Thanks for the in-depth explanation Kent. I experimented with a few other charting packages and was not impressed with them at all. VTTrader for one was completely hopeless, the forks would jump all over the place quite inexplicably.
It turns out that the problem I was having was not due to the implementation of the 5th digit, but because when I had re-downloaded MT4 the 'max bars in history' was still at a minimal value, so when I drew a pitchfork on the daily, perhaps with pivots going back a few months, when I drilled down to the lower time frames, there were not enough bars in history to look back and see the pivots so they did not exist. I assume in this case MT4 just roughly guesses where these points are in the past and so you get an inaccurate fork. Also, even after increasing the max bars in history, it was still necessary to scroll back all the way to see the pivots so MT4 could correct itself. It's not perfect by any means, for the reasons you mentioned and in general other markets with volume data (and the ability to draw tick charts) lend themselves to a greater variety of methods of drawing the forks. But it ain't so bad really. Use VT Trader for an hour like I did and I guarantee you will have a newfound appreciation for MT4.
Profitable trading to all you forking traders and have a forking great weekend.
It turns out that the problem I was having was not due to the implementation of the 5th digit, but because when I had re-downloaded MT4 the 'max bars in history' was still at a minimal value, so when I drew a pitchfork on the daily, perhaps with pivots going back a few months, when I drilled down to the lower time frames, there were not enough bars in history to look back and see the pivots so they did not exist. I assume in this case MT4 just roughly guesses where these points are in the past and so you get an inaccurate fork. Also, even after increasing the max bars in history, it was still necessary to scroll back all the way to see the pivots so MT4 could correct itself. It's not perfect by any means, for the reasons you mentioned and in general other markets with volume data (and the ability to draw tick charts) lend themselves to a greater variety of methods of drawing the forks. But it ain't so bad really. Use VT Trader for an hour like I did and I guarantee you will have a newfound appreciation for MT4.
Profitable trading to all you forking traders and have a forking great weekend.