicator rather than plot it as a "point" in "Chart Style" you can plot the 2 data points as "Bar High" and Bar Low" respectively. That way you get a vertical line representing the range for each bar. Be aware though that if you are using 2 data series to plot a spread (probably not in your case) this is still a "bodge" solution as it does not take account of the fact that both data series might vary tick to tick on a different time basis.
Funster: Thanks for answering my question. You wrote:"In an indicator rather than plot it as a "point" in "Chart Style" you can plot the 2 data points as "Bar High" and Bar Low" respectively. That way you get a vertical line representing the range for each bar. " I know sure how you would do that. I currently use candlestick. And when I go under "Format Symbol" and "Style" I can select OHLC, HLC, etc. but I know if I can plot the "2 data point" series. I'm not sure I understand that.. please clarify! trader99
That is in easylanguage. You have your indicator up as an easylanguage window then you click properties - chart style. Look. Email me the code for your indicator (export it first to .ela) and if it is not a big job I will convert to what I am saying. If it is a standard TS indicator tell me what it is called. maxdanzig@ntlworld.com
Funster: I'm just using the standard TS6 indicators: 1) RSI(9) 2) MACD(9,18) 3) 2 MAs that's it. I don't have any custom code. But I suppose you answered the real question by saying that TS6 uses a different values(perhaps close??) to calculate these values. And what I see in real-time is tick by tick. But for once, I would like to see the values converge just for the sake of it. To make sure if TS6 really calculates by close. Because it's really annoying to see to record the real-time values and go home to see it off by quite a bit on TS6. So, that's just trhows the entire reason to own TS6 and backtest ideas... Thanks for your help! trader99
Probably the simple answer is to (eg for RSI) plot 2 RSI indicators on top of each other. Instead of the CLOSE plot one with the HIGH and plot the other with the LOW. Then you can see if your signal levels are hit intra-bar. Alternatively the following converted indicator code should plot the high and low as such: Inputs: Length(14), BuyZone(30), SellZone(70); Plot1(RSI(High, Length), "HRSI"); Plot2(RSI(Low, Length), "LRSI"); Plot3(BuyZone, "BuyZone"); Plot4(SellZone, "SellZone"); end; Don't forget to go to properties - chart style and change the "Type" of HRSI and LRSI to "Bar High" and "Bar Low" respectively before saving. Et voila - an RSI bar chart! Also this technique should work for your MAs and MACD, with a bit of basic fiddling about with easylanguage. Note, though, that there is a limit of 4 plots in any one indicator - so your MACD might actually have to be 2 different indicators on top of each other to get the 6 plots you need.
I was in touch with Tradestation and they told me that I cannot use their software without opening an account with them. How did you manage to do that?
If you were a previous customer then you can get it for $99/mo. I have Tradestation 2000i. But it is those who bought the cheaper Supercharts that have got the best deal out of this! Perhaps you can buy one 2nd hand & take their user ID as well? Alternatively - and I am thinking about this - open up a stock account with them and you get it free I hear.