A Subscriber Asks: Why do you use 1440 minute charts with Insider Bars?
A chart of 1440 minutes equates to one day, 24 hours x 60 minutes per hour. So a 1440 minute chart is an alternative to using a daily chart.
The reason we do not use daily charts for Insider Bars is that the real-time volume data on TradeStation daily charts is different than on minute, second, tick and volume charts. It includes late prints, spread trades and various other things which would be noisy on intraday charts.
Note: This post was updated on February 5, 2020 to reflect changes to pre-market and post-market hours used by TradeStation. The custom session file below has been updated.
Furthermore, the historical tick-by-tick data saved by TradeStation matches the intraday data, not daily. So if Insider Bars updated with daily chart data, what you saw real-time would not match what you saw loading historical data after the fact.
What is the difference between 1440 minute charts and daily charts?
- They take slightly longer to load.
- For overnight futures data, you will see bars on holidays where the markets are open in the mornings. For example, on US Memorial Day and Labor Day, CME markets are typically open from Sunday night to Monday morning. Daily charts include this trading in the following Tuesday’s data, but when using 1440 minute charts, there will be a separate bar for Sunday night – Monday morning.
- Charts will show the last trade as the close on 1440 minute, versus showing the settlement price on daily charts. (Futures settlement prices are set by the exchange. The settlement price is typically the price at the close of the traditional pit session, but there are exceptions to this.)
Most sessions are less than 1440 minutes, so why use this length?
- For convenience. It works for any market without having to change the chart settings if you switch symbols. For example, you can use the same chart for a stock with a 390 minute session and an overnight futures contract with a 23 hour session.
What about pre-market and post-market trading for stocks?
You need to use a custom session to access pre- and post-market stock data on TradeStation. And Insider Bars requires that you only have a single session per day, so the default TradeStation custom sessions to show outside-of-session data will not work. OF-G has designed a stock market custom session specifically for use with Insider Bars. It allows you to easily include pre- and post-market data in your 1440 minute bars.
To download this custom session, click here. To install it, extract the file (Stock Pre Post One Session.cst), and copy it to the appropriate folder on your computer:
Version 9.5: Program Files (x86) > TradeStation 9.5 > Templates > Sessions
Version 10: This PC > Documents > TradeStation 10.0 > Templates > Sessions