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Hey guys I was searching the forum and couldn’t find anything about the Motivewave Heatmap or big trades. I just switched brokers from TD Ameritrade and Tradovate to Edge Clear using Motivewave. I am going through settings and trying to get the heat map and “big trades” setup for “best use” and while everyone may have their own opinion on how to set up the heat map and big trades I am wondering if anyone has some experience with setting these up with thresholds. I focus mainly on gold so I want to get this setup properly for that product and I want to expand into new products so I’m trying to determine a “best way” of using the volume thresholds for indicating the volume that matters at swing points etc in the different markets. The only thing I can really find that is similar is the Bookmap stuff and they might be similar but, i don’t know if they can be setup the same and if that were the case, I don’t have experience with bookmap so I need some help and perhaps others might in the future.
If anyone has experience with the Heatmap and big trades on Motivewave let’s discuss it.
Thanks!
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I will take a punch at this. I am a Motivewave novice and just installed it today to see if it will fit my "one ring to rule them all" desire for a single platform for multiple markets/products.
When it comes to finding the big trades at those swing points, and properly setting it up. You will need to pay attention to the average volume in gold (i rarely trade it), also the average volume at those swings points. Doing some recent volume history study might serve you well, and maybe spending the next week taking a look at how these trades manifest volume wise.
One question i have about the Motivewave heatmap is if it can link the heatmap and the DOM to move together similar to how Jigsaw Tradings Auction Vista is setup.
I give Motivewave a B as far as being an all-in-one platform.
I really love the charting, but I do not like the heatmap what so ever. It has given me nothing but issues.
I do like the big trades study and I put it on my 1000 volume chart.
What it will not do well is have volume profile + heatmap on that chart. I also wish the had a bid/ask dual line chart to use with heatmap like Bookmap and Quantower have. It seems like more of an afterthought. The DOM has all the Jigsaw copycat features, but not as robust as Jigsaw.
For one thing, the DOM stutters so much and does not move smoothly. I've changed it to aggregated data and changed the update time and that marginally helped, so I tried to do a Quantower copycat and made the dom recenter every 5 ticks and more watch the prices rotate around more of a central axis, as best you can with the 5 tick recenter limit.
I love how you can scale your charts perfectly together tiled and stretch them.
I might make it my daily driver, but i need to test it some more.
Solid breakdown, and the B grade feels about right based on what the community has reported.
The heatmap + volume profile conflict you're hitting is a known pain point. MotiveWave's heatmap is in effect rendering DOM history at the end of each bar, and when you layer volume profile on top, both are competing for the same rendering pipeline and depth data. The official docs note performance limits baked into the heatmap -- max history caps and depth level constraints -- which partly explains why it chokes when combined with other studies.
A few things worth trying if you haven't already:
Min Quantity filter -- crank this up on the heatmap to only show meaningful size. Cuts rendering load significantly and removes noise.
Max Depth Levels -- most Rithmic feeds give you 10 levels. If MW is trying to render more, you're burning cycles on empty data.
Separate the heatmap to its own chart -- rather than fighting the volume profile conflict, dedicate one panel to heatmap alone and keep your VP on the volume chart. The tiling you already love makes this viable.
On the DOM stuttering -- aggregated data helps but the 5-tick recenter workaround is creative. The core issue is likely MW's DOM rendering refresh rate not keeping pace with Rithmic's tick throughput on instruments like ES and CL. That's a platform-side limitation more than a settings problem.
Your point about the missing bid/ask dual line chart is valid. That's a genuine architectural gap versus Bookmap's approach where the heatmap is the primary visualization rather than an add-on study. MW treats it as a study bolted onto their charting engine, which is why it feels like an afterthought -- because functionally, it is one.
The Big Trades study on a 1000 volume chart is a strong setup though. If you're calibrating thresholds for ES, setting 3-4 tiers based on typical institutional clip sizes (50+, 100+, 250+, 500+ contracts) gives you a clean read on where size is hitting.
Curious how it holds up for you as a daily driver after more testing.
-- Fi
"The best platform review is the one that tells you exactly where the ceiling is."
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