Why do trendlines appear in different places on different timeframes?

(On MT4 - IBFX broker) Can someone please explain why the same trendline appears in completely different location relative to price on different time-frames? Anyone else experience this?

On attached EurUsd - "Daily" chart, my entry was on the pull-back to the green trendline... going short. If you switch to the H1 chart (looking to better time the entry), the entry short appears up in the air and would be a horrible entry, with the trendline coming up as support. So... Which time-frame do I trust? Also... 5M, for example, is different yet. This happens on all charts.

I am definitelly not a novice trader nor at using MT4... but this started about a month ago with all the other garbage rules.

Thank you for any input you offer

Try a switch from 1h to 4h like this:

Here is AudUsd (current). I'm a trendline trader and now I feel that I can't trust the charts. I don't get it.

Same trendlines on 1h, 4h and daily audusd

You are right, you simply cant trust it.

This is a design flaw of metatrader, due to the way metatrader is drawing the candles it is not guaranteed that for example one M15 candle is composed of exactly 15 M1 candles, it could be only 14 or even less if there was one or more complete minutes without a tick, which will happen quite often in some pairs on low volume times. Try counting some M1 candles outside the major trading sessions at night or before or after the weeked manually, you will find lots of "holes", candles that are just missing! Metatrader will just leave out empty candles.

Thus the time axis is not only non-linear, it will be different for each time frame. The smaller your time frame the stronger the effect, on M1 the effect is so strong that lines from higher timeframes can usually be regarded as completely worthless on M1. There is no elegant workaround, i have seen a script somewhere that you can run from time to time that will fill in the missing candles in the history database, but such a procedure is cumbersome.

I personally do short term trend lines that need to be exact to the pip on an oanda account where the platform doesn't leave out candles, time is strictly linear there and the charting doesn't suffer from this effect.

Try tightening up the points from which the trendlines are drawn when you view lower time frames. A trendline correctly drawn on the 4H will only be accurate on the 1H time frame if the highs/lows were made within the 1st hour of the 4H period, so you need to scroll back and replot the trendline to those highs/lows on the lowest time frame you are viewing.

Another thing to consider is a trendline drawn on the daily charts covering say a month will cover thousands of bars on a 15m chart. If the max bar history is not large enough to accomodate the number of bars on the lower time frame then the trendline may appear differently when you drill down. Go to Tools > Options > Charts and increase the max bars in history and max bars in chart.

And sometimes MT4 just throws out some bad data which will only appear on certain time frames. Consult a chart from another data provider and you'll get the true high/low.

Thank you for the replies. Please see the new thread I've started (below) in "Broker discussion" and you'll see that the issue is different than just price feed and fine-tuning the trendline to lower timeframes. Thank you for the input.

NOTE TO MODERATOR: I believe this to be a broker issue. I've done METATRADER broker-to-broker comparison and the discrepancy is there. Is there any way to merge this thread with the new one I started on "Broker discussion"?

...here: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=198232

Sorry for double thread but I believe this to be a serious enough issue to be looked at.
thank you

Its simply that if you plot a trend line on a higher timeframe, you only have granularity to that time frame.

example:
xhigh1 occurs at 15:46, xhigh2 occurs at 18:43
When you plot a trendline on say H4 chart, the granularity for H4 means that you will plot xhigh1 at 12:00 and xhigh2 at 16:00.
The same will apply for all timeframes going backwards from MN1 to M1.

If you need the trendlines to be exact to the minute, you must plot the lines on an M1 chart, but as birdt mentions above, you must have the relevant history loaded into the chart.

exactly, plot on a lower timeframe first, then switch t the higher timeframe.

If you can explain the next two posts... I will buy the "granularity" issue and put this to rest...

I drew T/Ls on both charts in identical fashion. Here is the current CHF/JPY on 5M, 1H and Daily... All 3 show the trendline/price relation to be CORRECT.

This is current AUD/USD... On the 1H... trendline is crossing the price. On the Daily... Trendline is about 100 pips ABOVE and nowhere near price. Are you telling me then, that on CHF/JPY above... they all appear correctly and there is no "granularity" issue... and this AUD/USD chart has "granularity" issues? And as I mentioned... This DID NOT happen up until about a few weeks ago.

Can you do this test please... draw the trendline starting on the lower time frame. Go to the trendline properties and note the start and end times and prices. Do this on each tf. Prices and times shouldn't change but just make sure.

If they are the same on all time frames, yet the trendline is skewed on one of them, then you have missing bars on the skewed timeframe. If you cannot download the missing bars from the history center, then you should call your broker and let them know, as they may be unaware of the issue.

I will add that I plot trendlines on my charts using an indicator on M1 and never experience the issues you are having.

Higher timeframe trendlines should be drawn differently from lower tf trendlines, here are few examples from the automated tool I personally use.

I always use higher timeframe trendlines as they would be shown on their own timeframe. That is IMHO the absolute best way - so if you have daily trendlines, use them on daily candles, not below.

This particular example pic has 1h, 4h and 1d trendlines [please don't ask about the formula how I draw these]

I did as you asked on "good" platform and "bad" one... On chf/jpy.. which shows fine on all timeframes and on audusd & eurusd which have problems. All times, dates and prices are the same on all and there are no skewed trendlines.


Please understand that I'm not arguing... just trying to re-orient myself. I feel like now that I finally figured out how to be consistently profitable, issues that I never had while blowing accounts are coming up now that I'm taking money out.

I trade 11 pairs. This issue is on 2 charts. Not all of them. The rest show exactly as they should... regardless of timeframe. How would you explain that on chf/jpy... in post #10... all 3 tf's have the trendline/price relation identical. I drew them on Daily but they show exactly right on 5M?

Broker said "Update your data". I did... "No data to update"... Also, FXDD... same trendline template applied as IBFX... no problems at all on FXDD.

Would someone with IBFX account be so kind to attach this template to their AUDUSD chart and see?... The green trendline should appear ABOVE current price action on all time frames. On mine... on 1H and 4H ... that green trendline runs right thru the middle of current P/A. Thank you all so much for the help.

Coincidence?

Really, d1 trendline is different from m5 trendline - highest precision for d1 trendline should be it's daily position.

this is exactly why i quit believing in trendlines -as triggers (but not as references)- and i strictly stick to support and resistances -for such task-.

Here is a reply I just received from the broker - IBFX:

"Dear Customer, Hello,

Each chart, M1, H1, D1 will have different trends. The trend lines won't match up.

Regards,
"

I'm editing this post because the broker didn't get what I was saying and I realized that there must be something else to it. See my post #27 below

Shame on you

not just because u have "diamonds-radar" eyes means everybody else has them!

LOL

As well as what birdt suggested, you can also try turning the magnet sensitivity to 0.

Tools > Options > Objects tab > Magnet sensitivity

I find this helps a lot.