I feel extraordinarily foolish, after having said good things about qcharts, and then noticed something very disturbing today. I was discussing the DIA's with a fellow trader. I keep a daily, weekly, 60, 15, 5, and 2 minute chart linked. The daily chart shows an opening price of 78.48 (and I crosschecked against a quote from moneycentral.com). But, the 5, 15, and 60 all showed the opening of their first candles as 77.69. And yes, all my charts have the 'all sessions' box unchecked, so no pre or post market data is showed. I just noticed this, and havn't looked at other charts yet, but is this typical. I mean, really, I rather have the servers go down than have this kind of problem. I wonder how many trades that went sour weren't even my fault. Anyone have similar experiences or can shed light on what's going on?
For some reason they include the pre and post market data in the daily figures I believe, giving you different #'s. I can't think of why they'd do this? I don't use the daily chart because of this.
In this case, the daily is correct (I compared to some website quotes and to Realtick), it's the intraday chart that was off. I looked at SPY, some NYSE stocks and some Naz and did not find this again. I can only hope it's a rarity. I've spent an incredible amount of time whittling down to my current setup, which I like, so long as it actually functions correctly.
Bundle, The situation you describe is usually the one that occurs prompting me to send a quick email to data@quote.com. Just tell them what the true opeing price is and they will fix it. It would be cliche to say that it hapens all the time, but it happens enough to where they know me. That group is very responsive btw, and will correct the error pronto. I don't know why the error occurs, but I know they will correct anything you send them. I usually say something like, the daily chart shows an opeing price of so and so, all shorter time frames and T&S show this number. Thanks. The same occurs for highs and lows on the daily chart as well. And as the bulk of indicators use these important numbers in their derivation, I want them to be accurate. Good luck.
Appreciate the response. That's great as far as it goes. But when I'm trading an opening gap on a 30 sec. low looking at 1 and 5 minutes charts, and that data is wrong, fixing it later won't help. I guesss just one more thing to watch out for.
You're right. And as such, I have found the shorter time frames to be reliable. If you're 1 and 5 say the same thing and the daily is way off, as it seems to be with me sometimes too, go ahead and trade the 1 and 5. The T&S will have it right too. Plus, like your example, the difference was so large that there is no way the first trade took place way up there, and the rest were way below. Trust your judgment.