Tick Chart Window

 

 Tick charts have all the properties of the time interval based charts except that each candle represents a fixed number of trades (ticks) rather than a unit of time.

The (50/1 tick) label in the title of this chart shows that it is an alternate view of an underlying 1 tick chart. The view can be changed by <right-click>ing in the chart and selecting { Time Span | View Tick Units } from the popup menu or the { View } main menu. Only the underlying time unit will be saved to disk between sessions. The x-axis label is the number of bars in the chart.


   This is a 1 tick chart. Each dot is an individual trade. If the trade was at the ask or higher it is colored with the up candle color, and if it was at the bid or lower it is colored with the down candle color. Trades in between the bid and the ask are colored with the candle wick color which is either white or black depending upon the background color of the chart.

Differences of tick charts vs time charts

The data for tick charts is only saved for symbols that you actually have a tick chart open for. (Note: minimized windows still count as opened). This is different from the time based intraday charts where every symbol in an opened SLFMap, Quote window, or Horserace will have intraday data saved continually. For this reason you will probably not want to change the symbols in an individual tick chart, because when you do so, the data collection for the original symbol will stop. If you then return the original symbol to the chart, there will be a gap in the data for the time it was not collected.

One tick charts can use a significant amount of memory and CPU time for fast traded symbols. For these symbols we suggest you use a higher base tick count (like 5, 10, or even 100 or more).

Creating a new tick chart

To create a tick chart open a new empty chart window with { File | New } and select Chart Window and then go to the { Chart | Properties ... } dialog. (You can also use the chart properties dialog to change an existing chart into a tick chart.)

The the properties dialog enter the Symbol, set the Time Span to tick and set the Ticks per Point to the number of ticks (trades) per chart bar you want. Then select [OK]. If quotes collection is on, the first point/bar will appear when the next trade is received for the symbol.

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