Interactive Brokers Charting Poll

[JamesEM]

I'm not well up with all the technical terms but has anyone else noticed that IB charts only show the mid-point/price of the first and last trade of any one second??

I think that's pretty terrible.

I'm assuming other 3rd party software shows more/all mids even intra-second? Any suggestions??

Thanks.

J



PS Should add that it prints the midpoints of every beginning and end of a second on the chart. Not in between. This means whatever midpoints that may have occurred anywhere between the above values may not be shown.

This explains why you sometimes get filled where price "didn't trade on the chart".

 

[oldtime]

Quote from JamesEM:

I'm not well up with all the technical terms but has anyone else noticed that IB charts only show the mid-point/price of the first and last trade of any one second??

I think that's pretty terrible.

I'm assuming other 3rd party software shows more/all mids even intra-second? Any suggestions??

Thanks.

J



PS Should add that it prints the midpoints of every beginning and end of a second on the chart. Not in between. This means whatever midpoints that may have occurred anywhere between the above values may not be shown.

This explains why you sometimes get filled where price "didn't trade on the chart".

yes, that makes sense, Thanks James for the explanation. I've been trading with ib for over ten years (satisified customer) and have probably only called them on the phone 3 times (fast response) and one was when I got stopped out on a forex trade that according to the chart never hit.

When I was using a lot of charts and indicators, I never bothered with ib charts, my preference at the time was sierra charts.

I think it is a mistake for ib to try to compete in the charting business with other firms who specialize in charts. They will probably always come in second at best.

But since you revived the thread, I was just turned on to a feature from another poster from another forex broker whose charts I may use. It is a feature for those of us that use multiple positions all as one portfolio.

Spread traders have used them for years, but it is relatively novel in forex. The best way to describe it is an overlay.

So for instance, a trader like me who follows 4 currency pairs, could track all 4 pairs on one chart using an overlay.

for all I know, ib may already have that capability, but who would know? there is no clear explanation what their charts are capable of. And even if they do improve their charts, you will never know because they don't know how to explain anything. ib has always been for the self starter, and that is just fine with me, because I am one when it comes to trading. But when it comes to charts, I'm not that interested, and when I was, I found a third party who specialized in it.

so,you want a suggesstion ib? yes, a simple overlay preferably multiple and you would offer someting the bucket shops offer.

btw, it doesn't do me any good unless you have somewhere to go to understand it. I just use the ib charts to see what happened when I was asleep. If I wanted to customize them I wouldn't even know where to go, and I never go there, because if I customize them I would probably never be able to get back to the stock charts which are just fine for me.

 

[Sheik]

TOS is very good

 

[loufah]

First, a note of appreciation for your charts. Few other brokers offer free charts with the ability to specify bar intervals narrower than 1 minute, to manually correct bar data, and to display my trades on the charts.

I'd second the suggestion for multiple ignored daily time intervals. I actually need something simpler than that - the ability to specify a single range of times to show for each day, e.g. I'd like to be able to show a chart with a time interval spanning 8AM to 4:15PM.

The "prior close" line is always the close that is just prior to the current wall time, regardless of which day's data the chart is displaying. It would be nice if, when I'm viewing a multi-day chart, or an intraday chart from a previous day, the "prior close" line were the close that is just prior to the earliest day that I'm displaying.

With options, there may be trades only every few minutes or hours. I'd ideally like to see a dot for every trade, or at worst a bar for every interval that had a trade and NO BARS for every interval where there were no trades. As you know, at the present time, intervals where there were no trades have a 2-pixel high yellow bar displayed at whatever the most recent trade was, even if that trade occurred hours ago. This is distracting, and can mess up the automatic vertical scaling, which would otherwise be determined by the bid and ask lines.

I'd like to be able to choose the chart period and bar interval independently. Right now, there are a fixed (or, at least, constrained) set of combinations. My goal is to display a bar interval that is as short as possible. Right now that amount is 5 seconds, which I can choose if the time period is no larger than 14 minutes. As above, ideally I'd like to see a dot for every trade, but 1-second bars would be almost as good.

Finally, it would be very helpful if manually corrected bar data were persistent..

 

[oldtime]

Quote from loufah:

First, a note of appreciation for your charts. Few other brokers offer free charts with the ability to specify bar intervals narrower than 1 minute, to manually correct bar data, and to display my trades on the charts.

I'd second the suggestion for multiple ignored daily time intervals. I actually need something simpler than that - the ability to specify a single range of times to show for each day, e.g. I'd like to be able to show a chart with a time interval spanning 8AM to 4:15PM.

The "prior close" line is always the close that is just prior to the current wall time, regardless of which day's data the chart is displaying. It would be nice if, when I'm viewing a multi-day chart, or an intraday chart from a previous day, the "prior close" line were the close that is just prior to the earliest day that I'm displaying.

With options, there may be trades only every few minutes or hours. I'd ideally like to see a dot for every trade, or at worst a bar for every interval that had a trade and NO BARS for every interval where there were no trades. As you know, at the present time, intervals where there were no trades have a 2-pixel high yellow bar displayed at whatever the most recent trade was, even if that trade occurred hours ago. This is distracting, and can mess up the automatic vertical scaling, which would otherwise be determined by the bid and ask lines.

I'd like to be able to choose the chart period and bar interval independently. Right now, there are a fixed (or, at least, constrained) set of combinations. My goal is to display a bar interval that is as short as possible. Right now that amount is 5 seconds, which I can choose if the time period is no larger than 14 minutes. As above, ideally I'd like to see a dot for every trade, but 1-second bars would be almost as good.

Finally, it would be very helpful if manually corrected bar data were persistent..

that's the point loufah, ib doesn't have the time or resources to devote themselves to solving your chart problems, and those of us that just use them for trading don't want them doing anything that may add to costs. There are many chart outfits that will know what you are talking about and will address your needs. The best ib can do is set you up with a discount to a chart service at no cost to me.

what's next? open an account with ib and we will help you find an apartment? A good used car? I can't even imagine how horrible their dating service would be.

ib, just stick to brokering, and let somebody else handle the other stuff. Nobody is going to open an account with you because you have good charts. And nobody who makes good money for you is going to leave because another broker has better charts. And the people who do open account with you because of your charts aren't going to make you money for very long. And it's a sad state of affairs if that is what you have come to. Just trying to get as much as you can from new traders until they blow up. and enticing them to open with you because of your charts. I know of no trader who will make you consistent money, month after month, year after year who will choose you or any other broker based on charts. Stick to what you did best.

 

[zdreg]

I am sure, oldtime, that you realize that you are speaking for yourself when you say IB should stick to brokering. maybe charts won't draw many customers but the whole package that IB offers will e.g. news, charts etc.

 

[oldtime]

Quote from zdreg:

I am sure, oldtime, that you realize that you are speaking for yourself when you say IB should stick to brokering. maybe charts won't draw many customers but the whole package that IB offers will e.g. news, charts etc.

oh give me a break, do you think I am going to trade on the news ib gives me?

give me a decent commission and I can take care of the news myself

fine, as long as they can offer news and charts and attract fresh meat and it doesn't cost me anything

seems like kind of a short sighted business plan to me

what they need is more traders like me

 

[zdreg]

"oh give me a break, do you think I am going to trade on the news ib gives me?"

perhaps you have a different definition of timeliness.

 

[oldtime]

Quote from zdreg:

"oh give me a break, do you think I am going to trade on the news ib gives me?"

perhaps you have a different definition of timeliness.

yeah, by the time you tell it to me it is too late

fundamental news is a different deal, and can take months or years to play out

If I am trading ag news, I want to know the guy out in the field making the news, not the guy who reports it

 

[Samsara]

Very simple suggestion: track time and price on the axes where the cursor meets them, not in a cursor window.

Snap-to borders for windows.

Have independent quote windows that can be linked to chart windows, rather having the main TWS spreadsheet serve as the one place you can click through instruments to orient charts.

Low level stuff though. eSignal remains the gold standard for me, despite my desire to get away from them.