Volume Charts/IB

[regiom]

I have a problem using volume charts via IB.

The charts will only update when I have a connection and the "Reload Historical Data" option is grayed out. Is there any way to backfill the missing data?

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello regiom,

Unfortunately this is as expected. Historical volume data is built by historical tick data.

http://www.ninjatrader-support.com/HelpGuideV6/HowDoesNinjaTraderBuildChartBars.html

Historical tick data is not supported with IB as per the link below.

http://www.ninjatrader-support.com/HelpGuideV6/HistoricalData.html

[uexkuell]

Historical volume data is built by historical tick data.

May I ask why this has to be so?

IB supplies historical data down to the 1 sec resolution level.
It might be possible to reconstruct high quality volume charts from that.

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello uexkuell,

Unfortunately, this is how NinjaTrader utilizes data. Please see the link below under 'Understanding the underlying base data type required for constructing various chart bars'.

http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/helpGuides/nt7/how_bars_are_built.htm

[uexkuell]

Hello Jason,

thanks for the quick response and the link.


I am trading with constant volume bars (CVB) for a long time now and it would be impossible for me to shift my trading approach to a different chart type.

I am using QT for this purpose and it does a good job with CVBs.
It uses IB backfill even at a granularity of 15 sec bars and the CVBs are not very nice but still usable with this approach.
Anyway QT is in several ways outdated and will be discontinued probably soon. That's why I am looking for a functional replacement.

Therefore I have to repeat that I can't see why NT does not allow the user to apply this very useful chart type with IB backfill.
It shouldn't be a problem on the software side.

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Unfortunately IB does not support the same historical tick data as NinjaTrader. IB offers historical tick data using 1 second granularity. This is not the same as historical tick data used in NinjaTrader. It will plot each tick that occurred.

A similar inquiry is listed at the forum thread below.

http://www.ninjatrader.com/support/forum/showthread.php?t=24357&highlight=IB+historical+tick

[uexkuell]

Ok.

In this case I have to exclude NT as a replacement candidate for QT.