How to Use Renko Charts? Brick Settings, Repainting, and Real Price Verification

Trading Strategies

03 October 2026

The easiest trap to fall into with Renko charts is thinking that once a brick is drawn, it will never change. The reality is: before the current K-line period closes, the last brick or even several bricks may be recalculated. If you use Renko as a signal and place an order as soon as you see a brick change color, you might be buying exactly on a "projected brick" that disappears the next minute.

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How to Choose Brick Size: Fixed Value or ATR

Renko charts are not drawn by time, but by price movement. A new brick is generated only when price moves by a preset "brick size" (box size). The smaller this size is, the more bricks appear and the more frequent the signals, but there are also more false signals. The larger it is, the cleaner the trend, but the slower the reaction.

There are two mainstream ways to calculate brick size:

Traditional fixed value means you manually specify an absolute price, such as $500 per brick for Bitcoin or $0.50 per brick for a stock. The advantage is that the rules are transparent: you know where the price needs to go before a new brick appears, and the logic is consistent between backtesting and live trading. The disadvantage is that you need to test again when switching to a different instrument. OANDA suggests starting with about 1/20 of the current price and then adjusting based on how the chart looks.

ATR dynamic value uses the Average True Range to automatically calculate brick size. When volatility is high, bricks automatically become larger; when volatility is low, bricks shrink. Many platforms use ATR as the default option because it removes the step of manual parameter tuning. But ATR has an easily overlooked problem: it can cause historical bricks to be repainted.

GoCharting's documentation states this problem very bluntly: the normal ATR method recalculates the ATR value using "the 14 days of data before the moment the chart is activated" every time the chart is reloaded. As a result, the entire Renko structure can change. The alternative they recommend is called "ATR Persistence," which uses a rolling 14-day ATR to keep the brick structure stable.

Zerodha has also encountered a similar problem: the default Renko brick size for the same stock differs between the web platform and the mobile app. The reason is that the web version loads a deeper historical data buffer, while the mobile version uses less data to calculate ATR in order to save bandwidth, resulting in a different volatility reading. The solution is to change the brick assignment method from ATR to Traditional and manually enter a fixed value so that both platforms display the same chart.

My judgment is: if you need to backtest or need reproducible signals, prioritize a fixed brick size, not ATR. ATR seems convenient, but repainting will pollute your historical signals. The cost of a fixed value is that you need to spend time testing parameters, but that cost is far lower than "profitable in backtesting, losing money in live trading."

When Does Repainting Happen

Renko repainting comes in two types, with different levels of severity.

Repainting of real-time projected bricks is normal. Before a K-line closes, a "projected brick" may appear on the chart: a brick temporarily drawn based on the current price. For example, the current price has moved enough to generate a new brick, but the K-line has not yet closed, so the system first draws a dashed or semi-transparent brick. When the K-line actually closes, if the price has retreated, this projected brick disappears. TradingView's support documentation clearly states that a projected brick can only become a "real" closed brick when the K-line of the chart period closes. Before that, it will be recalculated repeatedly.

Repainting of historical bricks is a more hidden problem. Zerodha's explanation is: the Renko system continuously recalculates bricks within the chart period you have currently selected, and the retracement can go all the way back to any brick within the current period. Only bricks from the previous complete period are permanently fixed. This means that if you select a daily chart period, bricks drawn yesterday can still be changed within today.

The ATR repainting mentioned by GoCharting belongs to this category: when you switch devices or reload the page, the ATR value changes, and the entire historical brick structure may change along with it.

Verifying Real Prices: Use a Candlestick Chart as Reference

Renko bricks are synthetic prices and do not correspond to any precise market price moment. TradingView's documentation states directly: using Renko brick prices to backtest order execution will inevitably produce inaccurate results, because brick prices "do not reflect the market price at any precise moment."

The verification method is simple: open the Renko chart and a regular candlestick chart of the same instrument side by side, with the time axes aligned. Find the brick color change point you care about on the Renko chart, locate the corresponding time period on the candlestick chart, and check the actual open, high, low, and close prices at that time. If the Renko brick color change occurred before the price actually broke through a key level on the candlestick chart, the credibility of that signal should be discounted.

Another verification point is to check whether the candlestick chart's closing price confirms the brick. Zerodha's documentation mentions that Renko bricks are calculated based on the closing price of the current chart period. If you are using a 1-hour chart, the brick is only truly confirmed when the 1-hour K-line closes. Before that, a brick drawn by an intraday price spike may disappear at the close.

A Setup Process You Can Follow

If you are just starting with Renko, this sequence can save you from unnecessary detours:

First confirm the instrument's daily volatility range on a regular candlestick chart. For example, Bitcoin has recently been fluctuating about $2,000-3,000 per day.
Set the brick size to 1/3 to 1/2 of that volatility range. If daily volatility is $2,000, set the brick size at around $600-1,000 and check how the chart looks first.
Change the brick assignment method to Traditional (fixed value), not ATR. This makes signals reproducible and consistent across devices.
Set the chart period to the period you actually trade. If you trade intraday, use 15 minutes or 1 hour; if you trade swings, use 4 hours or daily. The repainting range of Renko depends on this period. The smaller the period, the shallower the depth to which historical bricks can be changed.
When you first see a brick change color, do not place an order immediately. Switch to the candlestick chart and confirm that the corresponding K-line has closed and that the closing price has indeed broken through the brick boundary.
If you must use ATR, choose a platform that supports ATR Persistence, and accept the cost that "bricks may differ when switching devices."

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