TA graph: improvement of the candlesticks

[Djobydjoba]

Mark,

I hope you'll find the ideas below useful to improve the TA capabilities in Fund Manager...

Graphical TA is a serious thing that can really increase returns when mastered. But IMO, for the TA to be truly usable in Fund Manager, some features still need to be improved or implemented.

There are a LOT of fancy stuff in the TA domain (indicators...), but the necessary and unavoidable fundamentals are:
1) Candlesticks
2) Simple moving averages
3) Multiple time frames (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly...)

With only these 3 things, and without anything else, you can already do good graphical analysis to time the market. Remove one of these things and something fundamental will be missing. These are really the basics.

So this current thread is about candlesticks, which are the basis. I will probably do later some other threads about TA on other aspects.

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The way candlesticks are displayed in FM is not really practicable at the moment, it needs improvement.

I will distinguish two settings to display the standard candlesticks:

- The "standard" setting: the wicks have their one color, the body has a border (which is often of the same color of the wicks, but not always)
This is by far the most common display mode in the TA programs.

Examples:
SS #1 (NinjaTrader): https://i.ibb.co/wdJqx5K/Ninja-Trader.png
SS #2 (ProRealTime): https://i.ibb.co/Sx0wwPY/Prorealtime.png
SS #3 (Investing.com - FI, graphs powered by TradingView): https://i.ibb.co/GVdf6P4/Investing.png


- The "modern" setting: the wicks are of the same color as the body, and the body has no border.
I call it the modern setting because this is the default setting in TradingView right now, and TradingView is probably (one of) the most modern TA platforms presently.
This way of presenting candles is less widespread.
This is the setting used in Fund Manager.

Examples:
SS #4 (TradingView): https://i.ibb.co/YcxQvZt/Trading-View.png
SS #5 (TradingView): https://i.ibb.co/wchpLg2/Trading-View2.png
SS #6 (Fund Manager): https://i.ibb.co/8dqTvT6/Fund-Manager-spacing-OK.png


In almost all TA programs the color of the body, wicks and body borders can be customized separately. And in my opinion it would be necessary to implement this level of setting in Fund Manager too.
For example, in TradingView, the default "modern" look can be changed if we want:

SS #7 (Candle settings in TradingView): https://i.ibb.co/vBRpb48/Trading-View-Settings.png


I have nothing against the "modern" setting chosen in Fund Manager, although of course I am more used to the standard setting and it would probably always be my first choice.

BUT, when the modern setting is chosen, because there is no body borders, the separation between the candles has to be very well handled by the software. This is a prerequisite for the implementation of this setting. When no body borders the candles must never touch each other otherwise the readability is very degraded. So the candles should always be separated from each other by at least 1 pixel.
However FM doesn't handled consistently well the separation between candles currently, so the result isn't what it should be and doesn't meet the requirements.

SS #8 (Fund Manager): https://i.ibb.co/6wt7qVJ/Fund-Manager-bad-spacing.png
SS #9 (Fund Manager - Heikin-Ashi candlesticks): https://i.ibb.co/71jztxk/Fund-Manager-Heikin-Ashi.png

To compare with the good separation in #4, #5 and #6.

One would say that #8 is not so bad, but it is. As soon as candles with no borders (and moreover of the same color) touch each other it is bad rendering. It makes clusters of candles, it is not possible to make good TA with that.
#9 with Heikin-Ashi is a disaster.


The standard setting with borders is much more tolerant with the separation between the candles. When they touch each other it remains readable and usable:

SS #10 (is SS #8 converted to the standard setting): https://i.ibb.co/1bS0pkw/Fund-Manager-b ... tified.png
SS #11 (ProRealTime): https://i.ibb.co/XFbWV38/Pro-Rea-Ttime2.png
SS #12 (Investing): https://i.ibb.co/x7dbsdL/Investing2.png

#10 is #8 but with 1 pixel border added (borrowed to the body), and (for information) with a color of the wicks brighter than the color of the borders. The improvement is huge, it now meets the requirements and is a good basis for good TA.


The standard setting needs at least a candle width of 3 pixels (1 for the body, 2 for the left and right borders).

SS #13 (is SS #6 converted to the standard setting): https://i.ibb.co/H4Rk6rH/Fund-Manager-s ... tified.png

#13 is #6 but with the same treatment applied in #10. Even when the width of the candles is only 3 pixels the result remains good here.

When the width of the candles is below 3 pixels, I guess it is when the display must switch to the "thin lines mode" (already well handled in FM):

SS #14 ("thin lines mode" In Fund Manager): https://i.ibb.co/6ZYJJv1/Fund-Manager-t ... s-mode.png


In summary:
- FM should offer a better candlestick experience
- The candlestick "modern setting" (without body borders) must only be offer if the spacing between candles can be fitted precisely in all situations. Otherwise stick with the standard setting with borders (more common, a safe bet)
- With the standard setting, the ability to set independently the colors of the body, the wicks and the borders is a requirement.

Thanks for considering!

[Mark]

Hi Djobydjoba,

Thanks very much for the thorough explanation/feedback. That is helpful. Can you expand on this:

One would say that #8 is not so bad, but it is. As soon as candles with no borders (and moreover of the same color) touch each other it is bad rendering. It makes clusters of candles, it is not possible to make good TA with that.

I don't understand the reason why there must be a space with the modern setting. Nothing is overlapping, and it seems to me you can still see all the same information with/without the space?

[Djobydjoba]

Mark,

Yes of course all the information is there. But, to take an analogy, it's like giving a text to read with very very tight spaces between each word. It is tiring, the brain has to make a constant effort to isolate more each candlestick (word) when they touch each other and there is no borders. Each candlestick is really like a word in a sentence, they are all important, with the four info they contain (Open, High, Low, Close), so a separation between each must exist (at least 1 pixel separation, or a border).

You know, I've looked at candlestick charts for thousands of hours over the last 10 years. I spend at least an hour every day looking at charts. Candlesticks must be clean and easy to read, separated, otherwise it is not possible... When you read a book, you don't want to think all the time that the font that has been chosen is not good and is hard to read, you just want to read the book without thinking about the font. When the font is good you just don't think about the font, you are just reading without thinking about it.

From #8, I've indicated with arrows the areas where it seems to me directly annoying and tiring (and redhibitory): https://i.ibb.co/tY7LchG/20220919-lun-20h31-01.png
But even when the adjacent candlesticks are of different colors, I find it very annoying the total absence of separation. I can't imagine spending time in front of this kind of graphs.

Another screenshot, even worse to me than the #8: https://i.ibb.co/PM4YgxV/20220919-lun-21h20-01.png
So painful to have to peel off mentally the candlesticks from each other! And I can tell you that this is not just a personal feeling, but that anyone who regularly reads graphs will have a hard time with this.

Of course I understand that with a large date range up to a point it may not possible to maintain a separation, but in the examples shown the date range is really standard.

[Mark]

Hi Djobydjoba,

Okay, thanks for that. We'll see what can be done...

[Djobydjoba]

Another feedback regarding candlesticks (and I think the last) is that the first and the last candlesticks of the date range are very often displayed truncated, cut in half.

20220920-mar.08h51-01.png (7.64 KiB) Viewed 7106 times

I'm sure there is a technical constraint to explain this, but this is not good, especially for the rightmost candlestick, which is the last in date and has to be well (entirely) displayed, because of course it's an important candlestick.

This for the same reason as above: yes, the information is here, but if the reading comfort is not 100% here (analysis at a glance), TA on a daily basis becomes tiring and unpleasant.

Thanks.

[Mark]

Hi Djobydjoba,

Understood, makes sense. Thanks again.

[Djobydjoba]

One word again... Here is a very nice display of candlesticks from Fund Manager, regarding spacing: https://i.ibb.co/1L9KQ6S/20220920-mar-19h35-01.png

If it could be consistent like that for most of the date ranges, that would be good!

Why is it good in the first place? Because there is no 0 pixel spacing between candlesticks in this screenshot.

This is a certainty for me, 0 pixel spacing (i.e. no spacing) should NOT be allowed with the modern setting (at least with the not too large date ranges) because it ruins the readability.

Unfortunately, as we scroll or reduce or enlarge the date range the 0 pixel spacing come back.

And what would make this last chart PERFECT for my eyes: we see that the spacing between candlesticks alternates between 1 and 2 pixels. So this is noticeable that the spacing is not perfect in that sense (slight lack of consistency). If the spacing could be consistent and, in this chart, with 2 pixels of spacing (with 1 pixel the candlesticks are too close from each other actually), that would be perfect.

But, I guess this may not be technically always possible to have a consistent result like that... (?) So let's not forget the standard setting with borders, it surely gives more easily good results because more flexibility with the spacing (the possibility of 0 pixel spacing).

I'm done now

[Djobydjoba]

It took me a while in this topic to simply put the idea that, with the "modern" setting, there must be a spacing between the candlesticks, and that the problem of agglomerated candlesticks should really be fixed. I know you get the idea, sorry for repeating myself.

But I have just came across a YT video that shows, in various zoom levels, an always good spacing of the candlesticks in the "modern" settings, and I thought it could serve as a reference. Here is the extract:
https://filetransfer.io/data-package/dSferFvy#link

You get the point.

[Mark]

Hi Djobydjoba,

Thanks for sharing, yes, I understand. Thank you.

[Djobydjoba]

Mark,

The improvements are great in the new version: the spacing is good now, and it's great to have the choice of the colors for borders and wicks! Excellent!

One comment: when the width of the candle is only 1 pixel, its color should I think be the body color, not the border color

Current: https://i.ibb.co/NxjMc6F/Shrunk-Candle-FM.gif

Instead: https://i.ibb.co/C1KLpft/Shrunk-Candle-Other.gif

[Mark]

Hi Djobydjoba,

Thanks for the feedback, and all your help. We'll get this "1 pixel" case changed for the next release.

[Mark]

Hi Djobydjoba,

This "1 pixel" color issue was changed in the "2024 Beta 2" version, now available:

https://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/fm2024beta.html