TradeStation Help

About the Base Price Data Concept

Chart Analysis windows can contain many different items, but none as important as the first symbol that is added to a Chart Analysis window when it is created; the base price data. By default, the data for the first symbol is referred to as Data1. Subsequent symbols are assigned the designations Data2, Data3, etc. This is how the order in which each symbol added to the chart is tracked.

Until the base price data is plotted, there is no chart. Trading strategies, indicators, studies, and drawing objects cannot be inserted until the base price data has been plotted. Once you plot the base price data on a Chart Analysis window, you can replace that symbol or add other symbols to the chart.

While you can replace the base price data for Data1, you cannot delete it, as it is the basis of all the activity on the Chart Analysis window. If you want to delete the base price data in a window containing only base price data, you must delete the Chart Analysis window.

The following summarizes how Data1, Data2, and so on, are assigned when inserting multiple symbols into the same Chart Analysis window:

• When multiple symbols are inserted sequentially in a Chart Analysis window, data numbers are assigned according to the order in which symbols are inserted.
• When multiple symbols are selected as a group and inserted in a Chart Analysis window at the same time, they are inserted into the Chart Analysis window in alphabetical order (A-Z) and assigned the designations Data1, Data2, etc. in that sequence.

The data number is important when you work with multi-data charts, and when you work with indicators and other analysis techniques that reference specific data numbers.