Bar Types
There are countless bar types to use on your charts, it all depends on how you want to view the market. Below are the default bar types available through NinjaTrader. If you are looking to change your bar type, Right click your chart > Select Data Series > Under Properties, Data Series, Type, Select your desired bar.
- Tick: A tick bar is formed after a specified number of transactions are made. For example: if a bar is set to 100 ticks, a new bar is formed after 100 transactions. Popular intervals for tick bars are 144, 512 and 610. These are based on the Fibonacci Sequence.
- Volume: A volume bar is formed after a specified number of contracts are traded. For example: if a bar is set to 1,000 volume, a new bar is formed after 1,000 contracts are traded.
- Range: A range bar is formed after the market moves a specified number of ticks in either direction. Each bar is the same size and represents a defined movement of price.
- Minute: A minute bar is formed after a specified number of minutes.
- Second: A second bar is formed after a specified number of seconds.
- Day: A day bar is formed after a specified number of days.
- Week: A week bar is formed after a specified number of weeks.
- Month: A month bar is formed after a specified number of months.
- Year: A year bar is formed after a specified number of years.
- Heiken Ashi: The Heiken Ashi bar looks similar to a standard candlestick bar, but with slightly different ways to calculate the open, close, high and low. The open is based on the midpoint of the last bar (average of last bar's open and close). The close is based on the average price of the current bar (sum of the open, high, close and low, divided by 4). The high is based on the highest value of the current bar's high, open and close. The low is based on the lowest value of the current bar's low, open and close.
- Kagi: A Kagi bar is plotted in the direction of price until there is a price reversal of a specified amount. Once this reversal occurs the bar will stay the same color until the previous bar's high or low is surpassed. The length of time of each bar is determined by the specified base period. As an example, lets say the reversal is set to 2 ticks. The Kagi bar line will continue to plot downward until there is a price reversal or more than 2 ticks. The line will stay the same color (red in this case) until the last bar's high is passed, then it changes to green.
- Renko: A Renko bar is plotted after the high or low of the previous bar is exceeded. The size of each bar is based on a specified amount.
- Point and Figure: A Point and Figure bar is built of a column of either X's (increasing price) or O's (decreasing price). Each X or O represents the price distance determined by the box size (amount in ticks). A new X or O is formed when the price moves more than the box size. Another parameter, the reversal, is the amount of price movement from the Low or High to change from X's to O's, or O's to X's.
- Line Break: A new Line Break bar is created when price breaks above or below the high or low of a specified number of prior bars.
- Volumetric: The Volumetric bars are included with NinjaTrader's Order Flow. This includes detailed information on the buying and selling activity of the market.
How to Choose a Bar Type: Time based bars (second, minute, day and longer) print a new bar on a fixed clock, so they show quiet and busy periods equally. Activity based bars such as tick, volume and range print more bars when the market is busy and fewer when it is quiet. Price based bars such as Renko and Line Break filter out smaller moves to make trends easier to see. Many traders keep one time based chart for context and use an activity or price based chart for timing.
Things to Keep in Mind: Indicator periods change meaning with the bar type. A 20 period moving average on a 2000 tick chart covers a very different stretch of time than on a 5 minute chart. Bar types that hide time, such as Renko and Kagi, can also hide when a move happened. For a closer look at how each chart style draws these bars, see our chart types guide.