• krog
  • Licensed Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2010-02-26
  • Posts: 407

Topic: Range Bars - possible?

Check this out --

I've done a mock up of converting my 5-minute data to 10-pip range bars. This was done by converting the data, not in FSB. Attached is a screenshot, the Range Bar data csv, and the original csv.

Is this close to what you would think are Range Bars? I've only read descriptions, never actually seen them produced by another software. I don't have a standard for reference.

But, I think they may have some problems -- it may be impossible to convert 5-minute or 30-minute data in FSB to Range Bars that would match the Range Bars in FST (presumably from tick data). They would have a lot of interpolation issues.

I don't know, maybe there might be a way to make this work. Feel free to comment, suggest or throw out some ideas, I am trying to brainstorm too.

EURJPY, 5 min data, converted to 10 pip Range Bars. Letters mark the matching points between the 2 charts:
http://s1.postimage.org/2c3ny301w/range_Bars_Mock_Up.jpg

  • krog
  • Licensed Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2010-02-26
  • Posts: 407

Re: Range Bars - possible?

here's the range bar csv

Post's attachments

EURJPY5_rangeBar.csv 67.1 kb, 13 downloads since 2011-08-25 

You don't have the permssions to download the attachments of this post.
  • krog
  • Licensed Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2010-02-26
  • Posts: 407

Re: Range Bars - possible?

and the original 5-minute data, you can compare, or if you have code to do the conversion, we can compare

Post's attachments

EURJPY5_orig.csv 181.95 kb, 4 downloads since 2011-08-25 

You don't have the permssions to download the attachments of this post.
  • footon
  • footon
  • ◄≡≡≡►
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-08-17
  • Posts: 2,924

Re: Range Bars - possible?

It looks like a hybrid of range and renko bars.

To give a sample of each, here are range and renko charts:

http://www.bigmiketrading.com/attachmen … 1246595785

http://www.bigmiketrading.com/attachmen … 1246595785

It actually gave me an idea at the moment, I'll test it and see if there's a beast to be found.

EDIT: alright, this is what I did:

http://s1.postimage.org/2eklqiw3o/RNG.jpg

http://s1.postimage.org/2el3xfpj8/RNK.jpg

http://s1.postimage.org/2elpff7yc/HYBR.jpg

So it's doable, I used MT scripts to generate the charts, save and change them to M1 as FSB might think there are huge blanks, but it works at the moment.

Renko needs data editing though, otherwise chart might not load up.

Interpolation issues are tough to figure out, only thing I can think of is to run FST on offline chart (in MT RNG and RNK are available only on offline charts), but will it work? So, if the offline chart in MT is left as it is, data is always the same and no interpolation errors should occur.

But there will be problems with indis I think, WTF is not going to work as expected for start.

EDIT: oh, RNK generates strats which win every trade. We've made it now chaps, hehheee. This needs serious thinking now how to fix this.

  • krog
  • Licensed Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2010-02-26
  • Posts: 407

Re: Range Bars - possible?

footon wrote:

...

Renko needs data editing though, otherwise chart might not load up.

I found the same problem -- FSB says cannot figure out the columns. It looks at the first line to see what is the highest and lowest, so it can figure out the order of O H L C. To solve this, in my data conversion script, the first line gets the open, then adds 20 pips to that, then subtracts 20 pips, then adds 2 pips. Those fake values from the script are written out as the first line in the csv. After that, it does the Range Bar conversion.

  • krog
  • Licensed Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2010-02-26
  • Posts: 407

Re: Range Bars - possible?

footon wrote:

It looks like a hybrid of range and renko bars.

To give a sample of each, here are range and renko charts:

http://www.bigmiketrading.com/attachmen … 1246595785

http://www.bigmiketrading.com/attachmen … 1246595785

...

Ok, I see, my conversion looks closer to Renko bars, because mine are missing the shadows. I just did a bunch of rounding, I'll have to go back and do a better job of catching slight movements up or down from the open that would produce the shadows.

  • footon
  • footon
  • ◄≡≡≡►
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-08-17
  • Posts: 2,924

Re: Range Bars - possible?

krog wrote:

Ok, I see, my conversion looks closer to Renko bars, because mine are missing the shadows. I just did a bunch of rounding, I'll have to go back and do a better job of catching slight movements up or down from the open that would produce the shadows.

Renko and range are a bit different as renko smoothes data - it takes at least 2 times the bar size for the reversal bar to be printed. The same applies to bar starting times too - you can actually forecast where the new bar is going to start. Hope this helps.

One issue with indis - when Bar Closing is applied, it closes practically at the next incoming tick! Bar close isn't reached, any ideas to sort it out?

  • krog
  • Licensed Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2010-02-26
  • Posts: 407

Re: Range Bars - possible?

footon wrote:

...

One issue with indis - when Bar Closing is applied, it closes practically at the next incoming tick! Bar close isn't reached, any ideas to sort it out?

Do you mean in FST? FST has to do this to exit at bar closing. FST's understanding of bar closing is the first tick within 5 seconds or so of bar close time (not sure the exact number, but same idea). I think it is because FST can not exit exactly at bar closing -- there may not be a trade or tick spot on that moment. I think I saw Mr Popov posted an explanation, it has to do with bar closing at "3:30" is an artificial abstract concept, the only reality is the tick close enough around that time to be a real price.

  • footon
  • footon
  • ◄≡≡≡►
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-08-17
  • Posts: 2,924

Re: Range Bars - possible?

krog wrote:

Do you mean in FST? FST has to do this to exit at bar closing. FST's understanding of bar closing is the first tick within 5 seconds or so of bar close time (not sure the exact number, but same idea). I think it is because FST can not exit exactly at bar closing -- there may not be a trade or tick spot on that moment. I think I saw Mr Popov posted an explanation, it has to do with bar closing at "3:30" is an artificial abstract concept, the only reality is the tick close enough around that time to be a real price.

There's my problem! In range and renko charts time is irrelevant in terms of bar close and openings, only price and it's movement matters.

  • krog
  • Licensed Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2010-02-26
  • Posts: 407

Re: Range Bars - possible?

That's funny, it's based on the closing time of the bar, but the bar is free of time smile

What about if you use a Close Slot, without "Bar Close" as a closing slot? The Renko and Range Bars should be more like a price level, the end of the bar is a price level, not a time. For FST, need an indicator that draws where that level is on top of the time-based bar, and can change in the time-based bar if passed.

  • Registered: 2012-07-02
  • Posts: 2

Re: Range Bars - possible?

Has anyone been able to use offline Renko charts. I'm using "RenkoLiveChart_v3.2" EA to generate the offline chart. When I try to connect MT4 and FST on an offline chart I get this error message: "2014.01.10 09:25:13    MT4-FST Expert EURUSDm,M2: There isn't enough bars. FST needs minimum 1450 bars for EURUSDm 2. Currently 458 bars are loaded."

In FST I have minimum bars set to 300. There are 458 Renko bars in the offline chart, why does it need 1450?

  • footon
  • footon
  • ◄≡≡≡►
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-08-17
  • Posts: 2,924

Re: Range Bars - possible?

What kind of indicators and how long periods is strategy using?

  • Registered: 2012-07-02
  • Posts: 2

Re: Range Bars - possible?

Moving average (period: 8) and pivot points(bar). I just got it to work in FSB pro. But even if I remove all my indicators and make the strategy as basic as possible, I still can't get FST to connect.

It's not a big deal now that I have it working in FSBpro, but I'd still like to understand why FST isn't connecting.

Thanks