Why still no 60 minute charts?

[shaeffer]

I'm get more annoyed every time I see notice of a new release (beta or final) and still the inability of 60 minute charts to end at 4:00 pm has not been fixed!!!!!

Is a 60 minute chart some exotic timeframe that hardly anyone would use? No, it is one of the most common intraday timeframes.

Are 60 minute charts something you'd expect to find only in high end charting programs?. No, they are included with the most basic of intraday charting programs.

So please, please tell me why, after 5 years of asking, eSignal will not fix this???? That extra 30 minutes of data after the market close often changes the high or low and close of the day. This in turn messes up any 60 minute studies/efs's that use the high/low and close, which in turn makes any backtesting results with 60 minute strategies meaningless. And it becomes an embarassment when conversing intraday with traders with other software when our 60 minute chart values do not agree.

This is not some exotic request. I have not seen one single other charting program (either standalone or online) that can not end their 60 minute charts at 4:00 pm. So why do you continually ignore this very basic request??????????

Shaeffer

[ScottJ]

Can you remind me why a modified time template fails to meet this need for you?

Thanks.

[ScottJ]

I think I get it now. Let me make sure I understand what you would like to see here. You want 60 min bars that look like this:

9:30 (from 9:30:00 to 10:29:59)
10:30 (from 10:30:00 to 11:29:59)
11:30 (from 11:30:00 to 12:29:59)
etc
but the last bar would be just 30 mins?
15:30 (from 15:30:00 to 15:59:59)

So in essence you want 6 1/2 60 min bars?

Thanks.

[ScottJ]

A little more on this subject. Poking around looking at websites that provide 60 min charts. Take barcharts.com for ex. They build their first bar at 6:00 am PT to 6:59 am. I can tell that because they show roughly half the volume that we do in our 6:30 to 7:29 bar. You could build a time template from 6 to 1 and then that last bar would be just the last hour of trading.

You indicated you felt most other providers had resolved this and I'm curious what they chose to do or is it user-configurable?

Thanks.

[shaeffer]

Originally posted by ScottJ
Can you remind me why a modified time template fails to meet this need for you?

Thanks.

Thanks for the reply Scott.

I wish I knew why the modified time template does not accomplish this. I tried that years ago, and again on every new release. Taking the QQQQ as an example, 1, 5, 10, 15, 30 and 65 minute charts all show a close of 43.50 on Friday (Sept 5) with 6:30 to 13:00 pst time templates. My 60 minute chart also has a 6:30 to 13:00 pst time template, yet it shows a close of 43.65 ( = the close of a 1 minute bar starting 13:29 pst). For some reason the modified time template is ignored and the full 7th 60 minutes of data shows in the final 60 minute bar.

Similarly RIMM has a correct intraday regular hours close of 107.03, but a 60 minute (6:30-13:00) chart close of 106.80 - again the 13:00 is ignored and data for the next 30 minutes is included.

Does your modified time frame show differently? in which case I'm doing something wrong.

Yes, I believe almost all other chart services provide six, 60 minute bars and one final 30 minute bar to create a 60 minute regular market hours chart. (I've never heard of the first bar being the 30 minute bar, or it being user configurable - its always been the last bar of the regular market day is only 30 minutes as far as I've noticed).

(In both cases above, the daily chart shows a different closing value. Any idea why? I think maybe due to final corrections made at the exchanges each day?). But the intraday charts should all match. Granted, the examples above are minor, but during earnings season there can be significant after market swings.

For example for AAPL on 7/21/08 (earnings release):

The final 30 minute bar shows:
High = 166.67 and Close = 166.41

The final 65 minute bar shows:
High = 166.67 and Close = 166.41 (agrees with above since there are exactly six, 65 minutes bars in regular hours)

But the final 60 minute bar (in a 6:30-13:00 chart) shows:
High = 167.79 and Close = 165.27
The extra 30 minutes of data results in a higher high and a lower close than actually occurred in regular hours. Often there are only minor changes, but who has time to stop to determine if the 60 minute "regular market hours" chart they are looking at really contains some after market extremes?

I will be very embarassed if somehow I am setting my time templates wrong. But I've used online support, phone calls to tech support, emails to Ideas, and this forum and haven't got an answer yet. So I appreciate you looking into this more than anyone else has in the last five years.

Regards
Shaeffer

[ScottJ]

I don't think you are missing anything on your time template. I just think that a 60 min bar is ignoring that end time of the template in order to fulfill the "60 mins worth of data". I get the same as you.

Let me talk to Eng about this one and see what we might be able to come-up with.

Thanks.

[patch2277]

As far as I remeber, Qcharts draws it's last bar of the day from 15.30 to 16.00 so maybe you could also have a look at that.

I totally agree with shaeffer on this as do many many other traders

Originally posted by ScottJ
I don't think you are missing anything on your time template. I just think that a 60 min bar is ignoring that end time of the template in order to fulfill the "60 mins worth of data". I get the same as you.

Let me talk to Eng about this one and see what we might be able to come-up with.

Thanks.

[ScottJ]

Update:

As it works today, the tick server doesn't recognize "end time" so as the desktop asks for 7 bars and associates a time template, the tick server only responds to the start time and # of bars. We have had this request slated for implementation for quite some time but needed to make broader changes before we could introduce "end time" in the tick server code. It is on the list for the next major release of the tick server, which is likely 4-6 months out.

Thanks.

[shaeffer]

10.4 fixes end time in 60 minute charts?

As I look at my 60 minute charts today, it looks like the QQQQ has filled the gap of April 9. But has it really? I don't know yet because I can't trust the final '60 minute' bar of the previous day. I scrolled back a 15 minute chart and that gave me my answer.

With INTC earnings yesterday (April 14), the final 60 minute bar on that chart (and the QQQQ and probably most semi's) is way out of wack.

Can you tell me if a server upgrade and/or 10.4 has fixed that? If so, that together with the new %-Y axis (and consolidated Edit Studies window, and studies vertical stretching abililty) might make it worth getting a new computer and upgrading from 8.0.

Thanks
shaeffer

[ScottJ]

I just checked 10.4 and I still see the same issue with the last 60 min bar of the day (i.e. including data past the end time of the time template). The server piece may be completed and we'll need 10.5 but not sure so I've asked Eng to take a look and we'll let you know.

Thanks.

[shaeffer]

Hi Scott,

Any news from Eng?

I'm not sure if I've asked this before, but could an efs prevent data after 4:00 PM est from plotting?

In my opinion, not being able to plot accurate 60 minute charts is a core eSignal fault. I'm astounded that eSignal resources have been devoted to developing nice-to-have features when such a core charting requirement is not working. Is this not considered a major shortcoming over there?

Regards
shaeffer

[ScottJ]

It appears the server side work has been completed but desktop work remains. Hopefully that will be included in the 10.5 release but we won't know for sure for another month or so.

In terms of your other commentary, certainly some clients have expressed concern about the last bar containing after-hours trades but there are other issues that have created considerably more concern so we do the best we can to prioritize. Plus, most other intervals that divide evenly into the time period requested work just fine which gives users a work around.

Thanks.

[jshah100]

Any update?

Last bar on the 60 min chart is still showing 1 hour of data till 4:30 ET rather than half hour of data till 4:00 ET.

Any ETA on when this will be resolved?

[JayF]

This is resolved in eSignal 11 Preview. Head on over to the beta forums (link) to grab your copy.

Please note that it installs completely separate from eSignal 10.6 (different directory, different settings, etc.) so there will be no interference between it and your production pages.