Will Using a Tick Chart on TradingView Prevent Repainting?

The introduction of tick charts on TradingView has led many traders to ask if switching to this chart format will prevent repainting in strategies. Repainting is a common issue where signals or indicators change based on new data, making it difficult to backtest strategies accurately. This guide explains whether tick charts can solve the repainting problem.

Repainting: A Strategy Issue, Not a Data Issue

The key thing to understand is that repainting occurs due to how the strategy or indicator is programmed, not because of the type of data being used. Whether you’re using tick data or time-based data, the repainting happens because of how the strategy refreshes or recalculates based on the incoming data.

As noted in TradersPost’s office hours, “The repainting occurs based on the rules of the strategy… changing the format of the chart is not going to change how repainting works” . This means that even with tick charts, repainting will still occur if your strategy recalculates or updates historical data.

How Tick Charts Work

A tick chart differs from a time-based chart in that it plots candles based on a specific number of trades (ticks), rather than a fixed period of time. This provides a more granular view of price movements within each candle, especially for short-term strategies.

For example, if you’re using a one-tick chart, each candle is generated after a single trade, giving you a much more detailed look at price movement. Traders who prefer more accurate entries or want to follow every movement of the market closely may find tick charts helpful for better visualizing intra-candle data. However, this doesn’t fundamentally alter how repainting issues manifest.

Improving Backtesting Accuracy

While tick charts may not solve repainting, they can improve backtesting accuracy. One challenge in backtesting is that traditional time-based candles are just snapshots of price movements, and a single candle might hide multiple price fluctuations. Tick charts provide a more detailed picture of what actually happened during the formation of a candle, especially when combined with higher timeframe data.

A TradersPost community member suggested testing tick charts for backtesting improvements: “I want the backtest to more accurately reflect what actually happened at the time… The limitation is that if I’m on the one tick chart, there’s a limit to how far I can go back” .

Although this approach can help capture more accurate market behavior, it still doesn’t prevent repainting from occurring in strategies.

Identifying Repainting in Strategies

The best way to identify whether an indicator or strategy is repainting is to use TradingView’s bar replay tool. This allows you to replay historical price action and watch for signals that appear and then disappear as the chart updates. If this happens, your indicator is repainting, regardless of whether you’re using a tick chart or a time-based chart.

A clear sign of repainting occurs when a signal is triggered during the replay, but it disappears after new data comes in. As TradersPost’s office hours explained: “If the indicator fires at one point in the replay process but then the signal disappears, that’s how you know it’s repainting” .

Conclusion

In summary, switching to a tick chart will not prevent repainting in your TradingView strategies. Repainting is tied to the logic of your indicator or strategy, not the type of chart data used. However, tick charts can provide more detailed data, which can improve the accuracy of your backtests by giving you a clearer picture of market movements within each candle.

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