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IB Refresh, Voice thru Echat, QnAs |
November 16 , 2005
16:29 @Ensign_HA: Hi... Welcome to today's training class with Ensign.
16:30 @Ensign_HA: I can take your questions and see where we head with them. Please change the color on your member list nickname and I will call on you to have your question answered. To select a color on the nickname list, right mouse click and pick a color on the pop-up menu
16:30 dblue: Well Howard... my workspace opened properly for the first time in a long time just now ;)) Thanks
16:40 @Ensign_HA: ok, kongfuzi, your question please
16:41 Kongfuzi: hi, is there a way to save a workspace and all the data undelying the charts for historicall purposes? So I can annotate say a workspace for a week and then in the future go back and review?
16:42 @Ensign_HA: kongfuzi, the workspace is a file, and each chart is a file. So to reconstruct what you are seeing, you would have to copy the workspace file and each chart file to a historical place. That can be tedious to do to save, and then the reverse process just as tedeous to restore
16:43 Kongfuzi: yeah - so what do peope do just print stuff out?
16:43 @Ensign_HA: I would suggest for the sake of review that you print the charts and file in a book instead of trying to save and restore files.
16:43 Kongfuzi: ok thx
16:44 Shar: You can just save the charts as images in a special folder in your Documents. That's what I do.
16:45 Kongfuzi: thx Shar, great Idea had not thought of that
16:44 @Ensign_HA: ok allangold, your question
16:44 allangold: Refresh on the Beta is very slow at nite -- for forex -- either using 1 week for DTN or Max for ib -- any suggestions please?
16:45 @Ensign_HA: allangold, the forex refresh from DTN will be through the prior Friday only. While that is fine for getting history back a few months, that leaves a gap for all of this week. Fortunately the IB refresh for forex can fill in the gap for this week.
16:46 @Ensign_HA: The forex data from IB is not trade ticks, but rather bid/ask mid points, and the current version of the Beta does the best it can to reconstitute open, close, high, and low from these refresh values. Now the reason it is so much longer for an IB refresh than other symbols is that regardless of the minute timeframe you are following, such as 15 minute, we ask IB to send us 1 minute bars and that way we can use the mid value for the 1st minute of a 15 min bar as the open price, but by asking for 1 minute bars, we have 15 times the size of the refresh to receive and process to build 15 minute bars. So I can annotate say a workspace for a week and then in the future go back and review
16:49 allangold: So, Howard, would you say this is accurate enough to actually trade forex cash with IB at nite?
16:50 @Ensign_HA: oh, the live update is not the issue - you can trade the live feed just fine
16:50 allangold: oh Great !! --- excellent explaination -- Thanks....
16:50 @Ensign_HA: But when it comes to having a history via a refresh, the IB database does not issue Open and Close value in the intra-day bar. So we ask for 1 min bar refresh to build higher time frame minute bars so we have a better open and close values to put in those bars. The IB refresh for intar-day bars for forex returns for our consumption 4 values, an Average Bid, High, Low and Average Ask. Thus we are missing the typical period Open and CLose values that are wanted and would be returned for all other markets.
16:53 allangold: So, the @CASH part of the properties settings will have no effect as far as times listed for market hours etc.?
16:54 @Ensign_HA: If the symbol is reading the @CASH record, then that is where its market hours are coming from. However, many forex symbol are in the symbol property table with their own private record, in which case, they read their own private record's hours and the @CASH is just the market group for which quote page they will be grouped on
16:56 allangold: property settings seem to be changing themselves -- I set and close and then next time seems to have changed -- like set for #.#### and next time changed to ###.##
16:57 @Ensign_HA: allangold, please show me the property form
16:58 @Ensign_HA: That is reading the default @CASH record which might be in use by several charts. I suggest you edit the Record field to have the root symbol and then you will have a private record. What is the symbol for this chart?
16:59 allangold: EUR/USD-(BID)
17:05 Tricky: Is voice still working though echat ? Have been trying but no luck.
17:05 @Ensign_HA: No tricky, chat voice is not working. We moved our office in Salt Lake City to a new location and since then the chat voice servers have not performed the same
17:06 Tricky: ok good to know, thx
7:06 @Ensign_HA: As before, and we have not had time to figure out the cause, whether it is the DSL line, phone company, new hardware, or port issue. However, the need for chat voice has been greatly diminished because of the new ventrilo version has been working so very well and the hosting we do for it on a commercial web site has been reliable and the space we have purchased is readily shared among all of the 20 or so ventrilo rooms. However, the chat voice is something we intend to resurrect as time permits, probably after the first of the year. The priority of the past 3 months has been the IB refresh, which is the Beta version and that is getting real close to being off of beta status now that the IB connect issue for hyperthreaded CPUs has been figured out
17:09 @Ensign_HA: ok christophe, your turn
17:10 christophe: Howard would it be possible to have Ensign and IB TWS on two different computers ?
17:10 @Ensign_HA: christophe, I think that is possible and may be something that Randy has done before with his IB on the Setup | Connection form. You will need to add to the HOST:PORT entry the IP address of the computer with the TWS
17:11 christophe: ok I got you! I thought it was just the port sorry! Is it as fast on 100mb switched network if you have tried it ?
17:12 @Ensign_HA: when the Host part of the entry is missing, then Ensign defaults to use the 127.0.0.1 address for a local connection. I have not tried it but your local network is faster then the Internet bottleneck
17:13 christophe: true thank you !
17:13 @Ensign_HA: Internet download is typically 1.5 mb and I realize that the input to TWS can be compressed, and the output of TWS uncompressed. However it is still a bigger pipeline and should not be any issue
17:14 christophe: Is it Ensign requesting every tick, tick by tick or TWS sending it to Ensign ?
17:15 @Ensign_HA: Ensign is just a receiver - TWS sends them. We add a symbol to the TWS watch list and then the push from TWS is automatic and we just catch the pushed data.
17:15 christophe: ok ! thank you Howard!
17:15 @Ensign_HA: The TWS does not seem to be every tick. It is more like a sampled time slice that is sent and that is possibly why the IB feed has a lower tick count when compared to IQFeed or eSignal but the sample rate, if there is one, seems to be faster than a second. Possibly it is affected by the total load on the system considering all symbols. But I have not been able to determine any definite answer to these questions or suspicions.
17:16 christophe: ok, got you, thanks! It might be why during news time IB usually does not lag where as esignal and IQFeed will show some lag (fast market conditions)
17:17 allangold: Is there an advantage to being an IQ subsriber as opposed to using IB if you already have an IB data feed and an account with IB?
17:18 @Ensign_HA: I have a high opinion of IB for what they deliver for the price you pay.
17:18 @Ensign_HA: the biggest complaint from users is two fold:
17:19 @Ensign_HA: 1) they do not have as high a tick count when compared to the other vendor feeds. However, I consider the tick count high enough to have a correct perception where the market is now and make trade decisions accordingly.
17:19 @Ensign_HA: 2) the refresh of constant tick charts and constant volume charts can and will change the bars that were built in real-time. That is because the refresh is either from DTN Market Access and they will refresh more ticks than IB sent in real time, or the refresh is from IB and they do not database the ticks that were sent, instead they database time bars and the smallest time slice we can request is a 1 second bar and that 1 second bar might contain multiple ticks, which obscures the ticks that were sent. Now we do the best we can to reconstitute ticks out of these 1 second time slices to use in rebuilding constant tick and constant volume bars. Does not seem to impact constant range bars
www.dacharts.com/faq/Ensign-IB-refresh-how-calc.htm
17:22 @Ensign_HA: thx buffy
17:22 @Ensign_HA: Yes, this was discussed in a previous class, and buffy has made a Q&A page of that discussion - saves me the typing - love it
17:22 christophe: The other thing about IB (which I am using) is that they dont offer TICKI or PREM calculation so if you trade using these tools....
17:23 @Ensign_HA: Each vendor can have different symbol universe than another... While IB may lack some you liked with one vendor, they may also have some new ones that the other vendor lacked. So it is a give and take both ways.
17:25 tt2: Howard I use an ESPL that gets confused when applied to more than 2 symbols. the scripts author tells me he has contacted Kimball about this in the past but as of yet I haven't recieved an answer or a cure so I an limited to using the ESPL on only 1 symbol. are you aware of this or working on a cure.? the ESPL allows for different settings for each symbol to be saved using the study tabs. there sems to be a bug somewhere that doesn't allow each saved tab settings to be used on the proper chart . ie settings saved in tab 1 for the ES are also the same settings used on the AB which has its settings saved on tab 3. This problem shows up when I have the ESPL applied to a workspace with both ES and AB charts in it.
17:26 @Ensign_HA: When you put the ESPL on the AB chart, did you go to the ESPL property form and select tab 3??
17:26 tt2: yes, what happens is both charts then start displaying incorrect labels
17:27 @Ensign_HA: so ES has tab 1 selected, AB has tab 3 selected, and then you save as workspace. Upon opening workspace the ES has tab 1 still but AB also has tab 1 settings?
7:28 @Ensign_HA: please show me tab 3 property form from the ESPL
17:28 tt2: no I cannot save the workspace or run the workspace with 2 symbols both using the ESPL so I choose to save it with the ESPL only applied to the ES
17:29 @Ensign_HA: so how is this tab 3 setting affecting labels?
17:29 tt2: it auto labels the price area of the chart using values from the ergodic
17:30 @Ensign_HA: ok, show me tab 1 property
17:31 @Ensign_HA: ok, I think I have enough to go on for Kimball to make a test for ESPL in a workspace
17:31 tt2: 1st value is vertical spacing between labels
17:35 @Ensign_HA: tt2, does not really matter (I think) what the ESPL is really doing. The issue you have described is one of the workspace not storing and restoring the unique ESPL property form values and that is what we will check out after class and e-mail a reply
17:36 tt2: ok I wasn't sure
17:37 @Ensign_HA: I suppose we will see issue with a trivial ESPL such as just reading the 1st value parameter and writing it to the Output window
17:37 tt2: fantastic i'm 10-28 but the issue has been around for awhile, its only reciently I got back to wanting to trade the AB with it
17:37 @Ensign_HA: it is the round trip of saving and restoring the workspace that seems to be the issue, and not what the ESPL does with the parameter.
17:37 @Ensign_HA: ok, well that is all the time I have available for class today
17:38 christophe: thank you very much Howard good night!
17:38 @Ensign_HA: ok, thx for attending and see you all later
17:39 @Ensign_HA: bye