Trend Lines in MultiCharts

Questions about MultiCharts and user contributed studies.
flipflopper
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Trend Lines in MultiCharts

Postby flipflopper » 28 Jun 2008

I have found it pretty annoying to draw trend lines on charts.

I would think that the "extreme" calculation type would plot either the high/high or the low/low when drawing a trendline. It seems to draw the high/low?!?!

I'm not sure why anyone trading anything would need that feature. The only way I seem to be able to draw accurate trend lines is to switch the properties to "Fixed Point" high each time I want to draw and downtrend line and switch them again to "Fixed Point" low every time I want to draw a uptrend line.

Anyone have any suggestions or workarounds until they fix this?

bowlesj3
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Why not freestyle

Postby bowlesj3 » 28 Jun 2008

I have looked at the methods outside of freestyle and I do not know why one would use anything but freestyle (with snap mode one that is). That is the traditional way. The book "Technical Analysis of Stock Trends" by Robert Edwards and John Magee may be one of the best books out there that explains how to place them (way before computers existed). I gather these guys worked 80 hours a week for 50 years before writing their book. If anyone knows they would. The book has been carried on since then and improved. I think the original authors have long since passed away. I once emailed asking for a good TA book and about 10 people separately recommened it. It took a long time for me to get around to reading it and that was a huge mistake. Having said that and after having used them for years I do not use them at all now (like zero). That is because the best part of that book is in the back section.

flipflopper
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Re: Why not freestyle

Postby flipflopper » 28 Jun 2008

I have looked at the methods outside of freestyle and I do not know why one would use anything but freestyle (with snap mode one that is).
This is exactly my point. There seems to be no way to do this in Multicharts. Am I missing something? I would just like freestyle with snap mode but can't figure out how to do it.

bowlesj3
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Postby bowlesj3 » 29 Jun 2008

In MC 2.1.999.999 if you right click on the trend line you just placed on the chart and choose "format trend line" there is a tab in there that has the trend line type (four of them). The top one says "free style". you set the trend line to that value then you make sure you check mark the box that says "use as default". This means that every new trend line you place will default to free style and you do not need to go through this cumbersome procedure every time you place a new trend line. I do not think they will have changed this in the higher versions of MC.

By the way, this procedure is the same with all tools you place on the chart and indicators too. Each tab I think has a "use as default" check box. I think it unchecks it the next time around since you may want to have a special placement but not want to have it set as the default.

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RobotMan
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Postby RobotMan » 30 Jun 2008

In addition to what John said; go to View, Snap Mode, and check it "on". Now when you freestyle the TL, you can snap each end individually to the OHLC (depending on the chart style). One caveat, remember that snap mode is "ON", because if you forget and try to move your "freestyle" TL later, you'll think the program is weirding out.

Bob Perry
Los Altos, CA

flipflopper
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Postby flipflopper » 30 Jun 2008

THANK YOU!!!!! That snap feature is life saver.

Thanks Guys for the lesson and Thank you TS support for adding this much needed feature!!


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