Show the ask line, or long take-profits will keep missing by a pip
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2026 8:37 am
Charts draw the bid by default. A short trade closes by buying at the ask, so that works out fine. A long trade opens at the ask but closes at the bid, which means the take-profit and the stop for a long are judged against the very line the chart already shows. The part that goes wrong is entries and shorts on levels.
Example: a resistance level sits at 1.0850. Price touches 1.0850 on the chart, bid-based, and a short limit fires. Fine. But a buy-stop above that level fills at the ask, which may already be 1.0851 or higher while the chart barely printed the level. The reverse hurts on short exits: a take-profit buy order for a short needs the ask to reach it, and the chart only shows the bid getting close.
That is the origin of the classic complaint that price came within half a pip of the target and reversed. Often the bid did arrive, the ask never did.
Turn on the ask line in the platform settings and look at a week of trades. With spreads of a pip or more on certain pairs and sessions, the gap changes which exits count as hit.
Did turning on the ask line change how many of your take-profit near-misses you could explain?
Example: a resistance level sits at 1.0850. Price touches 1.0850 on the chart, bid-based, and a short limit fires. Fine. But a buy-stop above that level fills at the ask, which may already be 1.0851 or higher while the chart barely printed the level. The reverse hurts on short exits: a take-profit buy order for a short needs the ask to reach it, and the chart only shows the bid getting close.
That is the origin of the classic complaint that price came within half a pip of the target and reversed. Often the bid did arrive, the ask never did.
Turn on the ask line in the platform settings and look at a week of trades. With spreads of a pip or more on certain pairs and sessions, the gap changes which exits count as hit.
Did turning on the ask line change how many of your take-profit near-misses you could explain?