another question vis contract months

[Tasuki]

Clearly I'm doing something wrong, but darned if I can figure out what it is. See attached pic. On that pic, I've got three contract months for NG, Natural Gas: May (K), June (M) and July (N). Look at the price and the volume: they're identical for all three. That's just not possible. Then look at the very top and you'll see:
NG 05-14 2/14/2014-3/21/2014
NG 06-14 2/14/2014-3/21/2014
NG 07-14 2/14/2014-3/21/2014
Well, that's just wrong for the dates for the May contract, and these same dates are the same for all three contract months. This is obviously wrong, but what am I doing to deserve this nonsense? Seems to me like Ninjatrader has a problem that needs to be fixed, but I'm sure there's some workaround. But why would this incorrect information be put on the chart in the first place? Doesn't this mean that NT has some glitch somewhere?
PLEASE tell me you're going to fix this with the next version of NT. This sort of nonsense just shouldn't happen. But in the meantime, what do I do to correct this?
Thanks,
Tasuki

[Harry]

There is nothing wrong with NinjaTrader.

-> If NinjaTrader is set to Merge Policy = MergeBackAdjusted or MergeNonBackAdjusted, the three charts should be identical.

-> The large candle on February 25 shows that you have set your merge policy to MergNonBackAdjusted, and that is what your charts are showing.

There is nothing to be fixed, but you need to study the user manual.

[Tasuki]

Thanks, Harry,
This has to be my least favorite subject in all of futures trading! The "merge policy" business appears to be in two places within NT. Starting from Tools, you can either go to Options and then Data, and you're given just three choices. If you go to Tools, then Instrument Manager, type in a symbol, Edit, under the Definition tab you're give four choices. The fourth choice, which is not on the other list, is "UseGlobalSettings", whatever that means.
To the support team, a few questions:
1) Is there some important reason why the Merge Policy choices are found in two places (both under Tools)? Do you get a different result if you change the setting in one place vs. the other?
2) Is there some special reason why "UseGlobalSettings" appears in one location but not the other?
How does "UseGlobalSettings" differ from the other choices?
3) Is there some way to make these choices for all the contracts you're trading, or do you have to change the settings for each contract individually?

BTW, if you change the settings, it looks as if you have to close the workspace and re-open it for the new settings to take effect. If I've got that wrong, please somebody correct me. Seemed to be true when I've been playing around with this.

Another observation (please somebody correct me if I've got this wrong), but if I change the settings going through the Instrument Manager, that change seems to take precedence over the setting derived from Tools/Options/Data. So, for example, I changed the setting under Tools/Options/Data to "DoNotMerge" but that didn't take effect because in the Instrument Manager I had left the setting as "MergeNonBackAdjust". So, wait a second, what (if anything) is the setting in Tools/Options/Data doing? It appears to be subservient to the setting under the Instrument Manager.
Support team, please straighten me (and the rest of us!) out here. Thanks,
Tasuki

Tasuki

[Harry]

This is very simple.

(1) You select the global settings under Tools -> Options -> Data -> Merge Policy. The global settings are applied to all futures contracts.

(2) If for a specific instrument, you do not want to use the global settings, you may select a different setting just for that instrument under instrument settings. The specific setting overrides the global settings.

This is as it should be and not difficult to understand!