This may seem like an odd question, but I was wondering if one could easily display any given indicator as an OHLC bar or a candlestick in Investor/RT?

Simple example:

You can display, say CCI as a line or a histogram, typically in most programs. But say you wanted to display it as an OHLC bar instead. Is this doable?

Keep in mind that I'm thinking way outside of the box here, as most folks would not want this capability, but looking at your Volume Breakdown indicator, I figure the same functionality to display other indicators as OHLC (or candlesticks) might be available.

Or to make it even simpler:

Guess what I'm really asking is... what are the available options for "Draw As" for indicators available in I/RT? Does it include OHLC bar or candlestick as an option?

Thanks,

-fs

[LS_Chad]

Well, in order to draw OHLC bars, you have to have 4 values. The CCI indicator for instance only has one recorded value per bar. Internally, the high, low, and open of the CCI is not recorded. Now, since the open is essentially the previous value of CCI, it would be possible to draw CCI as an open/close bar. Now it is possibly to draw custom candlesticks using any 4 custom prices (custom indicators), but the high and low isn't accessible in this case. But here are a couple variations of CCI bars drawn with open/close candle bodies:

http://www.charthub.com/images/2008/07/14/CCI_Bars.png

Chad,

Thanks for this. Would it be possible to pass through the value of an indicator using a token to create a custom indicator with OHLC or HLC values?

Keep in mind, I'm referring to the OHLC values that the indicator makes per bar, which may or may not coincide with the OHLC values of its input (e.g. Price).

Looking at a static final (close) value of an indicator after the fact gives no clue as to where it may have moved during the bar interval.

If an indicator is run on a tick-by-tick basis, is there any other way of capturing and displaying those other values (high, low and open) on a historical basis?

[mister ed]

fs, Chad - I might be completely wrong here, but if you plotted a very short-term chart (let's say 10 seconds, or even tick-by-tick as you suggest, fs) and report the CCI result for this very short-term chart (close only like you say Chad) into one of the "Variables" (V1, V2, etc...) and then plotted the "Variable" as an OHLC or candle under a longer timeframe chart (Chad, you have used the 5-minute in your post), would this work? I could try it but I am not proficient at manipulating the Variables. So just an idea which may or may not work, Chad?

[LS_Chad]

Actually, you could plot the CCI (or any other indicator) in OHLC bar or candle format using a custom instrument (and a V# variable). I'll create one of these and let it run for a few hours this morning, and then post it with details.

[LS_Chad]

OK, here is the CCI bars done as a custom instrument. I've setup a custom instrument/symbol, ES_CCI, which ticks every time the ES ticks, but ticks with a price of the current 5-min CCI value. In this way, not only can you plot the CCI as bars, but you can then apply any technical indicator to the CCI Bars. In this chart, I've added a 5 period MA to the CCI bars:



Another interesting side effect of this approach....even though it's plotting the 5-min CCI, you could plot the ES_CCI bars in any periodicity. For instance, here they are plotting on a 1-minute data. Notice the jumps they take every 5 minutes as the CCI moves to a new window of bars:

Excellent!

Can you run this custom instrument on historical tick-by-tick data? Or must it be live data?

And if I did a replay with tick data, would it work?

[LS_Chad]

Originally Posted by forsearch »

Excellent!

Can you run this custom instrument on historical tick-by-tick data? Or must it be live data?

And if I did a replay with tick data, would it work?

You can replay the tick data on this custom instrument, yes...on a chart of any timeframe. You could even plot an Market Profile chart of ES_CCI, or open a Time & Sales window on ES_CCI, etc.

The custom instrument will build tick by tick live while data is flowing, from the time it is created. I/RT is unable to build historical data from tick data due to the nature of the custom instrument. Custom instruments based on prices (OHLC) or volume of one or more instrument, can generate historical data from the tick data of the component or components however.