So I am having a problem here. I had all my markets set up so I can start in-putting Pivot Points. I’ve read up on the section here on Baby-pips and have used the calculator to make it that much faster (Planned on making an excel sheet this weekend to speed up the process even more so). So the problem is this: I was slightly lost on whether to use the H1 bars on my demo for a pivot point based on the day (look for the highest point within 24 bars, take the “high”; lowest in same time period, take the “low”; final bar is the close; all in respect to the New York close (The new day bar also releases here).
Well, my mate and I manage our information to make sure its accurate. As she was in-putting the information, it became apparent there were mistakes… on several points. I was slightly shocked. Sure, I may habe made a mistake, but on every point so far? Do I not understand something in the process? We looked it over and came to this, the whole reason why I am here:
The day bar on our charts has a different close than the final hour bar in the 24 hour time period. What is the cause for this? Shouldn’t the “Final” hour 1 bar of a day match up with the day bar’s information?
Also, how do we set up Pivot Points? This brought a topic up to us. Do we use the info from day only, or do we hunt down the hour bars that are “within” the day and grab it from there, and leave the other time frames alone?
If you are using Marketscope, Insert > Indicator > Pivot Levels. Choose D1. There are different ways to calculate pivot points which is why your calculations may be off.
You don’t need to use a calculator, and you certainly don’t need to set up an excel spreadsheet.
Your FXCM MarketScope charting package includes a tool that does all that for you — in the background — you never see all the number-crunching. And the tool plots Pivots directly on your chart.
Step 1: open the chart on which you wish to plot pivots (let’s say it’s a daily chart).
Step 2: go to the toolbar at the top of the chart, find the icon labeled [B]Add Indicator,[/B] scroll down the menu of indicators and click on [B]Pivots.[/B]
Step 3: a dialog window will pop up, offering you a range of choices for configuring your pivots in this chart. Notice that the Pivot tool default setting (which you can change) is for DAILY PIVOTS. And notice also the instruction at the bottom of the pop-up window which says that the time frame for pivots must be equal to, or greater than, the time frame of your chart. (More on that, in a moment.) In this exercise, you are placing daily pivots on a daily chart, so it’s all good. For now, just accept all the default settings in the pop-up window, click OK in the lower right-hand corner of the window, and study the pivot levels which appear on your chart.
Notice that the colored lines, representing the Pivot, Resistance Levels R1, R2, R3, and R4, and Support Levels S1, S2, S3, and S4 extend to the left ONLY as far as one daily candle (or bar). That’s because you have placed DAILY PIVOTS on a daily chart, and daily pivots use yesterday’s open, high, low, and close to figure pivot levels which apply to today. Those daily pivot levels do not relate in any way to days prior to today.
Again, let the pivot tool built into your MarketScope charting package do all the work. You don’t have to manually search for and find the open, high, low, and close for the period in question.
Yes, in theory, it should. This is a good question for Jason Rogers, the FXCM representative here on the forum.
If you’re asking how to do it manually, the answer is DON’T waste your time doing these laborious calculations manually. That’s grunt-work. Let the tool built into your charting package do it for you.
If you’re asking which pivots can be displayed on which charts, go back to the instruction at the bottom of the pop-up window (which I referred to, above).
On a daily chart, you can display daily pivots, weekly pivots, or monthly pivots. Note that “monthly” pivots are based on the current calendar month, which may be much less than 4+ weeks, or 22 trading days. In other words, if you place monthly pivots on, say, your daily chart today, those monthly pivot levels will be calculated on the period from December 1st until today, and they will be displayed on your chart starting on the December 1st candle (or bar) and extending forward to today.
On a 4-hour chart, you can display 4-hour pivots, or pivots calculated on any time frame larger than 4 hours. Daily pivots on a 4-hour chart are quite common. You could even put 6-hour pivots on a 4-hour chart, although I can’t imagine why you would want to.
Daily pivots on a 1-hour chart are common. But, you can’t put 1-hour pivots on a daily chart! By now, you should be able to see immediately why 1-hour pivots on a daily chart make no sense, at all. If you don’t see why this is the case, you need to study pivots in more detail.
When all of this is clear to you, go back to that pop-up window I referred to above, and experiment with the various settings which are available. In particular, display the so-called “midpoint lines”. (I prefer to call them intermediate pivot levels, but FXCM didn’t ask my opinion.) You will notice that the midpoint lines are half-way from one pivot level to the next pivot level.
If you aren’t able to resolve the question about the closing price on the last 1-hour bar of the day, versus the closing price on the daily bar, you can ask Jason Rogers on the Broker Aid Station. Here’s a link — FXCM