1min bars differ on others' charts

[Trade$afe]

I teach daytrading. My students in chat today noticed my 1min bars had different values for a aprticular time than mine. We each logged off/on and those values changed again! I udnerstand that tick-based charts can differ (which I still find amazing), but it is totally unacceptable for a time-based bar chart to differ from user to user.

why aren't the bars matching the time stamps of the Exchange (in this case the Rusell 2000 mini on the CME)? It's virtually impossible to plan a daytrade with this kind of variance!

Michael Guess
Trade$afe

[JayF]

There are a few different reasons differences can occur, but the main reason is that we do not currently use the exchange time stamp, but instead we use our own time beacon. The big however to this though is that we have spent thousands of hours over the last year redesigning our server architecture and software to support the exchange time stamp (and other feed enhancements.) eSignal 8.1, due out this summer, will have all these enhancements rolled in. For more information about eSignal 8.1, please see this thread (it's about half-way down the first post.)

[Trade$afe]

Jay,

Thanx for the reply, but I still don't have an answer I can give my students. Why do the bars differ from chart to chart. Also, what's the 'real' price on a bar if they vary so much? Obviously, if someone's trying to enter based on abr's price, this is unacceptable. What can we do?

Micahel

[JayF]

Hello Michael,

I believe the two former threads on the subject (listed below) address the "why". As far as what you can do now, there isn't a whole lot that can be done until eSignal 8.1 comes out. During a real-time market, exactly syncing-up charts between two users isn't feasible under the current technology, but it is coming fairly soon!

Reference Threads:
Different price levels on 1min chart
Differences in tick data