Colorbands for studies, rollover, alerts, plot lines, plotting average trends, custom symbol field choices

October 6 , 2004

631 @Ensign Welcome to today's class with the developers.

Colorbands for Studies

1631 @Ensign The latest addition to the EW program is the ability to show studies as color bands instead of as curving lines.

1631 @Ensign This is accomplished by selecting a color band position on the study property form.

1633 @Ensign As an example, this is a chart with a typical Stochastic using Zones, where the Above 80 and Below 20 zones have the Marker dots added.

1634 @Ensign The same study will be shown in the next image as a color band instead of a curving line.

1636 @Ensign The study window was resized because less vertical space is needed to show when the study is above or below the zone levels. The Dots are the indicator, same as before.

1637 @Ensign This is the property window for the Stochastic. Note that the Color Band Positions selection is something other than NONE, and as such it causes the study to plot as a color band in the selected position in the Location panel selected.

1638 @Ensign Does anyone have a question about this new plot feature added to most of the studies in Ensign?

1639 al_gorithm this is a very nice addition to Ensign. I will be using this feature.

1639 diego could it plot both, the band and the lines at the same time?

1639 @Ensign diego, you would have to put on a 2nd copy of the same study.

1639 diego ok, thanks. I like it very much -)

1640 @Ensign one copy would have Color Band positions selected, and the other copy would have None selected for Color Bands.

http//www.ensignsoftware.com/whatsnew.htm

1640 @Ensign Here is a list of recent changes in the program. Does anyone have any question about some change?

Rollover and refreshing it

1640 MagicTrader yes - about #F rollover how do you handle it ?

1641 @Ensign For example, the IB, DTN satellite, and Internet versions can now build playback files from the Internet tick download.

1641 MagicTrader (as the date are different for ZN #F and for ES #F for example)

1641 @Ensign ok lets discuss #F.

1642 @Ensign for the eSignal feed, #F was a continuation symbol automatically rolled by eSignal on a schedule, such as 8 days before the 3rd Friday for ES.

1642 @Ensign many using IB requested the same convenience for their charting, quote pages, and workspaces. They wanted to use one symbol that would auto roll as contracts expired. So we implemented in Ensign a #F for the IB users in this manner.

1643 @Ensign On the SetUp | Symbol Properties table is a Roll-Out schedule that will control when each symbol rolls to the next month.

1643 @Ensign Let me show you the table for ES

1643 er2 Do you back fill the ES intraday from DTN feed?

1644 @Ensign on the right side of the table you see Months that ES trades is set to HMUZ and the Roll Day will be the 3rd Friday minus 8 days. So for Sept, the roll day was Thursday Sept 9th. Prior to the 9th the #F symbol would resolve to connect to the TWS using ES U4. On Sept 9th, the #F symbol would resolve to connect to the TWS using ES Z4. The same behavior will happen in the month of December, 8 days ahead of the 3rd Friday. On that roll date, the #F will resolve to ask for ES H5 as the sym.

1644 MagicTrader can the #F also work with Eurex symbols like GBL or DAX ?

1646 xr33 Does the roll out feature apply to DTN users?

1647 MagicTrader #F does it also work with Eurex symbols or just CME/CBOT ?

1647 @Ensign for DTN satellite users you have always had the relative symbols for quote pages such as ES # and ES #1 and ES #2.

1647 @Ensign #F does not apply to the satellite users, but he ES # does.

1648 @Ensign #F will work with any symbol in lieu of the regular trade month and year.

1648 xr33 I'll have to look into that. Thanks

1648 @Ensign however, the root symbol needs to be in the Symbol Properties table so we can see a roll out schedule.

1648 @Ensign Now, for ES the table many of you have has a selection other than the one shown. The Roll Day entry of 3rd Fri - 8 is a NEW SELECTION. Please edit your table entry to be as shown if you are going to use #F with IB feed

1649 MagicTrader ok so that is why DAX #F doesn't work by default. I need to fill Months and Roll day in the symbol properties right ?

1649 @Ensign yes you need to set up a roll schedule.

1649 @Ensign Now let me answer an earlier question about refresh.

1650 @Ensign The #F is going to be something we resolve to an actual symbol for IB feed. We have for the IB feed refresh that we are buying from DTN Market Access. They do not have a #F continuation symbol, just the regular symbols. So when you have a #F daily chart showing and ask for it to be refreshed we resolve #F to be Z4 and ask for ES Z4 data for the quantity you requested.

1651 at65 how do you get Canadian charts with qchart feed?

1651 @Ensign If your #F file has Sept data in it, please do not refresh a large amount because the refresh will be Z4 data and it will overwrite earlier bars you have collected. So it would be fine now to refresh a couple weeks on daily chart because that is indeed Z4 data for a continuation file.

1652 MagicTrader on rollday we need a new definition which is 3rd friday of the expiration month for DAX and ESTX50....so far this selection is not possible

1653 @Ensign Magic trader, if you want to roll on 3rd Friday then enter 3rd Fri as the text.

1653 MagicTrader ah ok thank you

1653 @Ensign We have a couple often used entries in the drop down list, but that is not limited to what you can enter. Use 3 letters for the day of the week. You could type in 2nd Wed -3 or 2nd Wed +5 or just 2nd Wed. The program will understand which week, which day of the week, and add or subtract number of days

1655 MagicTrader smart!

1656 @Ensign Now, ES expires on 3rd Friday, BUT that is not necessarily when eSignal or traders like to roll out. Roll day is different than last trading day. So we roll ES based on what eSignal symbol is going to do. That way IB users of #F will do the same roll as their friends using eSignal.

1657 MagicTrader 2nd business day preceding the 3rd Wednesday (for EuroFX). So it will be 3rd Wed-2 for EUR, GBP, CHF and others

1658 @Ensign you can pick your own roll date of course.

1658 @Ensign yes, that would work magic if that is the date you want to roll for the currencies.

1658 p8 MagicTrader, I usually use 2nd Monday of expiration month. for those futures.

1659 p8 but I also check the volume of front month contract for confirmation.

1700 Randy__NC A chart (or spread sheet) with the different roll dates for the Different markets would be nice.. anyone up for putting it together for us IB Users?

1703 p8 it's pretty much covered above Randy, Indices, and currencies., bonds are generally close to first notice day, which is towards the end of the preceding month from the expiration month.

1703 p8 but I just use what IB force us to use, no option for bonds

Alert

1658 Merv I would like to create an alert that would change the color of a single candle or bar 5 bars ago if it contains the lowest low or highest high of those last 5 or more bars can you help me?

1659 @Ensign Merv, use the Donchian Channel tool with the NR option checked on the property form.

1659 @Ensign Let me show you the set up for your color bar request.

1704 Merv I have the Donchian Channel study on the chart and mark NR bars checked but no color change in bars ???

1705 @Ensign This example is marking Narrow Range bars for a parameter of 5, and the property form is showing the color bar marker for the Top selection.

1706 @Ensign The upper band line has been changed to blank so it does not draw. The marker is the color bar selection and the Color is Red for these narrow range bars....Uses the Upper parameter of 5 for the NR lookback.

1710 p8 Howard, would that work if you have overlapping donchian bands but you set the market only on one of the bands. eg. having 2 bands, one parameter 10 and others 20. and set the market only on 10. should that work?

1710 Merv The Donchian Channel is painting a narrow range bar.. I want the bar that contains the lowest low or highest high of the last 5 or more bars...is this possible with an alert or nested alerts?

1715 Merv I want it to be the lowest low followed by at least 5 bars this gives a rolling 5 bar range.

1719 Merv I guess I am looking for Swing Highs and Swing lows followed by at least 5 bars that do not violate the swing low or high not a rolling 5 bar range maybe I am not expressing it clearly

1720 @Ensign perhaps you can use the Major Trends color bars tool. It watches for 4 following bars from a swing point to not violate the swing point. So in the example, look at the swing top as last Green Bar, and swing bottom as last Red bar.

1722 @Ensign You could then have alert tag bars where Green changes to Red and also Red changes to Green.

1723 Merv is that value of 4 changeable?

1723 @Ensign no 4 is not changeable.

1724 @Ensign Here are the Swings found by Auto Trends (or could use Pesavento Patterns tool too). Swings marked in example with the Blue square marker, and the trend line hidden by the blank line style. Min Bars parameter is set to 5 as you desire

1725 Merv getting much closer can we get those bars with the squares to change color?

1726 @Ensign yes use color bar marker instead of the square, let me illustrate

1727 Merv that's it great thank you

1727 @Ensign wonderful, glad we found something in the library of tools that will help

1727 Merv you know I like the marker even better

1728 Randy__NC You'll get to see a lot of them as the bars are forming... -)

1729 @Ensign you might want to use Pesavento Patterns instead, because the Marker for this tool will be slightly higher than the high, and slightly lower than the low for the marker placement.

1730 @Ensign See the posted chart example.

1730 @Ensign We are marking the same bars as the Auto Trends tool, but you see the dot markers are above and below the swing bars.

1731 @Ensign where as in the auto trends, the markers were on top of the high and on top of the low

Plot line

1729 dljtrader @Ensign, could we plot a trend line at a set angle from swing highs or lows kind of like a pyra point ? For example, a swing high then plot a trend line sloping down

1732 @Ensign dlj, use the FIb Circle tool with some of its parameters to have a line at a fixed angle

1732 @Ensign let me illustrate, 1 moment.

1733 @Ensign you can put in the angle on this tool, and it will draw a vector in both the up and down angle directions as shown,. This could be your default setting for the Fib circle, and thus you get the same diagonal line every time you plot one on a swing high or swing low. Of course, the usefulness of a constant angle depends highly on the chart scaling. You can affect usefulness by changing bar spacing or scale range.

1735 dljtrader must I manually plot that or will auto trend or something like that place it at the last swing high or low?

1735 @Ensign yes manually put on the fib circle.

1735 @Ensign auto trends will not do one at a constant angle. Auto trends will pick its one plot points which vary according to the data

1737 @Ensign guess the closest we have to the auto mode you seek is the Ave Trend line in Auto Trends. The Ave Trend will be an adjusting average of the lines that have been used recently as trend lines. Let me show the Ave Trend line.

How Average trend plotted

1739 Randy__NC and could you describe again what its an average of?

1739 @Ensign yes, let me illustrate

1740 @Ensign The actual trend lines calculated are drawn in GREEN. Now considering those that are upward trends, some are near 45 degrees, some are steeper and the last one draw happens to be horizontal. The blue lines are an exponential moving average of the slopes of the up trend lines drawn earlier with greater weighting to the most recent up trend line drawn.

1742 @Ensign so see in example first average up trend line drawn in blue, it is similar in slope to the prior green up trend line. Blue is the average or suggested trend. The actual for the 1st up blue line happened to be a bit flatter, so the NEXT blue uptrend line is a bit flatter too. Now when the horizontal up trend line in green is averaged in , it tilts the forecast blue line to be even flatter.

1744 Merv once I change the marker for a study to the color bar marker and then change this marker to something else like a dot, the marked bar stays the prior color...is there a way to reset this?

1745 @Ensign yes merv, select Color Bars drop down list and select Normal and it will recolor all back to default color

Custom Symbol field choices

1745 ex78 I am trying to set up a custom symbol which is the spread between the ES #F bidsize and asksize....NetBid = es #f (bidsize) - es #f (asksize). Cant get it to work as yet.

1745 @Ensign 1 moment ex78, let me check

1746 ex78 Asize

1746 @Ensign ex78, the Help documentation shows the above information. .... the field is Bsize and Asize not bidsize and asksize

1746 ex78 dif in esignal docs thx

1747 @Ensign welcome.

1748 @Ensign Thanks for attending the class.... today's conversation with the developers should have been informative to many. Lots of good examples have been illustrated today on how to do things in Ensign Windows.

1748 @Ensign Usually is the case that something can be done in more than one way, or an idea can be accomplished using tools already in place. Enjoy..

1748 @Ensign Bye.

1749 @Buffy2 thanks Howard

1749 dwas tks

1749 LB thanks Howard!

1749 bob thank you

1749 Merv thanks guys always learn something here

1751 dljtrader thx