General – getting started
Renko is a well-known Japanese charting technique that removes time from the chart. Instead of drawing bars in constant intervals (time) as a normal chart would, a Renko chart does so only when price moves beyond a predefined amount.
In a Renko chart, a bar is created when price exceeds the previous bar’s high or low by a predefined amount or what we call the Box Size. The result is a chart with equally sized bars running up or down in 45 degree angles. Such a chart offers the following advantages:
- Effectively this filters out the noise that you would see on a normal chart, as the chart is then based solely on price action. This makes key support and resistance levels more apparent and more clearly defined. Formation of trends are also more distinct in a Renko chart as market noise has been removed delivering smoother trading opportunities as trends develop in waterfalls and steep slopes.
The MT4 platform does not offer a facility for generating Renko charts out of the box. The Quantum Trading Live Renko Charts indicator delivers the perfect chart for the intraday scalping trader, smoothly, efficiently, simply and intuitively, and brings all the advantages of Renko charts to your trading toolkit.
Live, Moving Charts
The Quantum Live Renko Charts indicator makes use of MetaTrader 4’s Offline Charts which can be conveniently accessed via the terminal’s File > Open Offline menu. Don’t be fooled by the name of this feature, as the Offline chart generated by the indicator is very much alive and online.
To start using the indicator, simply drag and drop it from the Navigator to the chart as you would any other MT4 indicator. After configuring (or if you are happy with its default settings), it immediately generates an Offline chart containing the generated Renko bar chart according to your configuration.
Opening the Offline chart is easy as each instance of the Quantum Live Renko Charts indicator tells you exactly which Offline chart to look for. And of course, on opening the Offline chart, you will see that the Renko bars are built not only historically but also in real-time.
Dual Mode
The Quantum Live Renko Charts indicator for MT4 features two modes:
- Compute Best Box Size
- Fixed Box Size
Compute Best Box Size
Using the indicator in this mode allows you to “convert” a normal candlestick chart to a Renko bar chart by computing the best box size for a particular timeframe. This is computed by calculating the average true range (ATR) of the current symbol within a given period on a specific timeframe.
Fixed Box Size
Using the indicator in this mode allows you to set a constant box size for generating Renko bars. The box size can accept floating point numbers with a precision of up to 2 decimal places.
Multiple Instances
One of the biggest advantage of the Quantum Live Renko Charts indicator is its ability to be added in a single chart multiple times. Each instance of the indicator can be configured uniquely to other instances and can be easily managed by its smart labelling system, thus allowing you to save screen real estate and computer resources when building your MT4 workspace.
Context-sensitive Labels
The indicator displays labels in its own indicator window containing information about the parameters currently in effect. This allows you to manage all instances of the Quantum Live Renko Chart with ease.
Please refer to the image above. In this example the indicator is running on COMPUTE_BEST_BOX_SIZE mode. The labels are as follows:
- Chart – Contains instructions on how to access the generated Offline chart
- Mode – Tells you which one of the two modes is active
- Computed box size – Shows the result of the average true range calculation for the best box size.
- Timeframe – Shows the timeframe used for computing the best box size
- ATR Period – Shows the number of bars to calculate the average true range
- Configure – Contains instructions on how to access the settings/inputs of an instance of the indicator
Depending on the mode selected, a different set of information is displayed.
Please refer to the image above. In this example the indicator is running on FIXED_BOX_SIZE mode. The labels are as follows:
- Chart – Contains instructions on how to access the generated Offline chart
- Mode – Tells you which one of the two modes is active
- Box size – Shows the value of the Box size input which is a fixed value for creating Renko bars.
- Configure – Contains instructions on how to access the settings/inputs of an instance of the indicator.
Installation
Open your MT4 platform and in the top level navigation:
- Left click >View
This will open the following window:
- Left click > Navigator
This will open the following window:
- Left click > + icon alongside Custom Indicators
This will open the following window:
- Left click and HOLD – drag the QuantumLiveRenkoCharts indicator to a chart, and RELEASE
This will then display the following window. This is where you can configure all the various user settings for your Live Renko Charts indicator. To move from one tab to another simply left click on the grey tab to select the appropriate window.
Common Tab
The Common tab displays two boxes. Both of these should be checked as shown. This ensures that you have enabled the DLL imports as explained in the installation instructions.
Inputs Tab
When you attach this indicator to a chart the above window will appear. There are various tabs with user settings which you can adjust accordingly as follows:
CUSTOM PERIOD
Serves as an identifier for the Offline Chart the indicator would generate. For example, if CUSTOM PERIOD is set to 2 and the indicator is attached to EURUSD, the Offline Chart it would generate would be EURUSD,M2. The number has no significance other than to differentiate it from other Offline charts. The default value is 2.
Mode
Determines the manner of calculation of the Renko bars. The indicator offers 2 modes:
- ATR Computed Best Box Size – The Renko box size is a computed value which is derived by getting the mean of the average true range of a chart within a given period and timeframe.
- Fixed box size – The Renko box size is a fixed value. In this mode, you need only to assign the box size and this will be used directly to create the bars.
Before we go further, we define box size as the number of pips to form either a bullish or bearish Renko bar. The following inputs are dependent of the value of the input Mode.
When ATR Computed Best Box Size mode is selected, the following inputs take in effect:
ATR Timeframe
Specifies the base timeframe of the symbol to compute the average true range from.
ATR Period
Determines the number of bars the indicator will process to calculate the average true range.
The ATR Computed Best Box Size mode allows you to “convert” a time chart to a Renko bar chart by computing the best box size for a given timeframe. The timeframe that you want to convert to a Renko bar chart can be set using the indicator’s ATR Timeframe input rather than the chart’s actual timeframe. It is designed this way to allow the user to attach multiple instances of the indicator with different timeframe settings.
When Fixed Box Size mode is selected the following input takes in effect.
Box size
This input determines the size of the Renko bars the indicator generates.
The Fixed box size mode allows you to set a constant for generating Renko bars regardless of the timeframe.
Colors Tab
There are no settings in the Colors tab to change. The colors of the lines and styles are defaulted to orange. They are best displayed on a chart with a black background.
Levels Tab
There are no user inputs for the indicator.
Visualization Tab
These are the default settings for MT4. There are no user inputs for the indicator.
When you are happy with all your changes…
- Left click the OK button at the bottom of the window, and your Quantum LiveRenkoCharts indicator will be applied to your chart
At this point your Live Renko Charts indicator will look something like this:
Finally, to remove the indicator from your chart:
- Right click on the chart and the following pop up window will appear:
- Left click on Indicators List from the above menu and the following menu will appear:
Left click the indicator, and then left click the Delete button on the right
