New article - Liquid Chart

 

New article Liquid Chart has been published at mql5.com:

Would you like to see an hourly chart with bars opening from the second and the fifth minute of the hour? What does a redrawn chart look like when the opening time of bars is changing every minute? What advantages does trading on such charts have? You will find answers to these questions in this article.

Once I noticed that charts with the H4 timeframe and higher looked different at every broker's. The reason behind it was that the brokers were located in different time zones. In some cases certain parts of the same charts were significantly different in spite of a small difference between time zones. On one chart there was a distinct reversal pattern and the same part of the other one did not represent any precise pattern.

Then it crossed my mind to write an indicator which would redraw the H1 chart so that there is always a complete closing bar on the right. The M1 period was chosen as a source of prices. As a result, an hourly chart was redrawn every minute and in an hour I had 60 varieties of the same hourly chart. Its form was changing in a smooth and flowing manner revealing hidden patterns that the initial pattern did not even have a hint on.

I called this indicator "liquid chart" for its specific appearance. Depending on the plotting mode, the chart "flows" (gets redrawn) either when a new bar of the basic period appears or when the value of static shift gets changed. In this article we shall consider the principles of plotting a "liquid chart", then write an indicator and compare efficiency of using this technology for Experts trading by indicators and Experts trading by patterns.



1. Plotting Principle

Before we start, we are going to define the terms.

Shift is a difference between opening prices of the resulting chart bars and the opening prices of the source chart bars.

Current timeframe is the timeframe of the source chart.

Basic timeframe is a timeframe with prices we are going to use for forming bars of the resulting chart.

Basic period cannot exceed the current one. Current period must be divided by the basic period without remainder. The greater the ratio of the current timeframe to the basic one, the more different variations of the resulting chart we can get. However, if the ratio is too large, then the historical data of the basic timeframe may not be sufficient for drawing necessary number of the resulting chart bars.

There are three types of plotting a chart.

  • Chart with a static shift (Static Shift or SS).
  • Chart with a dynamic shift in the opening mode (Dynamic Shift, just Open or DSO).
  • Chart with a dynamic shift in the closing mode (Dynamic Shift, expected Close or DSC).

In the static shift mode, opening times of the bars are shifted by the set time. Dynamic shift in the opening mode makes it look like a bar has just been opened and in the closing mode as if the bar will be closed soon.

Let us have a closer look.

Author: Serhii Shevchuk