|
Color Grouping by Symbol/Time, QnA, DYO STIX, ESPL Arrays |
September 7 , 2005
16:30 @Ensign_Kimball: Welcome to today's Ensign Training Class...Please hold your questions until the end.
16:31 @Ensign_Kimball: We will start by discussing the topic of Grouping by 'Symbol' and 'Time'
16:31 @Ensign_Kimball: First, let me open an IBM daily chart.
16:32 @Ensign_Kimball: Notice the 2 white square boxes in the bottom right corner of the Chart. The LEFT box is the 'Symbol Group' color box. The RIGHT box is the 'Time Group' color box
16:33 @Ensign_Kimball: What are these used for ???
16:33 @Ensign_Kimball: Click the mouse in the LEFT box and a Color selection window will open. I am going to select RED as the color for the Symbol Group.
16:34 @Ensign_Kimball: You can see that the LEFT box is now RED
16:34 @Ensign_Kimball: I am now going to open an IBM 5-minute chart.
16:35 @Ensign_Kimball: I have also clicked the LEFT box in the 5-minute chart and selected RED as the Symbol Group color
16:35 @Ensign_Kimball: I now have 2 open charts. They both have RED as the Symbol Group color. This means that if either of these charts has a change in the Symbol, then they will both change to the same symbol. For example, I will press CTRL-S while the 5-minute chart is the active window, and then type MSFT. This will change the 5-minue chart to now be a Microsoft 5-minute chart
16:37 @Ensign_Kimball: Since the IBM Daily chart was in the same RED Symbol Group....it also changed to MSFT
16:37 @Ensign_Kimball: This example shows you how to group Charts.....based on the Symbol.
16:38 @Ensign_Kimball: Let me give you another example
16:38 @Ensign_Kimball: Lets say that I were to open 8 charts. 4 of the charts are IBM charts (like...Daily, 1-minute, 5-minute, and 60-minute) - 4 of the charts are DELL charts (like 30-minute, 5-minute, Weekly, and Monthly)
16:39 @Ensign_Kimball: I could click the LEFT box on the all the IBM charts and change the group color to YELLOW. If I were to change the symbol...in any of the DELL charts....then they would all change to the new Symbol. If I were to change the symbol....in any of the IBM charts.. then all the IBM charts would change to the new symbol.
16:41 @Ensign_Kimball: The DELL charts would NOT change...when IBM charts changed......because they were not in the same Color Group. Now....there are 2 exceptions.
16:41 @Ensign_Kimball: If the color group box is changed to BLACK....then the chart will not be in any group. It will not participate in any Symbol changes by any other chart. This is the default for newly opened charts. If the color group box is changed to WHITE....then the chart will participate with ANY other group (a wildcard).
16:43 @Ensign_Kimball: For example, if I had my 8 charts open, as discussed above. And then opened a 9th chart. And then selected WHITE as the Symbol group color on that 9th chart. Then.....the 9th chart would change symbols whenever either the IBM or the DELL charts were changed. WHITE is grouped with all chart symbol changes
16:44 @Ensign_Kimball: Now.....what does the RIGHT color box do ??????????? We already know that the LEFT box is used for SYMBOL changes ....
16:45 @Ensign_Kimball: The RIGHT color box is used to group TIME FRAME changes (instead of Symbol changes)
16:45 @Ensign_Kimball: For example, if I were to open 4 charts (lets say IBM, MSFT, DELL, and GE ) And all the charts had the same Time Frame of DAILY chart, I could then click the RIGHT grouping box on each chart and change the colors to be the same (like Yellow)
16:47 @Ensign_Kimball: If all four charts have YELLOW as the Time Frame group color, then they will all change to the same TIME FRAME if there is ever a change in the Time Frame on any of the charts.
16:47 @Ensign_Kimball: For example, if I were to change the MSFT daily chart to be a 5-minute chart. Then all 4 charts would change to a 5-minute chart....since they are all in the same Time Frame color group
16:48 @Ensign_Kimball: The principle is the same for both SYMBOL groups....and TIME FRAME groups
16:48 @Ensign_Kimball: The 2 exceptions are also true with the Time Frame group colors.
16:48 @Ensign_Kimball: WHITE is a wildcard color that will include the chart in ANY time frame changes on any chart. BLACK is the default, and does not participate in any other chart's Time Frame changes
16:49 @Ensign_Kimball: Using the COLOR GROUP boxes allows you to open several charts and quickly change SYMBOLS or TIME FRAMES. All the charts with similar color boxes will change together...A nifty feature.
16:50 @Ensign_Kimball: Any questions on this Charting feature ?????????????????????????
16:50 dpg: Why does the time edit box have time group option? Can I create more than one group of 30 pre-defined times?
16:51 @Ensign_Kimball: The Time Frame panel has a Time Group color box. This allows the Time Frame panel to manually go and find all open windows with the same color....and then switch the time. You cannot create more Time Frame panel entries However, you CAN enter lots of Time Frames on the Charts panel.
16:53 @Ensign_Kimball: Click the 'Charts' button to display the Charts Panel
16:53 @Ensign_Kimball: The 4 columns of Chart Time Frames can be customized to your liking.....in addition to the Time Frames panel.
16:54 dpg: tnx
16:54 @Ensign_Kimball: I will now turn the Class over to Howard......for some additional Training topics..........
QnA
16:54 @Ensign_HA: alpri1: It sounds like I can't maintain a constant relationship between prices and an indicator plotted in the same window where the indicator has a fixed scale...ie: 0-100.
16:54 @Ensign_HA: correct, the price scale is an independant sheet of plastic and the price scale can shift up or down or resize. You can press CTRL-P keys and on the chart property form change the scale mode to Use Range and enter the price range and then the scale might be more fixed (at least for a while) but inevitably the scale is going to move on you, thus shifting the bars in relationship to the study you see plotted on 0..100 scale. They really are two different plots and the overlay of them is just a coincidental visual relationship that you happen to see now, and cannot count on seeing later on
alpri1: If instead of actual price, one could enter a range of price points ....say 10 points on ER so that was always the price scale, would that make a difference?
16:55 @Ensign_HA: using the Use Range setting would allow you to enter a fixed range and the prices might plot in that range for a long time. However, again I caution you that the relationship of a percent study to a price plot is coincidental. Your pick of the price range influences everything you happen to see. One range pick could put the study under the bars -- another pick could put the study above the bars. So the visual is really arbitrary
16:52 alpri1: Understand. NO magic. :) Your response is much appreciated.
16:52 @Ensign_HA: ok, welcome
Knowledgebase
16:55 @Ensign_HA: I would like to cover a few items I posted today to the Knowledgebase
16:56 @Ensign_HA: Question: I'd be grateful if you would be good enough to let me know how the minor and major trends studies for color bars are created in Ensign
16:56 Answer: Both are the same idea and that is to color bars between swing points. A high swing point is identified by seeing left and right side neighbors whose highs are lower. For a Minor trend there must be 2 bars on the left and 2 bars on the right to qualify the swing high under consideration. For a Major trend there must be 4 bars on each side to qualify a swing point. The criteria for the swing low is the inverted logic of comparing lows.
16:58 @Ensign_HA: any questions about the Major and Minor Trends color bar selections?
REFRESH
16:59 @Ensign_HA: Let me offer some training on how refresh works.
16:59 @Ensign_HA: Click menu Setup | Manager and see what the selection is in Intra-day frame which is the automatic refresh amount requested when a chart is opened. If you open a workspace then the multiple refresh requests get queued and will be processed in sequence as a request completes. Reset Chart Defaults is a way to adopt chart properties and is unrelated to anything about refreshing. Opening a chart will fire off a refresh request if such is asked for on the Intra-day frame selection on the Setup | Manager. Makes no difference if the opening is as an individual chart via a quote page, charts panel, or via a workspace. Manually requesting a refresh is one way to refresh the chart and would be something you do if the Intra-day frame quantity selection had been changed to Disabled.
17:00 @Ensign_HA: Any questions about Refresh?
Mixed Symbol Data on a chart
17:00 dpg: last week I ended up w/ a price from ES on CAT -- that was w/ esignal
17:01 @Ensign_HA: dpg, the most likely cause is you had a corrupted tick pool and the thread of ticks ES was extracting were incorrectly the CAT thread. This is caused by improper exit of Ensign, such as a crash, so the correct pointers are saved . If you do have a crash, please click menu Setup | Charts, select Maintenance tab and do task #3 to discard the tick pool. Then the chart will not build bars from the wrong thread, and your refresh will replace the bars the chart might be missing.
17:03 dpg: when tick pool is discarded, what does that mean?
17:04 dpg: like if I did that now, after ES #F contract month has changed, would it affect todays historical data?
17:04 @Ensign_HA: the tick pool is a resouce we will use to bring the chart current from when it was last saved upon opening. If there is no tick pool, we will not be able on our own to add bars. In that case, the only resource to replace the missing bars is via the refresh
17:05 @Ensign_HA: now let me give some training on continuation symbol roll over and refresh for IB users.
17:05 @Ensign_HA: On the top of the chart for the #F continuation we show the month the #F is resolving to. Please indicate if you see a (U) for Sept or a (Z) for December. The month the #F resolves to is according to the Roll Schedule in the Setup | Symbol Properties table. Possibly your schedule is not what you want and either the symbol has not yet rolled, or it rolled earlier than you wish it to. Press CTRL-P keys and on the chart property form you can select which source the refresh data from DTN is using. You will have a selection for the specific month Ensign is tracking for #F, and a selection to use the Continuation symbol from DTN which may or may not have rolled to the next month yet. Sounds like your refresh is refreshing on one month and the current bar is tracking a different month. I cannot tell you further what to do until you discover and and identify what your Roll Schedule entries are in Setup | Symbol Properties and what selection you are using for the Refresh selection.
7:07 @Ensign_HA: Now let me show a clever DYO that implements Volume Weighted Average Price study.
http://www.ensignsupport.com/email/618.mhtml
17:08 @Ensign_HA: this knowledgebase article pretty well documents the logic of the study and its implementation. Take some time to study this example. The knowledgebase which can be viewed from the Help menu is a great resource and has grown to 500 entries. I appreciate it when users identify they had consulted the knowledgebase prior to e-mailing their question to me. Sometimes I give them back a knowledgebase article that I consider answers their question. Other times I answer the question and use it as a basis for another submission entry to the knowledgebase.
17:10 dpg: would be nice to add a string domain prefix for GVs so that we could guarantee our GVs are not being stepped on by others templates
17:10 @Ensign_HA: dpg, you can use [241] through [255] as being privately owned by the chart that owns the template. [0] through [240] will be public or global. Most GVs are temporary use
17:11 @Ensign_HA: I guess the VWAP is an example that would benefit by being private to the chart because we use two accumulators. So [2] and [3] in the example would be better designed to use [242] and [243] - the other GVs in the example of [1] and [4] are temporary use ones
Find search feature
17:14 @Ensign_HA: when looking things up in the knowledgebase, use the Find search feature. For example if I am an IB user and have a question, I would enter IB: as the Find string and click the Find button. It will then give a listing of all the titles that have IB: in them and that is a category prefix I use in every article related to IB users. You will see a list of 15 titles and other links for additional pages.
17:16 @Ensign_HA: like the picture above - so this search found 40 entries, and they can be viewed in groups of 15 on 3 pages
17:17 @Ensign_HA: ok, any questions that I might answer for you at this time?
7:18 @Ensign_HA: Thanks for attending this training class, and have a good week of trading.
ESPL arrays
17:18 Light: I am wondering about the use of TArrays in ESPL Howard -- when are their values released and will they hold values when a new bar comes in?
17:18 @Ensign_HA: I can answer Light
17:19 Light: ok Thanks Howard - couldn't type fast enough
17:19 @Ensign_HA: did you read the Help documentation about TArray?
17:20 Light: yes - and about vArray
17:20 @Ensign_HA: you can have any number of them, and they are to be created and freed like a string array. by default they will be 2100 in size as the chart and their content will be persistent between creation and destruction
17:21 Light: will they maintain their values after a loop that fills them?
17:21 @Ensign_HA: there is 1 VarArray that Ensign will create and destroy and it can be sized with the DimArray function. yes Light, they are persistant
17:22 Light: TArrays are persistent?
17:22 @Ensign_HA: yes
17:22 Light: ok - wow - I don't know where I got the wrong impression then -- I thought they lost their values when new bars were created
17:22 @Ensign_HA: look to see where you create and free them
17:23 Light: yes - will their values stay in place until I free the TArray?
17:23 @Ensign_HA: yes, yes, yes
17:23 @Ensign_HA: that is what I said in my earlier statements
17:23 Light: ok that's great -- thanks Howard - I misunderstood how they behave - that will solve a significant problem I have mistakenly faced
17:23 ken: @Ensign_HA, Hi, Each day I refresh the Charts, it gives me 6 days of data, I could not save this data, as the next day I refreshed it also show only 6 days . the past data are not save. How could I save these past data for more then 6 days?
17:24 @Ensign_HA: ken, chart files should save when you close chart and the new data each day would append to the existing chart so over time
17:24 @Ensign_HA: it grows to be much larger than 6 days. What is the time frame of the chart ken?
17:26 ken: @Ensign_HA, 168 volume chart
17:26 @Ensign_HA: ok, on an active symbol that would create bars quickly. Press CTRL-P keys to see chart property form. Possibly you need to increas the Max Bar setting so the file stores more bars before it drops off oldest bars to respect the Max Bars setting in use. If the Max Bar is currently 2000 bars, and you do not have enough back days, consider increasing it to 5000 and close the form. The Maximum is 65530, however I do not recommend having such a big number
17:27 ken: @Ensign_HA, I have use 65000 bars in the properties box because that uses memory for both the chart file and all study calculations.
ok 65000 is a big number. Now on the left side is the # Bars to tell you the current size of the file. What is the current size?
:29 ken: @Ensign_HA, 28910
17:30 @Ensign_HA: ok, file has room to grow and if it has 6 days now, tomorrow it will have 7 days - refresh is not the issue - you can check its size tomorrow after another day of collection - possibly you do not realize how far back the current file is going.
Ken: But every day is 6 only, I have it for many weeks
17:31 @Ensign_HA: hold down the shift key and click the Reset button (white diamond image on button) and this will jump you to the first bar in the chart file
DYO
17:33 stock: can anyone help construct an indicator? the indicator is: 11*C(close today)-9*C1(close yesterday) then a 21 period exponential average of that result. This results in one line. Then a 21 period of that line. Crossovers are the action signal. I think this is sometimes refered to as the STIX indicator. Thnks.
17:41 @Ensign_HA: ok I posted a repeat of you suggestion/request
17:41 @Ensign_HA: I will use a DYO to implement the formula -- give me a couple seconds to whip it out
17:45 @Ensign_HA: ok, stock, let me discuss the implementation.
17:46 @Ensign_HA: the Close today is really just close of current bar, as this formula could be applied to intra-day charts as in my example. The Close Yesterday is really close of prior bar
17:46 stock: true
17:46 @Ensign_HA: Line A does the Close * 11 and puts result in GV[1]
17:47 @Ensign_HA: Line B does the Close yesterday * 9 and stores in GV[2]
17:47 @Ensign_HA: the key to why B differs from A is the use of the -1 bar offset
17:47 @Ensign_HA: any questions about A and B
7:50 @Ensign_HA: Line C computes the subtraction of A-B
17:50 @Ensign_HA: Then Line D does an exponential average of the Line C values and Line E does the average of the Line D values
7:50 @Ensign_HA: Line D and E are plotted in the line style and colors you see for the Show Marker
17:51 @Ensign_HA: The Study Location is Sub-Window 1 and the Study Scale is determined from the Data Set
:52 topset: Howard, u are showing this on a 5 min chart. Line b is still yesterday's close?
17:52 @Ensign_HA: no, line B is prior bar close - if this were plotted on a daily chart then it would be today's close - yesterday's close
17:53 topset: ok
17:53 @Ensign_HA: for generalization for any chart I think it should be as shown, using this bars close and prior bar's close. If you truly wanted Yesterday close to be used for every subtraction then a different selection would be used on Line B and the values on the sub-window scale look correct as a double check
17:56 @Ensign_HA: we should have a result that is around 2 times the curent price because of the 11 factor minus the 9 factor and the scale is 2470ish which is double the current price of 1235ish
17:56 stock: is the red line the 21 xma of the blue?
17:57 @Ensign_HA: yes it is -- Line E is average of Line D values
17:57 @Ensign_HA: ok, you can do lots of clever things with the DYO form
17:57 @Ensign_HA: Have a good evening and week.
17:57 @Ensign_HA: Bye now.
17:57 stock: thanks - Light: thanks again Howard