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| Tick Charts |

| Tick charts have all the properties of the time interval based charts except that each candle represents a fixed number of trades (ticks) rather than a unit of time. The (400/100 tick) label in the title of this chart shows that it is an alternate view of an underlying 100 tick OHLC chart. The view can be changed by <right-click>ing in the chart and selecting { Time Span | View Tick Units } from the popup menu or the { View } main menu or the timespan hotkeys (which for tick and volume charts become the base tick count multiplier). Only the underlying time unit (base tick count) will be saved to disk between sessions. The x-axis label is the number of bars in the chart.

| This is a 1 tick chart. Each dot is an individual trade. If the trade was at the ask or higher it is colored with the up candle color, and if it was at the bid or lower it is colored with the down candle color. Trades in between the bid and the ask are colored with the candle wick color which is either white or black depending upon the background color of the chart.

#### Differences of tick charts vs time charts The data for tick charts is only saved for symbols that you actually have a tick chart open for. (Note: minimized windows still count as opened). This is different from the time based intraday charts where every symbol in an opened SLFMap, Quote window, or Horserace will have intraday data saved continually. For this reason you will probably not want to change the symbols in an individual tick chart, because when you do so, the data collection for the original symbol will stop. If you then return the original symbol to the chart, there will be a gap in the data for the time it was not collected. One tick chart can use a significant amount of memory and CPU time for fast traded symbols. For these symbols we suggest you use a higher base tick count (like 5, 10, or even 100 or more). If you want to view several different tick counts per bar, make the smallest the base unit for the chart and use the hotkeys to toggle to larger tick count views (fewer bars). #### Creating a new tick chart To create a tick chart open a new empty chart window with { File | New } and select Chart Window and then go to the { Chart | Properties ... } dialog. (You can also use the chart properties dialog to change an existing chart into a tick chart.) The the properties dialog enter the Symbol, set the Time Span to tick and set the Units per Candle to the number of ticks (trades) per chart bar you want. Then select [OK]. If quotes collection is on, the first point/bar will appear when the next trade is received for the symbol.

### Volume Charts Volume charts are very similar to tick charts. The setup and data saving, etc. behaves the same as for tick charts (read above), except that a new bar is started each time the specifed volume per candle has been traded. Therefore each bar represents a fixed amount of trade volume. Tick and volume charts are good for equalizing the x-axis size for extended hours trading when volume is usually very light. Under these conditions you get only a few bars for a long timespan which would tend to otherwise distort the significance of studies in a normal chart with time as the x-axis. Data is only saved as long as you have a chart open as described for tick charts. #### Creating a new volume chart To create a volume chart open a new empty chart window with { File | New } and select Chart Window and then go to the { Chart | Properties ... } dialog. (You can also use the chart properties dialog to change an existing chart into a volume chart.) The the properties dialog enter the Symbol, set the Time Span to volume and set the Units per Candle to the number of shares or contracts (volume) per chart bar you want. Then select [OK]. If quotes collection is on, the first point/bar will appear when the next trade is received for the symbol. Since the volume per candle is fixed, the number of trades per candle is shown in the lower window pane for volume charts. (Where you normally see volume).

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