Thanks again for your input. I woke up early this morning and spent time focused on this issue. I like your analogy about the continous data stream broken down into bars of price data. I visualized that this morning and I completely agree with you.
Here are my thoughts regarding bar gapping for any kind of chart.
Lets say you are watching a 1 minute bar chart. At the beginning of a new bar the price gaps up 3 ticks. The bar starts there and continues up. 20 seconds later the price gaps up another 3 ticks.
Most charts today do not display the first gap up with a bar representation, but the second gap up is represented with a bar.
If you look at the same data on a five minute chart both price gap ups are representated with the same continous up bar.
If the price data is a continous stream, why should there ever be data ( price gap up) without a bar to represent it?
It should not happen, but it does.
Once a bar is opened, price change from current price is always displayed with a bar.
When a new bar is opened, current programming makes the bar think it is a brand new chart that has yet to define a current price. So instead of the bar beginning at the current price, it waits for a change in price to begin the new bar.
I think this is very wrong. Price changes should not be treated differently simply becouse one bar is closing and another is opening. It should be treated the same as all other price changes that occur within each bar.
That means Close[1] should equal Open[0]. No matter what kind of chart you are using.
Current price should be carried forward from one bar to the next so all price data receives the same treatment.
When this true, all price data is represented with bar(s). There is no such thing as "price bar gap on bar open".
Indicators that use OHLC data will always have complete and correct data to process on close of current bar.
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I will not rehash the Range bar thing again. I think we have made our viewpoints clear on that issue.
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I know that I am taking a radical position with this post.
I think some people will agree, my brain may have a few wires crossed.
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I want to thank you again for this open discussion.
RJay
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