Improved multi-timeframe/offset/chart period converter, P4L PeriodCon.mq4

If you are creating an EST feed by using -7H timeshift, then your broker feed must be GMT+2, right? And that particular GMT+2 feed happens to be the one most likely to have just 5 Daily-bars-per-week. The "Day" would start on Sunday 5PM EDT (00:00 Monday on your GMT+2 feed), and it would end on Friday 4:59PM EDT (23:59 Friday). These are the typical global hours for trading. A few brokers either start their Sunday later (usually an hour), and/or end earlier on Friday (usually an hour). (FYI, a very few like Oanda print a few extra bars over the weekend, with a rare extra hour on Friday, a very rare Satuday bar (often just a single tick), and then 3-4 earlier bars on Sunday. Oanda is pretty unusual in this respect, and the irregularity of the length of the week is a "drawback" of Oanda IMO, at least with respect to drawing Channels/Trendlines/Pitchforks/etc. where the slope and intercepts are critical).

The vast majority of brokers provide just 120 bars (or less) per week. The "Klingon speak" to which you refer is directed and those who have a broker with some different times than GMT+2 which already have the 5 Daily bars/week. If, for example, you had a native GMT-5 broker (6 Days/week), then you could generate +7H timeshift charts to synthesize "GMT+2", and THIS would be the way to get 5 Daily bars/week.

Your brokers GMT+2 feed is probably 120 (or less) Hourly bars. Notice how "120" can be divided into exactly 5 Daily bars? (5x24=120). I'm guessing you already have 5 Bars/week on your charts, right?

So starting with your GMT+2 feed, you created a GMT-5 feed. (By the way, IMO these two feeds are the most useful and "legitimate", but it's just my opinion). You're trying to take 120 bars/week and split them with a different starting time-of-day, and as such you're going to get 6-Daily-bars-per-week.

The only way for the program to avoid this would be for it to combine the short Sunday bar and lump the Open/High/Low, with the Monday OHLC values. You would then be creating a Monday with 24+7 hours = 31 hours total. While it's "possible" to do this lumping, it is beyond the present scope of what the program was written to do, and I have no plans at present make this rather complicated enhancement.

If you want 5 Daily bars/week, then stick with your current GMT+2 native feed. But if you want to experiment with the GMT-5 feed, you'll have to tolerate 6-Daily bars/week. (It's actually not too bad IMO).

Thank you Callisto and pips4life for the replies.

I appreciate the quick answers. Yes, you deduced correctly my broker is GMT+2 and the bars are 5 bars per week.

I tried out OandA with their limitless demo but found out after that there are extra weekend bars. Not interested with them now after the fact.

Anyway the reason I want NY close chart is that I believe that the liquidity of the US session is very high relative to the European market and the close of a candle on NY time represents a better price action analysis.

All I really want is a NY EST chart with 5 candles. There are brokers out there that supply this and I am looking at Alphaforex based in Australia. I am not leaving my original broker since the conditions are very good I just want the said charts for technical analysis.

Thanks once again for your kind replies.

Kaptain

Hi Pips4life, great indicator thanks for sharing.

I was wondering if you could help me with an Alert that i'm getting.

It says "looking for one or more charts named: currencypair+3h,h12 (offline) (time shifted by 180min)".

I'm not sure what to do. I have two h12 charts running that are time shifted by 3 hours. The indicator is on a 1hr chart. The charts are listed in the offline charts and both appear to be running fine and displaying correctly. I just don't know what the alert is.

Cheers mate.

If you are only getting this when you start MT4, it is perfectly normal, just a slight time delay of getting the data to the offline charts I believe.

Just click OK, and carry on. 12 Hour charts you say? Sounds familiar...

I am a newbie. I followed the instructions to get 12 hour bars, but must have gone wrong as nothing has happened. any ideas would be appreciated.

Could be any number of things; stand by while I do a tutorial just for you, meanwhile:

1. How long have you been using MT4?

2. Did you leave the base chart open?

3. Did you open the correct "offline" chart?

OK, open a "base chart" and apply the P4L PeriodCon

Chart has to be 1 Hour, set Indicator Multiplier to 12 = 12 Hours "offline"

I think so

Next, go File, Open Offline

Navigate down to find the chart that has been created, it will have a 12 in it, make sure the date is correct

Open it, apply the P4L CandleTime and voila, works for me

I have opened a Hi chart but cannot "attach" indicator

I opened AUDUSD H1 chart and using inbuilt period convertor set multiplier to 12. Opened offline and found AUDUSD h12.

I now have 12 H offline chart. Thanks.

Now that I have 12 H offfline chart can I have it update like a regular chart? Sorry for the simple questions but I am new to MT4

YES, but leave the 1 minute base chart open as well, for each currency - that is where the offline chart get the data feed.

Put the Candle Time on as seen in previous post to see how much of the 12 hour left - if it is counting down, it is updating!

Some indicators do not work well with offlline charts, just experiment with that part of it.

PS: also with the PeriodCon, you can "offset" your 12 hour candles so that they rollover at 5 am & 5 pm New York to keep in sync with them, or at any time that suits you, assuming that you are working on looking for signal every 12 hours.

Thanks Calllisto
I started from scrarch and generated a 12 hour chart on EURUSD. I applied the Candle Time and it worked for a while although somewhat "jumpily" if that is a word. I tried to shift time from GMT to 5PM NY time but get error message "Illegal timeshift value: 300 min must be a multiple of source TF 720"

I generated 2x1 hour charts. One offline. With the offline chart I tried a -5 hour offset but nothing changed. The Candle Time stopped working on the 12 hor chart. I have a lot to learn.

The "Time Shift" is made in Hours, see pictures, can be PLUS, enter 1 or 2 or 3, and MINUS, enter -1 or -2 or -3 = whatever you need

Again, experiment with it until you find the correct Time Shift setting, however, anytime you make a time change, it generates another offline chart named as per the popup message - you need to open that chart, use the Candle Time indicator to see how much time left till it closes to see if it matches the time you want the candle rollover.

Then once you have it right, then watch it in real time as New York 5 pm approaches, or your given close time. I use this on 15 pairs, and DST is a real pain - this weekend in fact, so even if you work it out, next Monday, it will be 'wrong'

How's that? Same as what you are doing? Just keep doing trial & error, doesn't take long, you can't break it and you will learn a lot

Thanks Castillo
How do you open the chart that appears in the alert?

Same way you open the first chart; the Indicator generates a new OFFLINE chart each instance of time change, that is why you need to learn your time shift settings first, before going an opening a lot of charts.

Once you have the BASE chart with the correct settings in the PeriodCon Indicator, save a template, then open each pair you want OFFLINE chart for, apply template, then open each OFFLINE chart if you have an offset, it will be in the title of the popup message as in my example -2, I think it was plus the new period of 12

What are you trying to do overall? Is there a plan I could help with maybe?

Thanks Erebus
I am tryin to set my charts to close at 5pm New York and generate a working 12 H chart.