Price Spacing Inconsistencies on Charts

[i2w8am9ii2]

Hello,

Sometimes the spacing between the different prices on the different time-frame charts that I use is quite large.

It becomes problematic during fast moving markets when I have to spend precious time (for no good reason) vertically scaling multiple charts so that I can better make sense of it all.

Is there a way to have the spacing between the different prices on the different time-frame charts be more similar?

Screenshot attached.

[NinjaTrader_EricB]

Hello i2w8am9ii2

Thank you for your post. To change this, right click on the chart > select the box for Equidistant bar spacing > Press OK. . Please see the "below section of the Help Guide for more information.


https://ninjatrader.com/support/help...ipleDataSeries

Let us know if we may assist further.

[i2w8am9ii2]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your reply.

I check in my Chart Properties and Equidistant bar spacing was already checked as my default selection.

I read the info in the link you provided, but it seems to talk about the horizontal spacing. What I am concerned about is the vertical spacing.

My price bars are too tall by default, so I have to keep scaling them shorter, on all my charts, in fast moving markets. I am trying to find a way that I can avoid having to do that.

Screenshots attached.

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

A setting which might be helpful here is 'Center price on scale'. Right-click on your chart > Data Series > Enable 'Center price on scale' > OK.

[i2w8am9ii2]

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for your reply.

I already use that setting on all my charts.

But that does not help with some of the chart price bars becoming really tall, others remaining medium sized, and yet others being small.

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

If your charts contain different high and low prices for the amount of historical data which is present, I would expect that auto-scale would scale your bars differently vertically.

For example, in your first screenshot the left-most chart's current auto-scale shows the data bars reaching a high of 65.56 with an indicator line plotting at a low of 65.38. This means the vertical scale must necessarily contain these objects and scales accordingly. If you apply the same visual analysis to the middle and right-most charts, you can see that there are different highs and lows that must be included due to the items that are part of the chart's 'auto scale'.

Every object on a chart has a toggleable 'auto scale' property. I would recommend experimenting with disabling all indicators and drawing objects from 'auto scale' to see if you can get just the data to scale as you desire. Once you have that worked out, you could add in more objects as needed into the 'auto scale'.

Keep in mind that you may always run into inherent issues due to the difference in the amount of data shown on your charts based on their intervals. I can only see the far right charts interval (5 min), but lets suppose that your 3 charts are 5min. 15min, and 60min. This means that if each chart is only showing 4 bars, we are seeing 20 minutes, 1 hour, and 4 hours worth of data. The price can vary wildly in an instrument in that amount of time, so I would expect the bars to be scaled accordingly.

[i2w8am9ii2]

Thanks for the info Patrick,

When you say...

I would recommend experimenting with disabling all indicators and drawing objects from 'auto scale' to see if you can get just the data to scale as you desire.

Which type of drawing objects are you referring to? Would that include my Moving Averages and Bollinger Bands, or things like horizontal lines, trend lines, etc., or something different?

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

All of those would be considered chart objects and have an 'auto scale' property,

[i2w8am9ii2]

Thanks Patrick,

As you can see from the screenshot attached, when I arrive at a new market, this is often what I am presented with on my Tick charts; each chart takes up almost the entire screen.

And this is a 32 inch monitor with high resolution, so my screen space is quite large.

And since I often deal in 1 minute charts and 2 minute charts on my other computer monitors, spending 30 seconds or so to vertically re-scale multiple charts on multiple monitors is taking up half the time that a 1 minute chart has to play itself out.

Is there any other way around this issue?

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

I think the primary issue you're running into is that 'Center price on scale' only updates on bar close. In other words, it does not re-scale your chart intra-bar.

This is purposeful to prevent issues with right-click order entry on your chart. You can imagine that it would be difficult to place an order at a specific price on a chart if the vertical scale changed rapidly on every price change which happens rapidly in a volatile instrument like the ES.

This wouldn't matter if you used multiple charts with the same interval, however, because you're using charts with different intervals, and all of the bars are closing at different times in most cases, your 'center price on scale' is not updating in sync across your charts.

You can work around this with dubious results if you add a secondary hidden data series which has a very low interval, however, the results may or may not be practically useful. The video below demonstrates a 1 minute chart with a hidden 1 second chart which has 'center price on scale' enabled. Notice how quickly the vertical scale changes:

https://www.screencast.com/t/U72UziVZ

I'll be submitting a feature request to allow for an option for users to be able to select if 'center price on scale' occurs at bar close or on price change. I'll update this thread when I receive a tracking number. EDIT - the tracking number is SFT-3299.

[i2w8am9ii2]

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for the info.

I especially appreciate that you will be submitting a feature request regarding this issue.

Thanks for that,