sierra chart acsil: couple of tips for adressing data from other charts

when it comes to acsil programming, sometimes you can get stuck in one place for a long time just because a simple tiny detail that you cannot solve out.

for me it was problems connected with setting up the size of arrays in overlaid charts. in sierra chart´s acsil libraries there are couple of functions for addressing the values of a different chart, but now matter which way i tried, it never worked out well.

i was able to transfer the data from other charts into my primary chart, but the values at a particular index were incorrect.

the reason was that the number of indexes in the arrays from other charts was not the same as the number of indexes in the primary one.

it sounds simple, and sierra chart support describes it in their documentation, but because i am a complete computer idiot, i was unable to get it done.

now i have finally fixed it so here i will give a couple of tips on how to do it.

first of all, a brief introduction.

why do we need to get the values of another chart, anyway?

simple example.

lets say u have found a trend pattern, but you want to open a trade only when tick nyse is above zero. for this, you need to get THE CORRECT value of tick nyse at the time (meaning at the current index) of the planned entry.

if tick nyse at the current index will be below zero, you will filter out the signal and no position will be opened, if it will be above, you will open. easy enough.

the problem is that the tick nyse starts at 8:30 and ends at 15:00

us indexes (YM, NQ, ES..) starts at 8:30 and ends at 15:15

thus it is obvious the number of indexes (the number of candlesticks) is different. and that is a big problem. if you wanna transfer the arrays (for example highs and lows) of tick nyse into the es chart and get the values for a particular candlestick at es, the values will be incorrect.

how to solve it?

easily

the first thing you should do in such a case is to re-set up the trading hours. normally i have trading hours in my charts like this because US indexes end at 15:15

you have to set the trading hours according to the chart that has less number of candlesticks (in this case it is tick nyse). so it should finish at 15:00

after that, it is important to set the linking with all the other charts (if u have any) so that you are sure the number of indexes will be the same for each array of each chart.

this is super important if you work with more charts that just two (just like me) and want to address the values of their arrays for computing correlations (just like me)

so this is the basic setting for working with an array of any other chart in the same chartbook. this should be used as defaults, otherwise, the values will never be correct.

after that, you have to choose which way to address the values of other charts.

i use acsil´s graphdata object which is implemented in sierra chart and works pretty fine, but there are a couple of other ways to do it (for example using overlay study and addressing the values of the overlaid chart as a subgraph).

anyhow, the code for getting high, low, close arrays from three different charts can look like this:

this is i would say the kernel for whatever you need when it comes to getting correct values from a particular chart. the code is pretty easy and simple, and the values that you get can be used in the same way as the values of the primary chart (eg. sc.low[sc.index], sc.high[sc.index] etc..)

pretty straightforward..

hmm.. bad luck

as i said yesterday, today i planned to trade with a bigger possition of 6 contracts but was little bit unlucky, because i did not get the fill of all the 6

here i was clicking to take short, on a nice orderflow exhaustion of buyers. it was quite clear that the price does not have enough power to move so i was not hesitating..

but the price slid down really quickly and filled only 2 contracts out of 6.

first contract was closed on target within a couple of seconds to make risk free trade as usual, the other one let little bit further on a volatile target.

it was quite a nice catch of the local high with absolutely precise timing entry and virtually no drawdown

feelling really unlucky for not being filled with all the 6. it could have been a nice profit

just one short

this was the only entry i did today, probably the last time with small position of two contracts only. 

from tomorrow i will start with 6 again because with 2 it is like a demo version

later in the evening

on friday, later in the evening, there was this situation that offered a good short setup for nq nasdaq. this is 30 minutes timeframe that i use for a long term planing if necessary.

from all the four markets, only nasdaq broke the daily low, the other three did not. it creates a pressure buying, because nasdaq looks to be cheaper and dis-correlated.

i was waiting for an orderflow timing to jump into short trade and speculate against these buyers who were trapped. this is the closed trade

this was the second trade on friday. the first trade was a loss at 9:00 - i did not notice there was a report at 9:00 and took long one minute before it.

as soon as i opened the long position, the price dropped, so i had closed 200 usd loss. it was one of the quickest loss ever.

my mistake to open the trade right before the announcement report.

daily result is here.

still volatile, but readable

the volatility in us indexes is still high but the market seemed a little bit more readable today. there was an intermarket scheme that i know as a good setup for long entry.

it happened in nasdaq some 15 minutes after open. i took a long trade right here. as you can see, i went into a little drawdown, because the volatility is still very high, i am not able to catch the reversal very precisely

i am opening only two contracts to eliminate the risk. i hit both the targets. the first one was closed here, making it a risk-free trade, the other was after the breaking of the daily high.

the second trade today was dow jones short after an orderflow gradation with confirmation of low heat entry.

both of the targets were closed at the level of fist one. i had a feeling that today the price will go up so taking shorts was not the most comfortable.

the result is 650 today is enought, i did not want expose to it any longer

one long trade after one long hour

today i took only one trade on nasdaq 100. it was long, and i had to wait for it for almost one hour.

the session started in quite a fast tempo, and i expected to get a trade signal quickly. increased volatility should offer some signals to jump in, but it was not the case today.

the market auction was not readable and i could not find a low risk entry for oppening a trade.

finaly, i found this situation.

due to increased volatility i opened only half of my normal six-contracts position, prepared to compensate up to six in case the price will move against me to the level of stoploss while still holding the edge of the entry..

unfortunately, it did not happen, the price oscillated little bit back, but not enough to add to the position.

here is the exit

i mean, this looks like a small trade in the picture of the whole intraday session, but it is +450 usd. with three contracts it is not bad.

the exit was executed according to fixed (but due to increased volatility expanded) trade management.

a small trade with a small position

just one long today on e-mini dow.

this one.

nothing special to say about it. except, that it was that kind of a trade that was 100% repeatable for me.

i took it with only two contracts, +180 usd. virtually zero drawdown which is a sign of a good timing entry

dow jones futures trading

today i traded only dow jones futures (ym), and it offered a number of opportunities. unfortunately i was not able to hit the further targets, except in one case.

all the four trades i took hit the first target but only one of them ran further. and that one was with the smallest position possible (2 contracts only), because the risk of that trade was higher. it is quite a shame, and pity taht i was not able to get more from today´s volatility.

here is the intraday chart of e-mini dow jones in the first hour after open with my trades and comments

result

by the way, today i have noticed two iceberg orders (one at dow jones and the other at nasdaq futures 100).

still don´t know how to use it in my trading but it is an interesting thing to observe and follow the big guys through this visualization

here is the situation at dow jones where the iceberg was triggered after the price fell through bigger buy limit order (white line on market depth)

here is similar situation at nasdaq (in different time), but this one is not so strong

it is interesting to notice that the the price level where the iceberg sell order at dow jones started was not broken higher. in fact the market moved consolidated near daily low and after it sucked in enough buyers, it dropped deeper. 

depth of market - thin vs. thick offered liquidity

here is an interesting situation on depth of market (dom) in intermarket state. it is easily visible that the offered liquidity on the bid side is much thinner that on the ask side.

the presumption is that the price should move into the side of thinner liquidity - it is going to be easier, as there are no "walls" of waiting limit orders. 

it is just a presumption now - no data have been collected to prove this idea.

what we have to take into account in such a situation is the intermarket state and the predictability of retail market orders. here we have ym under the daily low, all other markets are above.

it gives the (stupid) retail traders feeling that ym is cheap and that they should buy it. they start buying.

limit side with quoting market maker´s orders builds thicker layers of sell limit order to retard the movement up and sell in a bigger quantity against the retail public. the movement down is much easier because the quoting buy limit side is weaker.

this is how the situatuion looks at market orders with depth of market. the offered liquidity on dom overtuns and the price sinks into it

what happened next was that the price dropped down against the buying public. in this particular case it would have hit o the first target only but it doesn´t matter - there was a strong buying sentiment on nyse tick at that time and even thought the price went down to hit the stops of public..

here is the footprint chart of this situation

more in depth study of this phenomena needs to be done before taking these situation as a tradable edge

dow jones futures short (after trapped late buyers)

these days after american lunch the volatility drops significantly and the markets are literally dead. trading in such environment takes lot of discipline when t comes to waiting for an opportunity. there are not many opportunities these days, so whenever one appears, one need to catch it quickly, automatically.

this was the only tradeable situation today. ym futures tried to break the swing high but the buyers were absorbed. the entry moment is here:

here is the support at market orders that show diminishing power of buy market side - this would be a better moment for the entry

a nice "second entry" in the area of my "first entry"

wmo shows no interest at buy market side and it is flat - good for "second entry"

although i planned the second target further, i closed it prematurely because i did not have any profit today and the market were terribly slow and tiring today (and about to close in a while)

undervalued nasdaq futures

at the end of the day there was a nice situation to short e-mini futures nasdaq, because it was visibly undervalued (compared to other four markets), thus luring buyers.

i am going against them, it is too predictable to buy here. and these who are predictable will lose

and yes, the market moved against them and they lost