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FXCM, #1600 NR7 template, Pesavento Swings, Inserting a Bar, Pesavento Patterns Prop Window,Files/Files2 |
April 18 , 2007
16:41 Ensign Howard: Welcome to the training class.
FXCM
16:43 Ensign Howard: The exciting news for this week is we have been working on our FXCM implementation again to have Ensign connect directly with our server for the feed and its data refresh instead of utilizing our Ensign Data Server interface program. We have this version with the direct connect between Ensign and our servers available for beta testing by our FXCM feed users.
16:44 Ensign Howard: To get the beta version, if you are willing to test it, is to use Internet Services form, wait for the Download page to fill in the version dates, and then select the Beta Version bullet which you see is dated 04-18 in the example. Then Click the Download button to get the version and start the installation. The only difference you should observe is that you get the feed without the FXCM application opening and moving to the Windows task bar.
16:46 Ensign Howard: I have noticed in time tests that we can get the 100,000 tick refresh reply in 5 seconds with the beta version of Ensign whereas it takes 7 seconds to get the refresh when the data is being passed through the FXCM EDS program.
16:47 Ensign Howard: So, once this beta is officially released, those who want the FXCM feed would simply check the FXCM box on the Setup | Connection form. There is nothing else to download and install to get the feed. That will make it much simpler for FXCM users. They install Ensign and check the box and it all works.
16:48 Ensign Howard: This past weekend there was a new pair of forex symbols added and they are the USD/DKK and the DKK/USD pairings. So the forex symbol set is up to 56 symbol pairings now, which is excellent.
16:51 Ensign Howard: In the non-beta version you use an FXCM program to interface between Ensign and our servers, and on that FXCM form you could check a box to see the data feed content in an ASCII format.
16:51 Ensign Howard: In the beta version where we do not use an FXCM interface program, you can still see the live data feed by going to the Setup | Connection form in Ensign Windows, click the Show Log button and enter the keyword of FXCM in the small edit box above the button.
16:52 Ensign Howard: This example shows the FXCM feed showing in the log window.
16:53 Ensign Howard: Some of the key tags we have in our feed are S= for symbol, A= for Ask Price, C= for Bid or Close price (ie trade price) F= is for flags of B=Bid, T=Trade, A=Ask u= is our tag for the time stamp in universal time of seconds from Jan 1st, 1970
16:54 Ensign Howard: Any questions about our free forex feed, which is from FXCM and we think the feed is quite excellent. You do not have to have an account with FXCM. The history for the refresh is also maintained by Ensign on our servers, and we have 14 years of daily for most symbols
16:55 Ensign Howard: 4 months of intra-day, and 100,000 ticks for tick based charts which could be a few days depending on the symbol's activity level. Both are excellent. Both will track each other quite well, but not necessarily be on the same price.
16:55 Vijay: Question! How does this feed compare with IB feed, please? Should I stick to IB feed because I trade through IB?
16:56 Ensign Howard: This difference between order desks is explained in the last paragraph on this web page. Yes you should chart IB forex because that matches what you can be filled at.
http://www.ensignsoftware.com/help/fxcm.htm
16:57 Ensign Howard: Howver, you can also chart the FXCM feed simultaneously. No harm done to chart both. Let me post both charts for comparison,
17:02 Ensign Howard: This chart shows the FXCM feed in black and the IB feed for the same symbol and time frame overlaid in blue bars. Does that help answer your question Vijay?
16:57 Vijay: Thanks, Howard excellent work! Is IB feed always slightly higher than FXCM?
17:03 Ensign Howard: I do not know if that is the case, but this particular chart hints at the IB feed being a pip higher for the bids.
17:04 Vijay: Thanks Howard.
17:05 Ensign Howard: welcome..
17:05 Ensign Howard: Any more questions or feed back about forex?
17:05 zingo: Howard, how do you get the display of the volume bars that are shown on that chart?
17:06 Ensign Howard: zingo, press CTRL+V keys to toggle the volume panel into view. This is a rotation between hidden, showing, showing Ask\Bid volume, etc, so press multiple times until you see what you seek for the volume sub-windows
17:07 Ensign Howard: Now there is no trade volume, just bid and ask prices. We have invented a forex feed volume by using a trade vol of 1 for each bid received. This is better thought of as a tick count but it still shows periods of higher activity or thinness in the market. The chart last posted is a good example of high activity (hence volume) between 6 and 7 am and sluggishness between 11 and 12. So it is cool to have. In our implementation of a volume for the daily charts, we use the total tick (bid) count as the daily volume.
17:10 Ensign Howard: So here is a daily chart showing our count volume since we started keeping track of the daily counts a month ago.
17:09 zingo: TKS
17:09 Frank: Howard how do you get IB forex feed pls?
17:10 Ensign Howard: Frank, you would need to have the free IB Ideal and IdealPro active on your account. Then in Ensign, go to Setup | Manager and on the symbol list add the currency pair with a -(BID) suffix. This will chart the bids from IdealPro. So the symbol would be EUR/USD-(BID)
17:11 Ensign Howard: The data sent for 'trades' is way to thin to chart. but the data sent for bids is great for plotting the charts we showed overlaid on the fxcm chart.
17:12 Ensign Howard: EUR/USD(BID) without the dash would be from Ideal order desk and EUR/USD-(BID) would be from the IdealPro order desk. I seemed to have settled in on using the IdealPro, but have no particular reason why
17:14 Vijay: How do I get refresh on IB feed for EUR.USD @ IDEALPRO?
17:15 Ensign Howard: VIjay, you have the EUR/USD-(BID) chart showing, right mouse click and select the pop-up menu for refresh
17:14 mikey: Howard, what is the difference between IDEAL and IDEALPRO?
17:15 Ensign Howard: I do not know the difference Mikey
17:15 Fugitive: I believe you get better spreads on PRO and can trade larger size
DYO 1600 -- NR7 Template
17:20 Ensign Howard: Next topic for training is on a DYO I did recently for a user on the topic of Narrow Range 7 bars.
http://www.ensignsupport.com/email/1600.mhtml
17:21 Ensign Howard: This DYO example does a couple clever things, such as use the Bar Offset to reference prior bars. We used 6 lines of the DYO to read the bar ranges of the prior 6 bars and stored these 6 values in adjacent Global Variables, 1 though 6.
17:22 Ensign Howard: Line G then finds the Minimum value in a set of GVs, and the set size is the Number field value of 6, and the starting position of the set is the Read GV index of 1. So this function returns the smallest of the ranges for the prior 6 bars.
17:23 Ensign Howard: This value is then compared with the current bar's Range and when the current bar range is smaller then it is marked with the pink chevron
17:24 Ensign Howard: This example shows referencing earlier bars with the negative Bar Offset values, and finding the Minimum value in a set of GVs.
17:24 Ensign Howard: Any question about this example for the NR7 concept, which is to flag the bar if it is the smallest range in a set of seven bars. We have NR7 already built into the Donchian Channel study, and prefer you use that study if you want to mark NR7 bars.
17:26 Ensign Howard: The DYO was done to show concepts and the user wanted to do something with alert signals he did not feel he could do with the Donchian channel.
17:27 Ensign Howard: OK, it is uploaded and will show on the Template dropdown list on the Internet Services form. Enjoy.
17:28 marketguy: How do we set NR7 in Donchian study?
17:29 Ensign Howard: marketguy, on the Donchian property form is a check box for show NR7 and it uses the marker on the top line
17:29 Ensign Howard: let me post example of the Donchian
17:32 Ensign Howard: Here is an example, but as I marked it with arrows I realized I had not changed the 1st parameter to be a 7, so that is a small mistake. For a NR7 you need 1st parameter on 7. My example is really a NR 6. And the Donchian channel lines are not being plotted, but they could be if you want them to show
Pesavento Patterns Swings
17:28 Ensign Howard: Now the next topic to cover is a bit more explanation of the swing points you all see in the Pesavento Patterns tool. This has become one of the most used tools in Ensign. This is a very popular study and used in many different ways.
17:36 Ensign Howard: In this example we have the swings found by the PP tool marked with trend lines and with the blue ball markers. This looks very nice historically, but is a bit more challenging when viewed in real-time
17:37 Ensign Howard: Take, for example the last big up swing at the right side of the chart. The blue ball and the last trend line are only showing for the final best position of this swing up at the 1.3613 price. However, while this swing was in progress of being made from 12:30 to 14:45 there were several points along the way that had the trendline drawn and the blue ball positioned above.
17:39 Ensign Howard: The tool tries to be real-time, and marks potential swing points along the way. These interim points were 'undrawn' or removed when they were replaced by a better swing point that followed. This moving target of the swing point to a better swing point is frustrating to some but we have no way of really knowing if the current swing point will be a final 'best' swing point that sticks.
17:42 Ensign Howard: Let me illustrate the issue with a DYO that connects swing points from the Pesavento Patterns flags.
17:42 Ensign Howard: This is a clever little DYO that connects the Highs of bars that were tagged by the Pesavento Patterns as a swing bar
17:43 Ensign Howard: Some of these swing bars were 'best' points and have the swing point balls on them, and others were interim points that were replaced by better swing points that followed.
17:44 Ensign Howard: Take for example, the last two green balls, but the green line intended to connect these two points, is connecting a couple highs between them and makes for a bent line. Also the last red line connecting the swing lows first jumps to the 3rd bar after the last swing high. That was a swing low point at the time the bar was forming, but it got replaced by lower lows in the down trend.
17:46 Ensign Howard: The last red ball is showing on the lowest bar in the downmove, but it COULD also be an interim swing low if it is taken out by a lower low before an uptrend is seen. If the last red ball swing point is taken out, the red ball on that bar will be removed (now that it has the benefit of hindsight) and the last trend will be drawn from the last green ball on the swing high to the new lower low swing price
17:48 Ensign Howard: IF we know NOW that this marked swing low was NOT going to be taken out, we would have a crystal ball worth millions.....
17:49 Ensign Howard: So, you see the challenge of marking swings in real-time, .... but the tool is better than nothing and subject to changing what gets marked as new data is added to the chart.
17:49 Ensign Howard: Any questions? Do you want to see the DYO properties used for the example?
17:50 jim-rainman: yes for the dyo
17:49 mikey: The Pesavento patterns tool in the studies window does not have any balls.
17:50 Ensign Howard: Mikey, you can configure it to have them, like this
17:51 Ensign Howard: And here is the DYO property form that draws the lines between swing highs and swing lows
17:52 Ensign Howard: The reason I am having this discussion is too often users see a pattern in hindsight and they want a signal on that pattern but do not realize the pattern is not yet firmly in place until subsequent bars are on the chart to verify it is not going to change, and then the signal is too late to take.
(Some do trade off the bar that leaves the swing marker behind.)
17:55 Rice: this is a very important point, Howard. It's so easy to be misled by the combination of hindsight and ascertainment bias when you look at something like this that even gurus have been fooled. Alexander Elder continues to maintain that triple divergences are 'the strongest signal in technical analysis', while ignoring the fact that only the ones that 'work' survive to be examined...
Inserting Bar
18:15 Jon: Is there a way for me to add bars (candlesticks ) to charts - like delete bars by pressing CTRL D - but I want to add bars that haven't yet happened -
18:16 Ensign Howard: So Jon you want to manually insert some possible bars in the future for the sake of seeing their effect on studies
18:17 Jon: yes
18:17 Ensign Howard: The answer is to right mouse click and select Edit | Data Set and insert new rows at the bottom of the table of bars -- enter the date, prices and time stamp
18:18 Ensign Howard: You can also press CTRL+I keys for Insert at the cursor location and it will insert graphically a new bar using the prior bar's close price
18:19 Ensign Howard: you can then manually press CTRL+H to edit the high to a new high marked by the cursor position, and CTRL+L to edit the low to a new low marked by the cursor position. So either way can be used to insert bars.
18:19 Jon: Thank you -- brilliant.
Discussion of Files -- xxxxxx and xxxxxx2
18:21 MakesOwnWeather: Ensign Howard, I have another question. there are Range and Range2 and other folders with a timeframe and a "2" after them. What is the distinction between the folder without the "2" and the folder with the "2"?
18:22 Ensign Howard: For all tick and intra-day charts, there is a Day Session Only chart option and when the box is unchecked, we read the chart files form the folders with the 2 representing 2 session files. When the box is checked, we use the folders without the 2 representing a single session file. We maintain 2 sets of files, one for both sessions, and one for single session so that we are not deleting 2 session data when trying to show a single session. So Volume2 has volume bars for both sessions, and Volume has the volume bars for single session.
18:25 Ensign Howard: There are \Range and \Range2 folders, and there are Volume and Volume2 and Tick and Tick2 and Minute and Minute2 folders.
18:25 MakesOwnWeather: So, Ensign Howard, if I change the market times of the day session, will data be deleted from the single session folder for those times not in that frame? But, never from the "2" folders?
18:26 Ensign Howard: yes a change to market hours can purge data that was once in the folder
18:26 MakesOwnWeather: So, can I assume that the "2" folders form a base for the single folder files.
18:26 Ensign Howard: it can also change content in the 2 folders because the both session file is still going to abide by the yours in the 2 sets of sessions
18:27 Ensign Howard: so if session 1 is 900 to 1300 and session 2 is 1500 to 2000 then the \2 folder will not have any data from 1300 to 1500 and from 2000 to 900
18:27 Ensign Howard: \2 files are not a base for the single session files -- they are independent
18:28 MakesOwnWeather: So, how can I get a file (and keep it) which has the max data for charts.
18:28 Ensign Howard: One may exist but not the other, and vice versa. Which ever way you use the DSO box will control which file is loaded.
18:29 MakesOwnWeather: So, if it does not have day session, there will be max data?
18:29 Ensign Howard: Each file will abide by the Max Bars setting you have in the chart properties, which can be as high as 65535
18:29 MakesOwnWeather: I have not gotten that far yet. LOL
18:29 Ensign Howard: A day session 2-min chart at 65535 might go back 14 months
18:30 Ensign Howard: A both session 2-min chart for the same symbol at 65535 might go back 7 months just because it has evening bars in the count
18:30 MakesOwnWeather: So, unchecking day session gets max data in the "2" folder. Correct?
18:30 Ensign Howard: So which do you consider to be max data?
18:30 MakesOwnWeather: Yes. I see what the challenge is. Thank you Ensign Howard. :>
18:30 Ensign Howard: They both have 65535 bar counts, but one covers 14 months and the other 7 months
18:31 Ensign Howard: For my Pesavento Map calculations I use 2 min Days Session Only files with a high Max Bar setting and thus I get more patterns to examine from the day session for day session forecasts. I get the 14 month type of coverage
18:33 Ensign Howard: for my Map calculations I prefer Day Session Only data which has the patterns.... the evening session data is often too thin and too bland by being sideways movement in a narrow range.
18:32 MakesOwnWeather: So, going back to my earlier question ---> you used the word "forecast". Could not the "map" be used for obtaining probabilities? And, putting a lighter color blue ball on the map as probable placement as the next bar gets filled?
18:34 Ensign Howard: Just put the map on the chart and let it be a guide of possibilities.... but it is still hard to quantify that as a percentage for probability. Possibility and probability are different beasts. We do an excellent job already with the Map showing the highest 'probability' for our forecast but I cannot say its probability is 72 % chance it will be right today and on some other day say its chance of being right is 58%
18:36 MakesOwnWeather: Yes, I also agree you do a fine job already.
Pesavento Patterns Properties Window
18:36 mikey: Howard, I would appreciate your describing the check boxes in the Pesavento Patterns Properties windows. There are a few that seem to have no visible effect, so I know I am not understanding the capability of this template
18:37 Ensign Howard: The Min Size box is a threshold retracement swing size that separates noise from a new move. Corrective movement must exceed the Min Size and Min Bars parameters to be considered a new trend. A new trend will firm up the last swing point so it does not change. I suggest you have the Auto Min Size option checked so the Min Size parameter is determined fresh for each chart the study is applied to and this determination considers the chart's range and price decimal point placement.
18:39 Ensign Howard: A Min size of 0.20 might be appropriate for ES but totally too big for EUR/USD currency pricing.
18:40 Ensign Howard: The check boxes by the Up Trend and Down Trend typically would be checked to draw swing lines and put markers over the swing points. If you want markers without the swing lines then edit the Line Style selection to use the first selection which is a blank
18:41 Ensign Howard: Another common or popular swing marker is LBL which stands for label, and this marker will put on HH, HL, LL, and LH type of label tags.
18:42 Ensign Howard: See example chart with the labels for HH = higher High, LH = Lower High etc.
18:43 Ensign Howard: The two show check boxes in the middle of the form will draw the diagonal lines connecting swing points and possibly label them with swing percentages.
18:43 Ensign Howard: The HH, LH, LL, HL tags are automatic when LBL is the marker
18:44 Ensign Howard: Uncheck the other 2 Show check boxes if you do not want the triangle lines drawn
18:44 Ensign Howard: On the right side are options to also show Fibonacci levels for the last swing, or the last couple of swings.
18:45 Ensign Howard: The S&R option will show horizontal lines at the swing prices
18:46 Ensign Howard: The options for 2nd location and Left location are slight variations on where the markers are positioned.... this is done so multiple Pesavento Patterns sharing the same swing points can show their markers without being on top of each other.
18:46 Ensign Howard: The Min Size as a % is an option to enter Min Size as a percentage, such a 0.5 instead of as a price change.
18:49 Ensign Howard: ok, thanks for attending class, and I hope some of the FXCM feed users will give the beta version a try and let me know. I do not think you will not have any problem with the beta. If you do, you can install the regular version and be back to using the FXCM EDS interface program as you do now. Goodnight
18:53 MakesOwnWeather: Thank you Ensign Howard. Have a good night.
18:54 Tick: thanks Howard
18:54 virt5: right
18:54 mikey: thanks Howard.