REQUEST: Volume Profile needs some updates

[gubbar924]

I was hoping that NT8 would add some much needed features to the volume profile indicator. Other platforms are leaving NT FAR behind in this regard. The volume profile indicator, as it stands, has no value area high/low or point of control, nor can it do naked VAL/VAH/POC. Other softwares already have all of these features plus they can also do volume profile by manually selected area/range or by sessions. These are all features that built into the software packages. Yet all NT can do is give us just volume only starting from the point when the indicator is first started. I really hope NT will at least catch up to these features as so many traders, including myself, put these features to work in our trading.

[NinjaTrader_AlexC]

Hi gubbar924,

Thanks for your suggestions. I have reported these to the development team for consideration.

[GrumpyTrader]

I was thinking of taking a crack at enhancing the volume profile indicator now that I have converted all my other indicators over to NT8. I have some questions before I begin:

a) I will need to pull in historical tick data to pull in the history. Is adding another data series the best prescribed way to approach it?

b) Are there other examples of custom plotting/rendering in NT8 ?

[NinjaTrader_Matthew]

Would recommend using the "Tick Replay" feature, which will trigger OnMarketData to be called historically:

http://ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt8/en-us/tick_replay.htm

For example, if you enabled this feature on the current Volume Profile indicator, you will see it plot against historical data.

The VolumeProfile, BuySellVolume and BuySellPressure indicator all show examples of how to handle Tick Replay data.

For custom plotting/rendering, all for the DrawingTools are good starting examples. You can also look at ChartStyles for more ideas.

For other indicators, check the Sample Custom Plot, Regression Channel, Pivots, BarTimer, Volume Zones, ZigZag,

[GrumpyTrader]

Thanks Matt ... I'm sure this will keep me busy for a while. :-;

[GrumpyTrader]

Hi Matthew,
A couple question on Tick Replay. I noticed that indicators (or at least Volume Profile) that use Tick Replay will use just historical tick data if Market Replay data isn't available. Is there a benefit to using Replay data instead of tick data?

Is there a reason that under the "Historical Data" screen under tab "Data" that you can't download a range of dates for market replay data? It is kind of a pain to select each date and hit download.

There seems to be a bug with the Volume Profile indicator. As you can see by the attached picture it doesn't let me see the profile for the current day when the bars are too close together.

Also, is it by design with that indicator to only show one day of a profile at a time? and to change when scrolled?

[NinjaTrader_DaveI]

Hello,

Are you connected to the Market Replay connection when you test Tick Replay? Although the terms are similar, Tick Replay and Market Replay are not the same thing. Tick Replay can be used either on a live connection or Market Replay, so if you're on a live connection, it would be expected for Tick Replay to use historical data rather than Market Replay data.

For downloading Market Replay data, we limit downloads to one day at a time to ensure that there is always bandwidth on the Market Replay data servers for anyone who wishes to pull data. If you need a large bulk of data, there are third party vendors available who sell this data in bulk.

It is by design that the Volume Profile indicator only shows data for one day at a time -- it is designed to show volume at each of the price levels that were hit that day. So that I can look further into the issue you're seeing, can you tell as many details about your chart setup as possible? I'm not able to reproduce what you described so far.

[brucelevy]

A Dynamic Volume Profile shows on-screen data and loads any tick data needed to create that profile weather or not the chart was just opened or not. A proper volume profile is essential to the trading of many and is a major selling point, I can't stress this enough. There are actually platforms developed for this specific reason and are thriving. I also don't know why a proper factory order-flow template hasn't been made yet, there are people out there charging thousands for this...