1.    Initial setup of Sierra Chart trading platform

This section can be considered as type of quick start guide. However, SC has its own in-depth documentation on their website. Follow these instructions to adapt the platform to your own preferences.

 

Getting one’s feet wet with SC doesn’t necessarily require a connection to a brokerage. A very cost-effective way of learning how to use SC is in combination with their own Denali Exchange Data Feed. This way you can get to know the platform and the various products that can be traded in Sim before putting money on the line. At the time of writing this, SC also offers a Free Trial version for 21 days.

 

A.    Installation:

a) Download the installer.

b) Install the platform on your system.

c) Open an account with SC.

d) Start SC and enter the login credentials. The first time opening the platform it looks similar to this:

Figure 1: Initial start of SC. It might open an example Chartbook.

 

B.    Open a chartbook

To open an own chartbook and symbol the example chartbook can be closed and a new one created:

a)      [alt], [f], [l]: Example chartbook closing. No need to save the chartbook.

b)     [alt], [f], [n]: New chartbook opens.

c)      [alt], [f], then select “Find Symbol” (Figure 2). A window opens with available symbols as per connected data feed (Figure 3).

d)     Select the trading product as per preference.

 

 

Figure 2: File menu contents. «Find Symbol» to add a new chart to a chartbook.

Figure 3: The “Find Symbol” window. Opening “Futures CME” Folder (naming might be slightly different depending on connected data feed).

 

C.    Chart setup

As the chart opens it is added to the chartbook (Figure 4) and should start loading data when connected to the data feed.

 

Figure 4: Intraday chart is added to the chartbook in 1min timeframe (1min per bar) and as “Open-High-Low-Close” type standard bar.

 

Save the chartbook [ctrl]+[s] and enter a filename for the chartbook. Keep the C:\SierraChart\Data\ folder as target folder.

[F5] opens the chart settings window (Figure 5).

 

Figure 5: Chart settings window. In this example “Data Limiting” is the active tab (marked with “*”).

 

The chart settings are organized in various tabs that can be selected in the upper portion of the window. The active tab is designated by an asterix “*” sign.

Explaining some of the relevant settings for OrderFlowViz.com products:

 

Setting	Description
Data Limiting – Chart Data Type (List)	All order flow analysis products of ofv require to be used with charts of “Intraday Chart” types.
Data Limiting – Days To Load for Intraday Chart Data Type	At a given bar period settings increasing the amount of days to load data for will increase the total bar count in the chart.