The Chart Room

1. What it is

The seventh room, between the Map and the Chest. Your candles, with Compass drawn on them, quietly.

The Map answers what the board is doing right now. The Chart Room puts that answer on the thing most traders already look at all day: price, candle by candle. The King sits on the chart as an amber crown for as long as it holds the strike. When a second strike grows nearly as large, the crown is drawn dashed beside it and the room calls it challenged. A few other levels that matter are thin lines. A ring marks the moment price reached one.

It draws the board on your candles and says nothing about where price goes next.

2. Reading one chart

The crown. Amber, and only the King is amber. It dims after it hands over to a new strike. A flicker under ten minutes is not counted as a new King.

The axis. Price on the right, with the King's price beside it. Under the price, a countdown to the next candle. When two labels would sit on top of each other they move apart, so the price, the King and the flip can always be read.

The hover. Rest the pointer on a candle and the top left shows its open, high, low and close, its change, and which strike was King at that moment.

The regime. The chip in each chart's header is the Map's own: COMPRESS (teal), AMPLIFY (violet) or CONTESTED (grey, the flip is sitting on price). It never says which way.

The range. With one or two charts up, each header reads today's range beside what the name usually travels in a day: "Range $8.35 · normal day $9.78". It appears once the session has opened.

Opening view. Each chart opens on today, with a little room past the last candle. End returns to the latest candle after you scroll back. Home, or a double-click on the chart, puts the view back the way it opened.

3. Beside the chart

The board lists the strikes around price with each level's size in dollars. Where a level stands out, a small badge says how far it has grown or shrunk since the open. Rows too small to matter are dimmed.

The three needles show the Map's three readings side by side, if you prefer them to the board.

The orbit watch, under the charts, lists the names on your charts and any name that has just been presented at its King. Everything else is folded into a count, so it stays short.

4. What you can change

One, two or four charts, from one minute to weekly. The lens follows the Map's header: GEX or VEX (with CHEX chosen, the room shows GEX and says so). Under marks you can add the flip, the balance point with its upper and lower arms, the session's levels, and the log along the bottom. Your own lines, areas and trend lines are kept per name and survive a restart.

Fixing a drawing. Ctrl+Z takes back your last change to a drawing, and Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y puts it back. The two arrows beside the pens do the same. Right-click a drawing to erase it, or point at it and press Delete; the note that appears can bring it back. Under marks, My drawings hides yours without erasing them.

One chart large. With two or four charts up, the button in a chart's corner fills the room with that chart. A double-click on its bar or Alt+Enter does the same. Esc brings the others back.

Replay plays back any session Compass recorded, and can be paused and stepped a candle at a time. Alert chimes once when price reaches the King. Copy puts a picture of the charts on your clipboard. The key, top right, says what every mark means.

5. On your phone

The Porthole shows the charts on your desk while the Chart Room is open: five-minute candles, the King's line through the day, price and the regime, one tab per chart. It updates about every fifteen seconds. The desk has the live candle.

Changing a name from your phone. In the Chart Room, click phone and turn it on; the desk shows a six-digit code. On the phone, open the Chart Room in the Porthole, tap Change under a chart and type the code once. From then on the phone can switch a chart on your desk to another of your names, and nothing else. The phone says when the chart switched.

6. Before the bell and overnight

Before the bell. From 4:00 AM Eastern until a minute before the open, each chart draws one dashed line at the pre-market price, and the header carries that price. The board and the needles beside it are the coming session's, built from the last settled open interest for up to six names on your screen, and marked "pre-market" with the time. At the bell the first candle of the day replaces all of it.

SPX overnight. After the close, SPX shows its overnight price, labelled "overnight" with the time, and the next session's board, labelled "board for" and the day.

A board that holds still. Outside the session, option quotes go stale while the share price keeps moving. So before the bell and after hours the board is priced from the last traded volatility at the live price, and the levels stop jumping between refreshes. During the session it is the live board, as before. This part is new in this beta: if a board looks wrong before the bell, a screenshot with the time is what we need.

7. It is a beta

It is BETA, and new. If a price looks stuck, a chart draws with a gap, or a label covers something, a screenshot with the time is the most useful thing you can send. The Engine Room says whether the room's feed is running; include that line.

Charts drawn with TradingView's open-source Lightweight Charts (Apache 2.0).