How to convert Levels with Ratio without the need of a Data Feed Lesson

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to display gamma levels and other indicators from one asset on a different asset’s chart by using ratio conversion—even without a data feed on your trading platform. This powerful technique allows you to access SPX intraday levels on ES futures, or QQQ levels on NQ, expanding your analytical capabilities across different instruments.

Within TradingView, you can enable conversion by going into your indicator settings and scrolling down to the levels conversion settings. You have two options: auto ratio, which automatically calculates the conversion ratio using end-of-day prices from the platform’s infrastructure, or manual ratio, which lets you input your own ratio value. Many users prefer manual ratio because it allows them to update the ratio multiple times per day for greater accuracy.

On NinjaTrader and other platforms, the process is similar—you activate conversion in your indicator settings and enter the ticker you want to convert from (such as SPX or QQQ). However, auto ratio requires a data feed for the asset you’re converting from. If you don’t have that data feed, you’ll receive an error message. The solution is simple: switch to manual ratio and enter the ratio value directly, which immediately displays your converted levels.

To calculate accurate ratios, you can use TradingView’s free platform to create custom securities using formulas. Simply divide the futures ticker by the index or ETF ticker (for example, ES1! divided by SPX). You can save these ratios in a watch list for quick daily access. For proper conversion accuracy, ensure your chart displays at least 5 or 6 decimals in the precision settings, and choose ratio values during trading hours when both assets are active—typically averaging values from the 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern window.

This conversion technique works across multiple asset classes demonstrated in the lesson: you can convert SPY to ES, QQQ to NQ, DIA to YM, GLD to GC futures, and even convert individual stocks like Nvidia to NQ. The same conversion settings apply to different level types, including gamma levels, intraday levels, blind spot levels, and swing trading levels—once you set up the ratio, you can switch between level types without reconfiguring the conversion.

To get started, create your custom ratio formulas in TradingView by adding a symbol through the plus sign in your watch list, then input your division formula (futures ticker divided by index/ETF ticker). Save these ratios for daily reference, and when using platforms like NinjaTrader that lack the necessary data feed, simply input the manual ratio value with 4-5 decimal places to accurately convert and display your levels within 20-30 seconds each day.

Video Chapters

00:00 – Converting SPX levels to ES in TradingView using auto and manual ratio
02:14 – Setting up level conversion in NinjaTrader without a data feed
04:40 – How to calculate and access conversion ratios effectively
05:11 – Creating custom securities and ratio formulas in TradingView
08:51 – Best practices for decimal precision and timing
11:04 – Converting QQQ levels to NQ using manual ratio
12:19 – Converting DIA levels to YM example
13:06 – Converting blind spot and swing trading levels to ES

Key Takeaways

Use manual ratio instead of auto ratio when your platform lacks a data feed…

Video Transcription

[00:00:00.19] - Speaker 1
So within TradingView I have two indicators. I want to use my gamma levels end of day that are using futures options on es. So I have the data there. But I also want to add my intraday levels on spx. So as you can see no levels is coming up because we don't have intraday levels on ES currently.

[00:00:22.07] - Speaker 1
So no levels are showing. But I can still use my intraday levels on spx. So I can go into the settings of the indicator and I can scroll down all the way to our levels conversion settings and I simply want to enable the conversion so I want to enable the conversion between SPX or Yes, but here very very simple. I could convert SPY to Yes and I could also convert any other ticker. So let's go back to SPX for a second and then here what I can see is I can use my auto ratio, my manual ratio and my spread.

[00:01:01.11] - Speaker 1
What is the difference between auto ratio and manual ratio? Auto ratio means that the indicator would calculate the ratio for you by using the end of day prices coming from the platform. So in this case we are leveraging TradingView infrastructure to get a the price of SPX and the price of yes and calculate the ratio for you. Many users use auto ratio. Many user also wants to use their own ratio because maybe they want to update the ratio multiple times per day.

[00:01:32.10] - Speaker 1
So in that case we can use our manual ratio here and we can type the value of the ratio right there. But let's go with auto ratio click ok and as you can see what I have now is I have on my chart my gamma levels on the left on ES and my interview gamma levels in red on the right converting from SPX so I could actually only plot the SPX level. I could only plot the gamma levels and basically now I have my SPX intraday gamma levels on my chart and in trading view I use my auto ratio. But I could also use my minor ratio. Now let's go into NinjaTrader.

[00:02:14.02] - Speaker 1
Okay, so we have our gamma levels open on the yes. Future let's go into the indicator settings right here. So now let's say that I wanted to bring in intraday levels. I could come here in my gamma level settings and select my gamma levels intraday and as you can see no levels will appear because currently there is no intraday levels on es. But we do have intraday levels on spx.

[00:02:43.11] - Speaker 1
So you could potentially bring in the intraday levels of SPX on es. So to do that simply go to the bottom of the settings where we have our conversion settings here so let's click on the box. So let's activate our conversion. Let's type in the ticker that we want to convert from. So in this case would be spx.

[00:03:08.22] - Speaker 1
And again we also have the auto or manual ratio. We can use the auto ratio on NinjaTrader similar to what we do on TradingView. We also have auto ratio on other platforms as well. But the problem is that most of these platforms require you to have a data feed. So it means that you need to have the price of the asset that you are converting from.

[00:03:31.18] - Speaker 1
So in this case SPX or QQQ to be able to calculate the ratio automatically. So what you see here, I get an error message because I don't actually have the pricing feed on Ninja currently on spx. So how can we solve that? How can we then still get the levels and the inter the levels on Ninja or any other platform even if I don't have a data feed? This is very simple.

[00:03:58.07] - Speaker 1
We can flip our ratio to money ratio and let's use the value that we saw at the beginning of 1.005 and just now hit apply. And as you can see, now we have our levels. So by simply switching from auto ratio to manual ratio, we now have our levels of SPX intraday gamma levels on es. Right? So the question is now how do I get this ratio and how can I do it in the most effective time every day without having to do a lot of manual calculation and be able to be active straight away?

[00:04:40.18] - Speaker 1
So now let's go back to TradingView and let's show you how you can calculate the ratio, how you can save your ratio on a watch list and how you can access them real time every day. And how can you convert this into in a matter of 20, 30 seconds per day? Okay, so now the question that we always get is what ratio should I use and can you help me understand how to get the ratio in order to calculate my levels effectively? So we are going to show you how you can do this on TradingView. You can also do this in different ways.

[00:05:11.18] - Speaker 1
But TradingView is a free platform that anybody can access to create an account and you can get access to intraday real time information and basically on futures ETFs indices. So you can easily calculate the ratio using TradingView and we're going to show you how to do that. So the first step is let's scroll all the way to the bottom. And as you can see here, TradingView has a really nice feature which allows you to create custom security, which is a formula using the data from TradingView. So what you see here, I have my ratios set up.

[00:05:46.17] - Speaker 1
I can simply click on the ratio and as you can see, this would open up the chart and will show me the ratio in real time. Right? So in order to get the value, I can use this tool and I can show you how to do it. But before doing that, let's go over how we can create these ratios. So let me just remove all of this and we're going to calculate that for you and we're going to show you how easy it is.

[00:06:15.07] - Speaker 1
So the first step is you can create a watch list with all your assets, but I can simply add my ratios by creating a custom security and I can do that by adding my symbol here. So click on the plus sign at the top of the watch list and then now we're going to calculate the formula. So as we saw from our dashboard, the formula is very, very simple. We are dividing the asset that we are converting to, so in this case the futures, by the asset that we are converting from, so in this case the ETF or index. So I can simply type in my ES sticker divided by my SPX sticker and hit enter.

[00:06:58.11] - Speaker 1
And now I have my ES and SPX ratio. Let's now do the same for spy. So I have my yes, divided by spy. I had that to the chart and now we can do the same thing for NQ. So let's go and divide my NQ1 future divided by QQQ.

[00:07:22.04] - Speaker 1
Now we have a ratio there. Let's do the same thing with ndx.

[00:07:30.16] - Speaker 1
Now we have our ratio there as well. And now let's do the same thing with 4example ym. As we mentioned, we can use DIA for ym and we can have it there. And let's do the same thing with GLD. So we're gonna take our GC1 futures divided by GLD.

[00:07:57.12] - Speaker 1
Right? But we can do, we can be very, very flexible. And let's say that we wanted to plot Nvidia levels on nq. We can simply divide our NQ price divided by Nvidia. And this ratio will allow us to plot Nvidia levels directly on nq.

[00:08:18.21] - Speaker 1
So as you can see, we have created our ratio. And now let's go over and show you how we can quickly customize this and plot it into your Ninja trader without the need of having a data feed. Before we do that, we need to obviously show you some best practices on how to do it. And the first thing we want to look for is there are some limitations of TradingView so within the watch list of TradingView we only see and we only display 2 decimals. But those are not enough for conversion.

[00:08:51.07] - Speaker 1
So sometimes we need 4 or 5 decimals. So for example, if you take the ratio of ES and SPX it shows as 1, but in reality the ratio has 4 or 5 decimal that we need to use to be able to do a proper conversion. The second thing you want to do is if you don't see this decimal here, we can go on our settings, go on the symbol, go under precision and be sure to select five or six decimal but at least more than three to be able to have an accurate ratio. So even though the watch list doesn't show us the 5 decimal, we can still see the decimals by opening the ticker and by simply looking at the price action right here or by looking at the close price at the top. Right.

[00:09:43.24] - Speaker 1
What we also want to do is we also want to choose a ratio when the both assets are trading. So futures are trading 24, five indices close at 4pm eastern and they reopen at 9:30. So what we would probably want to use is a ratio that would be in this area here. So as you can see the ratio does not change very much. But when the market is closed, of course the ratio changes because the future is still trading while the index or ETF is not.

[00:10:14.28] - Speaker 1
So we would probably want to use an average of this section right here. So if I can show you how to do it, just simply put our cursor there. And now we have a ratio of 41:2188. So now let's go back on Ninja and let's now convert QQQ to ENQ. Okay, the first thing we want to do is let's open up our ENQ chart and let's go into our indicator settings.

[00:10:43.24] - Speaker 1
And as you can see we have our gamma levels interdisciplinary. So no levels is plotting on my nq. If I switch this to gamma levels then the levels will be plotting here. But let's actually go back to our intraday levels. And now let's go all the way to the bottom and let's show you another example.

[00:11:04.04] - Speaker 1
So let's say I now want to plot QQQ to NQ and let's try with auto ratio. You will see that I get an error because I don't have my pricing feed of Q. Q. Q. And I'm not able to convert automatically. So we can switch to our manual ratio and type in the ratio that we just found which was 41.2188 click on apply and now as you can see the QQQ level now appear on enqueue. So very, very simple.

[00:11:43.23] - Speaker 1
Let's do another example and let's go back to TradingView. Okay the last example we're going to use for is the conversion of DIA to ym. So let's open up DIA to YM and similar to what we did with nq, let's just go here and let's find a ratio which is kind of like an average of the ratio for the previous day which is 100.113767. Now let's go back to Ninja and let's see how to do that. Okay so now we want to convert DIA levels to ym.

[00:12:19.01] - Speaker 1
So let's type in dia. Let's go and find our YM ticker and as you can see let's just try to apply auto ratio again I have an error, I don't have the pricing data. So now we're going to use our manual ratio and we use the ratio that we that we just found which is 100.13767 hit on apply. Hit. OK and now let's open up the ym chart and as you can see now we have our DIA gamma levels directly imported in your YM chart.

[00:13:06.20] - Speaker 1
So now let's go back to our ES for a second and let's just run through another example. So another typical example would be to for example convert SPX for example blind spots level to yes or SPX swing trading levels to yes. So the good thing is that we already have the ratio so we already have the conversion set up now. Now we just need to select what levels we want to plot. So let's say we don't want to plot our gamma levels, we just click on none here and let's say we want to plot our blind spot level.

[00:13:44.27] - Speaker 1
So in this case I'm going to show select all and I'm going to hit apply. And now I can see that I'm plotting the blind spot on yes but I'm also plotting the SPX blind spot right there on the left hand side. So I'm converting basically SPX blind spot levels to yes by using the same conversion ratio. Let's do another example and let's go and look at the swing level. So I can actually go back into the indicator and I can now disable my blind spot.

[00:14:22.22] - Speaker 1
So now this will disappear and now I have my swing levels right here and now I can simply select all and hit apply and what you will see here is now my swing trading levels of SPX will be plotted on my ES chart. So just to recap we went over how to convert levels from one asset to the other one. We went over our auto and manual ratio option within the indicator. We showed you how to calculate and create custom security within your watch list to access the ratios every day. Those ratios can be used on other platforms even if you don't have a data feed for the asset that you are trying to convert and you cannot use the auto ratio so very very easily in less than a minute a day you can actually get that data.

[00:15:12.22] - Speaker 1
You can use TradingView for that is a free platform so you can create your custom watches with the ratio and and access them in any of the trading platform that you use. I hope this was helpful and if you guys have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us via our support team and let us know if you have any questions.