The Charts Page

What the Charts page is for

The Charts page pulls up the Volatility Box models for any supported symbol and draws them on the chart, giving an instant framework for price and volatility. It is the same counter-trend volatility framework drawn directly on price, showing where price is and where the current volatility says it is and is not likely to go.

Watch: Part 3 of the Volatility Box onboarding series.

Getting to the Charts page and loading a symbol

There are three ways onto the Charts page:

• Click Charts in the left-hand navigation.
• Click any symbol on the Today page.
• Click any symbol inside the Scanner.

Every route lands on the same chart view. To change the symbol, click into the symbol text box at the top, type the ticker, and press enter. The chart and its models load right away, faster than pulling the same view up in thinkorswim.

To the right of the chart are the current price and the Market Pulse stage the symbol is in, with how many days it has held that stage, for example Accumulation for five days. Market Pulse is anchored to the daily timeframe and does not change as the timeframe toggles change, because the trend read is always based on the daily.

Timeframe toggles

The timeframe toggle switches sit under the chart. The Charts page supports five timeframes: 1-minute, 5-minute, 15-minute, 1-hour, and daily. Clicking a toggle redraws the chart on that timeframe with the models loaded for it, giving a fast read on what volatility looks like in that market without leaving the page.

Daily chart: the Market Pulse line

On the four intraday timeframes (1m, 5m, 15m, 1h) the volatility clouds plot as expected. On the daily timeframe the clouds do not plot; the Market Pulse line shows instead. It marks the pullback level in view and the market stage feeding the trend read. The daily timeframe is the trend-and-pullback context; the intraday timeframes are where the clouds and breaches are read.

Model toggles: daily/hourly and aggressive/conservative

When the models are plotting, two sets of toggle switches appear on the right side of the chart.

Daily vs hourly model

The first switch flips between the daily and hourly Volatility Box models.

• Daily models give one level to trade per day. That makes the level harder to hit and weightier when reached, especially the conservative one. These are the swing-oriented setups, 1 to 5 day holds.
• Hourly models give one level per hour of the day, which means far more opportunities through the session. They suit large, liquid names like SPY or Microsoft, and names whose volatility rarely tags the daily models but tags the hourly models far more often. These are the intraday setups.

Aggressive vs conservative

To the right of the daily/hourly switch are the aggressive and conservative switches, which apply to whichever model is active.

• Aggressive models are easier to reach and cover most normal sessions.
• Conservative models are wider and harder to hit. They are the read to lean on around earnings, FOMC, or any name with naturally high volatility, where the wider band keeps an entry from being chased.

Stock context panel

Under the chart is a context box with three quick reads on the stock or ETF:

• Today’s range vs typical range. Whether today is a high- or low-volatility day for this name. A reading of 0.6% against a typical 1% marks a quiet, low-volatility session.
• 30-day and 60-day performance. Recent drift, for example +1.84% over 30 days and +6.13% over 60.
• Average dollar volume. The 20-day average, for example roughly $33.9 billion on SPY.

This is the “is today tradeable” check before committing attention. A low range-vs-typical reading is a sign the clouds may be quiet and the name may chop rather than hand over a clean breach.

Support and resistance panel

The right box lists nearby support and resistance levels, ranked by how close they sit to where price is trading, closest at the top. It shows whether more support or more resistance is stacked nearby, how far each level is in percentage terms, and which level price is currently flirting with. Switching the chart to the daily timeframe and hovering a level often shows it lines up with a recent pivot. The panel weighs the levels around the current opportunity without leaving the page.

Recent trades panel

The recent trades box shows what kind of opportunities the name has handed over lately, and the key read is direction: have recent breaches been short-side or long-side?

The counter-trend logic applies here. A run of short-side breaches means price has been rallying into the upper clouds, a sign of bullish strength, not weakness. A run of long-side breaches means price has been dropping into the lower clouds. The box also shows stops and targets, which carry less weight, because many trades that look stopped turn into winners once a setup is applied. Direction is what matters, and a cluster of trades on a single date marks a high-volatility day worth digging into in the Backtester.

Related

• Reading the models: clouds, breaches and cloud state
• The Today page
• Scanner table guide