Second and tick charts: 1s to 45s and 1 to 1000 tick intervals
Second and tick charts in SuperCharting: 1 to 59 second and 1 to 1000 tick intervals built from live quotes, how much history they keep and how to read them.
Second and tick charts show price in very small pieces: a 10-second chart draws one bar every ten seconds, and a 100-tick chart draws one bar every hundred price updates, however long that takes. SuperCharting offers 1, 5, 10, 15, 30 and 45-second intervals, any custom seconds interval from 1 to 59, and 1, 10, 100 and 1000-tick intervals. They are built from the live quotes SuperCharting receives, so they are for watching the market as it moves, not for studying years of history.
Where second and tick bars come from
The market data feeds behind SuperCharting supply history in minutes and longer, not in seconds or single ticks. So second and tick charts are built from the live quotes SuperCharting receives for a symbol:
- Every new quote for a symbol that someone is watching is recorded. A quote that only repeats the previous one is not counted.
- A seconds chart cuts those quotes into bars of N seconds. A second with no quote adds no bar, so quiet moments do not leave empty bars.
- A tick chart closes a bar after N quotes. A 100-tick bar can last two seconds in a fast market and two minutes in a slow one.
- The recorded quotes are kept for 7 days, up to the newest 60,000 per symbol, and survive a restart of the site. A second or tick chart shows at most 6,000 bars.
Two consequences are worth knowing before you rely on these charts:
- History depends on watching. A symbol nobody has watched recently starts with a short chart, which then grows quote by quote while it is open. A busy symbol such as NSE:NIFTY usually has plenty.
- A tick here is a quote update from the feed. It is not necessarily every single exchange trade. The volume of a second or tick bar is the number of quotes in it, not the number of shares or contracts traded.
Charts update live when the market is open and the feed allows. Outside market hours no new quotes arrive, so second and tick charts stop at the last quote.
Seconds intervals
| Interval | Typical use |
|---|---|
| 1 second | reading the very first reaction to a level or a news print |
| 5 and 10 seconds | scalping entries inside a 1-minute bar |
| 15 and 30 seconds | a smoother view that still moves faster than 1 minute |
| 45 seconds | between 30 seconds and 1 minute, a common choice for index futures |
Any value from 1 to 59 seconds can be added with Add custom interval… and the Seconds unit, for example 20 seconds, shown as 20s. See custom timeframes.
Tick intervals
| Interval | What it shows |
|---|---|
| 1 tick | every quote as its own bar, a line of individual prints |
| 10 ticks | small bars that react instantly to bursts of activity |
| 100 ticks | an intraday chart that speeds up when the market is busy |
| 1000 ticks | a calmer view; on a slow symbol a bar can take a long time |
Tick charts have a useful property: busy periods get more bars and quiet periods fewer, so the chart stretches where the action is. The tick intervals are fixed at 1, 10, 100 and 1000; a custom tick count cannot be added.
How to open a seconds or tick chart in SuperCharting
- Open the symbol, for example NSE:BANKNIFTY or XAUUSD.
- Click the interval button next to the symbol.
- Pick 10 seconds from the Seconds section, or 100 ticks from the Ticks section.
- If the chart is short at first, leave it open: bars are added as quotes arrive.
- Add indicators as usual; an EMA or VWAP works on second bars the same way it does on minutes.
- Click the star next to the interval to keep it on the top toolbar.
Example: watching a level on two speeds
Build a 2-chart layout with Symbol sync on: XAUUSD on 5 minutes on the left and on 10 seconds on the right. Draw a horizontal line at the morning high on the 5-minute chart. When price comes back to it, the 10-second chart shows whether the first touch was rejected within a few bars or pushed straight through, detail the 5-minute bar would hide inside one candle. See multi-chart layouts for the setup.
Limits and good habits
- Second and tick intervals are not available on formula charts such as
NSE:RELIANCE/NSE:TCS; the chart says so. - Because volume counts quotes, use it as a measure of activity, not of size. For volume per price row, use a minute chart with volume footprint.
- Seven days of quotes is enough for intraday work. For backtests, use minute or longer intervals, which have far more history.
- Very small intervals magnify noise. Many traders keep a 5-minute or 15-minute chart next to the second chart so the bigger picture stays in view.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my 1-second chart almost empty?
The chart is built from live quotes. If the symbol has not been watched recently, or the market is closed, there are few quotes yet. Leave it open while the market trades and it fills in.
How far back do tick charts go?
Up to 7 days of recorded quotes, at most 60,000 per symbol, and at most 6,000 bars on the chart.
Is the volume on a tick chart the traded volume?
No. On second and tick bars, volume is the number of quotes in the bar.
Can I add a 20-second interval?
Yes. Use Add custom interval…, type 20 and choose Seconds. Tick counts other than 1, 10, 100 and 1000 cannot be added.
Do alerts work on second charts?
Price alerts watch the live price, so they trigger at your level whichever interval the chart shows.