Placing orders from the chart in a browser platform

Placing orders from the chart in a browser platform means clicking a price on the chart and sending a working order from that click. Chart trading is order entry done on the price chart instead of on an order ticket or a DOM ladder. The note on market, limit and stop orders on a futures DOM covered the ladder. This note follows one invented MES order placed from the chart in Liquivue. It covers how the platform rounds a click and what the bracket risks in dollars.

How a click becomes a price

A chart is a grid of pixels. The platform has to turn the pixel you click into a price that sits on a whole tick. MES, the Micro E-mini S&P 500 future, has a tick of 0.25 points, worth $1.25 per contract.

Take a chart area 600 pixels tall.

At 12.5 pixels per tick, your click has to miss by 7 pixels before the order lands on the wrong price. At 2.5 pixels per tick, a 2 pixel slip is enough. Zoom in before you place a chart order, or read the price on the order line before you send it.

One chart order in Liquivue

All numbers below are invented. This is an order entry example, not a trade idea.

The Liquivue heatmap layer shows a resting bid band of 300 contracts at 5,048.50 on MES. The trader wants a 2 contract buy limit at that price, with a stop 8 ticks below and a target 16 ticks above. The chart shows 12 points over 600 pixels, so each tick is 12.5 pixels tall.

1. The trader sets the order size to 2 and turns on a bracket with an 8 tick stop and a 16 tick target.
2. The trader clicks the chart at a pixel that maps to 5,048.56. The platform rounds that to 5,048.50, the nearest tick.
3. The buy limit appears as a working order line at 5,048.50.
4. When the limit fills, the bracket sends a sell stop at 5,046.50 and a sell limit at 5,052.50. The two exit orders form an OCO pair, so a fill on one cancels the other.

Here is the bracket in dollars.

Commissions and exchange fees come on top of these figures. Your broker sets those fees, and the costs page lists what each platform charges.

Now run the same click on a chart that shows 60 points. Each tick is 2.5 pixels tall, and a click 3 pixels low lands on 5,048.25. The order still holds 2 contracts and the same bracket, so the stop moves to 5,046.25 and the target to 5,052.25. The dollar risk stays at $20, because the bracket moves with the entry. The limit is now one tick under the 5,048.50 band. It fills only if a sell trades at 5,048.25.

What the chart shows around the order

Liquivue draws the working order line on the same screen as the heatmap and the trade bubbles. Suppose the bid band at 5,048.50 shrinks from 300 contracts to 40 before price reaches it. The trader sees the band fade while the limit is still working. If price then trades at 5,048.50, the trade bubbles show how many contracts traded there, and the volume profile row at that price grows by the same number.

Liquivue also has session risk controls. A max session loss rule cancels orders, closes positions and locks trading for the rest of the session once the loss reaches the set amount. With a max loss of $60, this example's $20 stop could fill three times before the lock. Once a rule starts, Liquivue does not let you loosen it for that session.

What to check before your first chart order

• Zoom until each tick is at least 8 pixels tall, and read the price on the order line before you send.
• Read the size in the order panel before you click. A size left at 10 from an earlier test turns this $20 bracket risk into $100.
• Place your first chart orders on a simulation account. Liquivue's trading guide says live account acceptance on the NinjaTrader bridge is unverified, and it tells users to start in simulation.
• Check the browser. Liquivue needs a desktop browser with WebGPU. The NinjaTrader bridge needs NinjaTrader 8 on Windows, with Chrome or Edge on the same computer.

Chart trading on other platforms

Bookmap desktop adds live futures and stock execution at the Global+ tier, US$99 a month. Bookmap Web is a separate product, and this site has not established that it matches the desktop. ATAS needs the Pro or Ultra plan for live futures, and its Web version is a beta. Exocharts Web has no live execution according to its own comparison. NinjaTrader puts analysis and execution in one Windows desktop platform.

A trader looking for a Bookmap alternative that trades futures from a browser can try Liquivue for 7 days. After the trial it costs €20 a month, with data and broker fees on top.

A check you can run

Open a simulation account on your platform. Place five buy limits from the chart with 60 points on screen, then five more with 12 points on screen, aiming at a round price each time. Count how many orders in each set landed on the price you aimed at.