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NV - New Avg added, Study Scale, Study Grid, Naming Tabs, Daily Price Lines, Mark NYSE Open, Transact Feed, FXCM |
August 15 , 2007
16:30 Ensign Howard: Welcome to today's training class. As many of you know, I have had an annual retreat to the mountains for several years to concentrate on major changes to the program. This year's retreat was the past couple of weeks, so I appreciate the patience you have had in my absence.
16:32 Ensign Howard: My staff has picked up the extra load of my being away and they have done an excellent job of keeping things running smoothly.
16:32 Ensign Howard: The effort over the past 2 weeks has been monumental with marathon hours of programming day after day. I have some things to show you about where I am headed with changes in Ensign Windows, and I apologize that more features have not made it into the program yet, probably features you privately have been waiting for. What I have accomplished filled the 2 weeks, and the intended projects could fill another 3 weeks, so I may be taking another retreat to get more accomplished.
http://www.ensignsoftware.com/whatsnew.htm
16:39 Ensign Howard: The What's New page shows a listing of the significant changes in the program. It has been released as a Beta version so that those who wish to help in polishing off the program can download it and provide feedback. If you experience an error, a visual quirk, or some other misbehavior, what I need from you then is detailed information on what the problem is and what I need to do to exercise the problem.
16:41 Ensign Howard: It is often helpful to be sent a template which dresses the chart with your studies, tools, and DYOs. If you include a chart image, don't assume I see the problem. POINT to the problem and describe it in detail. Too often I get vague e-mail reports or requests and I am left to guess what the user is talking about. If you cannot be diligent in giving me needed details, then please do not try to be a beta tester..... I would rather you wait until an official release in a month or so from now.
16:42 adrian: Can we download the beta in a separate computer so we can test and continue to trade in first computer?
16:43 Ensign Howard: Yes, adrian, that would be a good way to be a beta tester. Provide the Ensign ID from the Setup | Security form to my billing2 @ ensignsoftware . com e-mail address if the 2nd computer needs to be authorized.
16:44 Saroj: Where does one submit feedback? via email: ensign2@ensignsoftware.com?
16:44 Ensign Howard: yes saroj, that is my address and the one to communicate directly with me.
16:44 Ensign Howard: Now let me show you some of the new features.
New Averages Added
16:47 Ensign Howard: Because many of you like the Hull Moving Average which as been available as a DYO implementation, I have added it and the Predictive Average as new studies on the study drop down list. This give you the benefit of the Study Modes for Rising..Falling, Above.. Below, Zones, easy parameter changes, line styles, Data Points, etc.
16:48 Ensign Howard: Also, it makes it easier for other studies to reference the built in study, and the built in is much faster than the DYO processing, and uses less memory, etc. So, enjoy these favorites.
16:49 Ensign Howard: While on the topic of averages, Ensign has made a major overhaul to add more average formulas and expose these in all the studies that use averages. This amounted to making changes in some 30+ different studies, but the end result is a huge leap in flexibility.
16:50 Ensign Howard: Let me demonstrate.
16:50 Ensign Howard: The Study property form has been redesigned to handle the increased flexibility referred to. Here is the property form for the Moving Average study selection.
16:51 Ensign Howard: Note that this form does 2 averages and each can be independent of the other. Each average can have its own unique data point, such as the 1st average being and average of the bar Highs, and the 2nd average can average the Bar Lows. Use the selections for the Data Points to pick one of a couple dozen choices for the data point.
16:52 Ensign Howard: New with the Beta is also the ability to select unique average formulas for each average.
16:53 Ensign Howard: So there is now a Drop down selection box by the Ave 1, and Ave 2 parameters to select the formula. And this selection list is common through out all studies and offers a list of 10 formula choices.
16:54 Ensign Howard: Here is the picture of the 10 formula choices.... the 1st 6 were available in a few studies previously, and 4 more have been added.
16:55 Ensign Howard: But the really big change is that this formula selection list is available in all 30+ studies that use averages.
16:55 Ensign Howard: For example, the RSI itself does not need an average, but the RSI property form allows a 2nd line to be plotted with is an average of the RSI. Previously the formula for the average line used just Exponential, or in a couple of studies a check box option selected the Simple formula. Now the average can be any of the above 10 formula selections.
16:56 Ensign Howard: Any questions about averages?
16:56 av: Howard, during an Upgrade, will the missing values default to something? Like we now have 2 formula's for the moving average. Will the second use the selection for the first formula or will it have a default value?
16:57 Ensign Howard: yes, av, the formula selections, for example, will default to the Exponential or Simple, or other choice is used so you should not see any change to your studies by upgrading. The selections that are new will have to be manually selected.
16:58 Ensign Howard: Yes, both formulas on the Ave will be set to the same formula that was previously in use in old Ensign.
16:59 Ensign Howard: We will have documentation eventually that show the formulas for the new additions of Adaptive, Attenuation, Gaussian and Butterworth formulas. But you are welcome to select the formulas and see the change it makes to the average curve.
17:06 Ensign Howard: One word about adaptive is that it self adjusts for the momentum of the market. When the momentum picks up, the parameter shortens so the line tracks the move more quickly. When the momentum slackens, market moves sideways, the parameter adjusts to be bigger so the line flattens out and tracks further away from the price action. That is kind of cool behavior -- check it out.
Study Scale
17:08 Ensign Howard: The next new thing about the redesign is the Study Scale list box.
17:09 Ensign Howard: This box has 12 selections and they are similar to those you have enjoyed on the DYO property form. Now you will be able to customize the scale range used by a study, and lets use Stochastic as an example.
17:09 Ensign Howard: In the past the STO scale was fixed at 0..100. This is still the Default and a selection of Default will give you what you have been accustomed to in the past.
17:10 Ensign Howard: However, you can now pick a different scale range, and appropriate ones for STO might be Fixed Range, Data 50 Centerline, and Data 50 Centerline +5%.
17:11 Ensign Howard: IF Fixed Range is selected then 2 more boxes show on the form for you to enter the Range High and the Range Low.
17:12 Ensign Howard: This example would be equivalent to the Default which is 0 to 100 for the range. But you can enter custom values, such as 20 and 80 if that is the range you want Stochastic to plot on. A manually entered range might be wide enough and the study can possibly plot off range as a result. Possibly a better selection would be to use Data 50 Centerline.
17:13 Ensign Howard: This selection will find the highest and lowest values to be plotted by the study, and center that about the 50 line being at mid-panel. Thus if the high is 82 and the low is 40 then the range will be from a low of 18 to a high of 82. The 18 to 82 allows the 82 to plot and keeps the balance above and below 50 equal so 50 falls at mid-panel.
17:14 Flag: Will this new fixed range setting permit putting a blank space buffer around the prices and bar window Will BB-like standard deviation - core on each of these new averages?
17:15 Ensign Howard: flag, for something like Stochastic, if you want a buffer of blank space above and below the highest and lowest value, then select the Data 50 Centerline + 5% selection. The 5% is added to the range to give the buffer space you seek and it looks nice
17:16 Ensign Howard: Let me post examples of Sto with various scale selections.
17:18 Ensign Howard: Note in this Dataset scale the lowest touches the bottom, yet 50 is still mid-panel
17:19 Ensign Howard: Now the next example has the +5 % for the little buffer space added
17:19 Ensign Howard: For Bollinger, the issue there is the Bollinger plots on the chart scale, and thus you need to adjust the chart scale and not a study scale to give yourself the buffer.
17:20 Ensign Howard: One change in that aspect is in a chart rescaling I do have more space above and below the plotted bars which will help in this issue of wanting a little more buffer space. So that is one of the subtle changes built into the program but not announced on the changes list
17:22 Ensign Howard: This last example used just Dataset without centering, sorry forget to change the note on the chart. Notice the data goes full range, without centering and thus the 50 scale is no longer on the mid-panel position. For some, that is OK and a visual effect they want to see. It sure magnifies the amplitude of the study being plotted.
7:23 Ensign Howard: So, in summary, the new Scale range control available on all studies is another big step in flexibility. Your existing studies will convert over to use the selection Default, which is the defaults you have been accustomed to in the past.
Grids
17:24 Ensign Howard: The next big change is the implementation done for controlling Grids. The Grid frame with its 19 check box choices at 5% intervals has been removed. And the space freed up was gratefully used to make the form cleaner looking in the redesign
17:26 Ensign Howard: In its place is a new Grid button and list box. The example shows Default, but let me show a property form for Stochastic and show you the Grid object.
17:27 Ensign Howard: Here the selection list shows a grid named 70/30 has been selected and there are others on the list to choose from. The list will give 16 choices, one of which is None if you do not want a grid to show when this study is the host of a sub-window.
17:29 Ensign Howard: If you would like to see the definition for this grid selection, click the Grid button and it takes you to the Grid property form, which I will show next.
17:29 Ensign Howard: The names on the tabs at the bottom of the grid form are the names that show on the Grid list box on the study property form. So you pick the selection by a name that becomes familiar to you.
Naming Tabs
17:30 Ensign Howard: And this brings up another major change in the study and tool property forms and that is the ability to rename all the tabs.
17:30 Ensign Howard: So the 3rd tab is currently selected and currently named 70/30. Note that on the right hand side is an edit box also showing the name for the current tab.... ie it shows 70/30. If you want to change the name of the selected tab, simply type a new name in the edit box on the right side by the word Tab [ ] It is that simple and really works well. Changes you make here, of course, will show on all study Grid list boxes.
Grids Cont.
17:32 Ensign Howard: This form is similar to the Daily Price Lines form in that you have a selection list for the type of grid line, a value, color, line style, markers, and label check boxes. Since you are familiar with Daily Price LIne forms, this Grid control should be a natural to be used.
17:33 Ensign Howard: Let me show some of the cool new effects you can do with grids. I will change the selection to the Gradient tab.
17:34 Ensign Howard: This is one of the predefined selections that will install with the beta for you to learn from, like or change. The grid controls paints from the bottom to the top and so at the bottom I have selections for the Gradient Line style with a transition from White to Black
17:35 Ensign Howard: See the next to the last row with the Gradient line style. The 2nd color for the gradient is read from the next row. So it transitions from White at the 0 level to Black at the 100 level. The 100 is on the next row as well.
17:36 Ensign Howard: This is cool stuff, so please ask if you are confused at all.
17:36 Ensign Howard: On top of the gradient fill we then place solid lines in different shades of gray at 90, then 80, then 70, then on up to 10. These are listed as price values, and so they will work well with any study that plots on a 0 to 100 scale, such as stochastic does. The STO scale range is the 'price'
17:39 Ensign Howard: Let me go to the Setup | Charts properties and uncheck the Show Chart Grid in Sub-windows to remove the vertical lines
17:39 Ensign Howard: Do you like that sub-window grid?
17:40 Ensign Howard: Of course, you can uncheck the horizontal lines at every 10 increment and have just the gradient fill if you so choose but the bands are kind of cool in my opinion.
17:41 Ensign Howard: Now, in the past, all this extra background color did have an impact on chart repainting speed, and also on creating line and marker artifacts as the studies drew in realtime. However, I have focused on those issues, particularly on the issue of charting speed, and the Beta will be significantly faster. So you can totally at liberty to have and use these complex grid fills and gradients without having to have any worry about CPU burden or memory impact.
17:43 Ensign Howard: The lines color in their true colors without leaving any ghost color segments inspite of the complexity of the background coloring from the grid, or from highlights, or zone coloring.
17:43 virt5: Howard, so will the pain vanilla stuff work more efficiently as well?
17:43 Ensign Howard: Plain vanilla is identical in CPU burden. So whether it is plain or complex the process is the same and the CPU burden is identical.
17:45 Ensign Howard: This is the Pipe selection... kind of reminds me of a shiny round pipe with the 3-D surface higher in the center. Note the clean visual of the study plotted above the grid control below
17:46 Saroj: Would you please show the property box for this one?
17:46 Ensign Howard: sure
17:46 Ensign Howard: For this Pipe visual, I used 2 gradients. Note the last two checked row, does a gradient fill from 0 in Black to 50 in white and then that row with the 50 does a gradient from 50 in white to 100 in black on the next row
17:48 Ensign Howard: If you want gradient from say 20 to 80 edit the 0 to be 20 and the 100 to be 80 which I can show for the sake of illustration
17:49 Ensign Howard: I can feel the excitement building and we are sure to have some very cool grids used on charts in the future as you become accustomed to the flexibility of the new feature. Let me add two more gradients in different colors in the 0-20 and 80-100 zones
17:52 Ensign Howard: On this form you see the new gradients from 0 in Red to 20 in Black, and from 80 in Black to 100 in Green
17:53 Ensign Howard: Lots of possibilities here, and again I emphasize, there is no penalty for any performance for designing and using more complex grids in sub-windows....so enjoy them.
Copy Tabs
17:54 Ensign Howard: On what I just did, if you wanted to design a new tab, but keep the Pipe as originally shown -- select the Pipe tab, click the Copy Tab button, and then click on the new tab to receive the copy. So you could click Pipe, click Copy Tab, click tab 12, and now tab 12 is selected and has copied the pipe settings. Now you can rename tab 12, and make changes to give yourself a variation of the pipe theme.
Grids Cont.
17:57 Ensign Howard: When you put on a study that opens a sub-window, the study becomes the Host for the sub-window, and it will automatically put a new Grid object on the chart objects list. The behavior is automatic unless the study had None selected in its Grid control on its property form.
17:58 Ensign Howard: In the example chart objects list, note the presence of an entry 2nd from the bottom. It shows Grid Lines for Window 1. If you want to go directly to the grid control used in sub-window 1, you can do so by selecting this object. It is associated with the Stochastic study higher on the list, but you might have forgotten which study was the host controlling the grid in the sub-window.
18:00 Ensign Howard: The same property form will show for the Grid object by getting there this way as by clicking the Grid button on the study property form. And you can change the grid tab and that will change the sub-window visual and update the grid selection on the host study that created this grid so it should be intuitive and easy to use. I think you will like it once you have used it.
18:01 Ensign Howard: Now you might have 50 studies on the chart and they use 4 sub-windows. At most you will have 4 new Grid objects, one for each of the 4 sub-windows. So you DO not have 50 grid objects related to 50 studies. You have 4 grid objects associated with 4 sub-windows.
18:01 mikey_in_NH: Howard, tuned in late today. Did you say that the renaming of tabs is now in effect for Draw Tools as well?
18:02 Ensign Howard: Yes, mickey, renaming tabs is implemented for all property forms: Arrows, draw tools, notes, DYOs, studies, Daily Price Lines, Grids, etc. I sure like renaming tabs. I like it more than I thought I would. It is so much easier to remember what is where, such as in the names used for the Grid tabs. 80/20 or 70/30 or Pipe give me strong hints of what it looks like.
18:04 Ensign Howard: You can also save the arrangement of studies and objects as a template and apply the template to the other chart.
18:05 Ensign Howard: In this visual, you now know how to do the grid for the stochastic sub-window, it is the Pipe grid example. But for the visual on the chart, I need to explain. None of the studies will make a grid object for the host chart. However, you can fake a grid control by putting on the Daily Price Lines object and that is what I did in this example, and it also leads me into the next point of program enhancement.
Daily Price Lines
18:07 Ensign Howard: Let me show the DPL property that did this cool visual
18:07 Ensign Howard: It is just the same double gradient as explained on the Grid control. We have a gradient from 0 in black on the 1st line to 50 in white on the 2nd row and then from 50 in white to 100 in black on the 3rd row. 1st and 2nd lines have the Gradient Line style selections.
18:09 Ensign Howard: I used -0.02 on the 1st level and 101 on the 3rd row to try to overshoot a little bit because the tools normally draw on the chart with a little 5 pixel buffer at top and bottom so the grid labels will show in their entirety for those grid lines in the scale area. Don't let my little above and little below values through you off, I could have used 0 and 100 as described above
18:11 Ensign Howard: Here is the Daily Price Lines with the studies turned off. The banding is a nice visual effect and it comes from the horizontal lines of the charts normal grid. Let me turn that of by unchecking the Horz Grid box on the chart property form.
18:12 Ensign Howard: Let me put the Horz back on and the studies back on for further discussion.
18:13 Ensign Howard: Here I have the grid lines on, studies on, and the Show Draw Tools off, and DPL is a draw tool so it is not drawing though still owned by the chart.
18:14 Ensign Howard: This is a better visual of the normal chart, and it is basically part of the B-Line template. Where there are 2 keltner channels that use a Fill marker, the outer Keltner fills with the darker gray and then on top of that the 2nd Keltner fills with a lighter gray to give you the colored bands on the chart.
18:15 Ensign Howard: Now let me point out that the property to plot behind the bars is now a private chart property instead of a global one. Then studies that are to plot on top of the bars will plot, so you now have much greater flexibility is layering the studies down to get the visual effect you seek.
18:17 Ensign Howard: Let me show the DPL on again with its gradient and show the effect it has based on the position it occupies on the chart object list.
18:18 Ensign Howard: Here the DPL is on the top of the list and it is plotting behind, so the order sequence for the visual is grid goes down first, then the DPL, then the 2 Keltner channels, and you get the colored bands on top of the DPL gradient.
18:19 Ensign Howard: Now let me move the DPL position inbetween the 2 keltners
18:20 Ensign Howard: Now the outer keltner did its fill, but the DPL changes that fill with these gray color bands because of the XOR mode for the pen when it draws. This makes the outer band kind of different..... might be considered cool.... might be considered too busy.... you decide. I am just showing the visual effects that can be created.
18:21 Ensign Howard: Now I will move the DPL to be after both Keltner channels.
18:22 Ensign Howard: Now both bands get a striping effect, and the striping is different colors because the area being filled was different to begin with.
18:22 mikey_in_NH: I'm confused. I'm not seeing an daily line such as yesterday's open.
18:22 Ensign Howard: Don't be confused, the DPL tool did not have those options checked, all it did was 2 gradient fills on the whole range. You could check those boxes for showing those values.... nothing was changed there.
18:23 Tony: When the colored bands are on top of the DPL gradient, what keeps the bands from drawing over the DPL and making it obscure?
18:23 Ensign Howard: Tony, they draw, but do so with XOR pen mode and it is the XOR that is giving the visual you see. The painting will continue to give the effect you see above... nothing will be obscured.
18:25 Ensign Howard: Now I am not expecting you to use gradients on the chart, but I am just illustrating the visuals that can be achieved if you have an interest.
18:25 Ensign Howard: One thing that should be observed is the clean image of the candles and other markers... they show as intended in spite of the complexity of the background. They will paint in the sequence order you have them on the chart objects list.
18:27 Ensign Howard: Also if you use ESPL, I have not investigated the impact changes will have on ESPL, particularly with grid control, so please do not get Beta is you use ESPL.
18:28 Ensign Howard: One other side effect of the implementation of the plot behind or ahead of the bars, affected draw tools. They will now automatically extend into the future and thus we have removed the check box option on Setup | Charts to redraw tools at bar completion. Since the behavior is now automatic, the box was removed from that form.
18:30 Ensign Howard: I had in mind 4 major projects for the overhaul and they were as follows:
18:31 Ensign Howard: 1) addition of the averages and formulas throughout all studies, and that project is complete and took 4 days to accomplish
18:31 Ensign Howard: 2) focus on speed, and that included the grid, chart scale, and all aspects of chart painting, and that took 5 days to finish
18:32 Ensign Howard: You will find Ensign is much much snappier and does not get bogged down in fast markets or high volume markets inspite of your having many charts and heavily dressed.
18:32 Ensign Howard: I have done some wonderful things in this area. We did great in the past, but now we will be setting a high standard for other products to measure up to. You will be impressed, I am sure
18:33 Ensign Howard: Also, you notice this increased speed as you resize the sub-window and/or resize the chart. The chart graphics are very fluid now and it just flows nicely and smoothly.
18:34 Randy: I'll need to do some re writing... this is all I get with existing 3-4 templates but it all looks good
18:34 Ensign Howard: 3rd project is a major overhaul to foundation database issues for chart file system, and that could take 4 days also
18:35 Ensign Howard: 4th project is the Price Histogram overhaul and it could take 4 days because of the wanted complexity.
18:35 Ensign Howard: So I have 2 of the 4 major projects finished and 2 not yet started. I really need another 2 weeks in the mountains without distractions to do items 3 and 4. Once I start on 3, program will be torn apart until finished and I cannot then post upgrades for minor bug fixes. So I will hold off on starting 3 or 4 until we have had a few days of use on the Beta and get it a little more polished.
18:33 Max: When do you expect to release the final?
18:37 Ensign Howard: Max, beta status will be in place for probably 6 weeks at a minimum. Maybe I can have a programming retreat again around first part of Sept or end of Aug. But you have permission to use the beta now and if it is problematic with your template, send me the template, a description, etc, and go back to using the lst official release which is the Aug 13th version.
18:38 mikey_in_NH: Howard, a suggestion: the Day Levels and Support tools are very similar and perhaps could be combined (i.e, reworked) to make a cleaner way to put lines on a chart that are intended to stay there for the day and update themselves for the next day. I would also like to see weekly and monthly pivots as an additional option that would calculate and plot automatically. Just something to consider. I appreciate all you have done.
18:38 adrian: Howard did you have a chance to add linear regression with channels to the auto trend study? You told me you might look into that if you have enough time.
18:39 Ensign Howard: adrian, have not looked at that, and any suggestions like that are in a 2 inch binder that I look through to see what I might be improving on as I work in various areas of the program.
18:40 Ensign Howard: The final thing in the Beta is support for the TransAct data feed, and also a removal of support for the Cybertrader feed.
18:41 Ensign Howard: We have been notified by Cybertrader folks that the feed will be discontinued Dec 9th, and basically, current mutual customers should either. Migrate to the in-house SmartStreet Pro product, or find another data feed if they want to continue using Ensign. I am hoping that the later choice is what mutual customers will elect to do. They have until Dec 9th to make the change.
18:41 cris: I am thinking about switching from the esignal to the ib feed, any comments "negatives" about the ib feed sinking with Ensign? Or anything I should know? please. thanks
18:42 Ensign Howard: If you use Cybertrader, DO NOT GET the Beta, because I have already stripped out the Cybertrader code in anticipation of the Dec 9th termination of the feed. You can continue just fine between now and Dec 9th on the last official release which is the Aug 13th version.
Max Bars File Resize
18:47 Ensign Howard: OK, trendtrader, you ? now please
18:47 trendtrader: First thank you for undertaking a rewrite of Ensign. the speed improvements during fast markets will certainly be a welcome improvement for me as will the ability to display cleaner,easier on the eyes charts using the background gradient feature
18:48 trendtrader: Does the # of displayed bars on a chart affect it's file resize speed? I mean if a chart has max bars set to 2000 and it is displaying 50 bars will a wider chart displaying 200 bars redraw less often? I guess what I'm asking is what determines when old bars are "cut" from the size of the file for a given symbol and timeframe such as ES V4500 bars.
18:48 Ensign Howard: The dropping of old bars is when the Maximum Bars parameter is reached by the chart bar count. So the visual display of 50 or 200 is unrelated to when it resizes to drop old bars. The display of 50 bars can be drawn quicker than the display of 200 bars but that is trivial.
For tick based charts, the resize when triggered will drop 60 bars.
For intra-day bar charts, daily, weekly and monthly, the resize will drop 30 bars.
18:50 Ensign Howard: So on a resize of a V4500 chart, it will be a volume of 4500 x 60 bars for total of 270,000 volume before the chart resizes again
18:51 Ensign Howard: The chart loads in a resized position each morning, so you probably do not trigger a resize all day long for most futures markets.
18:52 Ensign Howard: The ES typically has a volume around 2.5 million, so it will resize about 8 times during the day. You are building around 550 bars per day with that V4500 setting
18:53 Ensign Howard: Now, just be patient and do nothing about it for the time being. One of the yet to do suggestions is to better control this resize event and we have some excellent ideas yet to implement when I do the database overhaul that will obsolete any suggestion I give now. So I will refrain from making any suggestions. Patience another month, and it can be an exciting training topic in a future class.
18:55 Ensign Howard: What I need is more time each day, which (hint, hint) means fewer e-mail from customers is possible
18:55 Ensign Howard: However, with the beta you will notice that in the resize, you benefit from snappier chart repainting so it will all see better though you did nothing different. We will be speedier in the chart repaint.
18:56 Ensign Howard: If you have beta, try resizing the chart by dragging its border around and you will see the increased fluidity of the drawing. I have resorted to implemented extremely clever graphics controls by doing more in BitMap graphics in memory for increased speed. To the end user, you just see the end result and don't quite appreciate the complexity of the overhaul that has been accomplished and why it took 5 days to implement the changes
Mark NYSE Open
18:58 Ensign Howard: guest, your ? please
18:59 guest: Howard I need to be able to set up an indicator to mark the NYSE open price on stock charts
19:00 Ensign Howard: So you have as an example a 5-min chart for IBM and want to see the day session open price as a horizontal line during the day session?
19:01 guest: Yes, but not just the open price, only NYSE open price not any other ecn. I can get it from esignal easy -- can you get it from esignal?
19:02 Ensign Howard: The quote page will be our source for the open or the chart bars themselves will be the source. You can put on the Daily Price Lines tool and chart Today's Open as one of the selections. With esignal are you using a special symbol for just the NYSE symbol for IBM?
19:03 guest: I have the daily price tool open but that shows the first print that could be any ecn, I need NYSE print
19:03 Ensign Howard: ok, is there a special NYSE only symbol?
19:03 guest: With esignal T&S, if you put =N after the symbol it begins with NYSE open price rather..
19:04 Ensign Howard: so will a chart symbol of IBM=N plot and show on the Ensign quote page?
19:04 Ensign Howard: 1 moment, let me try
19:05 Ensign Howard: ok, that worked and so we will have a solution. 1 moment and I can show you a DYO that does the open for the NYSE only
19:08 Ensign Howard: Here is how it works
19:08 Ensign Howard: I added to the Setup | Manager symbol list the IBM=N symbol so that Ensign would have the quote information.
19:08 Ensign Howard: As shown earlier, this worked and posted a quote to the quote table for stocks for IBM=N. I also has on the symbol list IBM because that is the symbol I want to plot
19:09 Ensign Howard: On this DYO, I used the Quote Value selection and entered the symbol of IBM=N on Line A and plotted the open from this symbol.
19:10 Ensign Howard: For comparison, Line B did the symbol for the chart by having the Selection be blank, it also could have been entered as IBM but blank is convenient and the lines used a label marker to show their values in the 2nd Label Column and the two symbols have a difference of 0.55 in their open values, which was nice for the sake of a test
19:11 Ensign Howard: enjoy.
19:11 guest: Howard, thanks a bunch :-)
Transact Feed
19:11 scottzman: Howard...did I see where you will support transact data feed?
19:11 Ensign Howard: Yes scottzman, we are in final stages of approval and testing with Transact
19:11 scottzman: good cause then I can get rid of pricy esignal
19:11 Ensign Howard: We think we are ready to roll. Get transact up and running first and see. They seem to have a small symbol universe. So double check that the charting is what you want before doing anything with esignal. Keep it until you are sure you can replace it without loss of abilities. Run both side by side if you have 2 computers.
19:13 scottzman: tks
FXCM
19:13 Ensign Howard: Tony your ?
19:13 Tony: Can you discuss the FXCM data feed and any plans to streamline the download process?
19:14 Ensign Howard: FXCM feed is via the servers we have in a data center in Salt lake city. We get the master feed from FXCM, and redistribute it to the 250 users that are typically connected at any given time to the FXCM server. We also maintain the tick and intra-day refresh databases for the 28 symbol pairs. When you refresh a chart, the request will bring the chart current based on the amount of data that is needed. This typically is a small amount of less than 1 day and the process happens quite quickly.
19:16 Ensign Howard: If the chart is a new chart, such as a 5-min chart, then we request the full database which can be 4 months worth of intr-day bar data and then the refresh download is now 90 times longer than the typical 1 day refresh
19:17 Ensign Howard: Possibly it is this big download takes several seconds you are observing and wish it were snappier. By comparison to any refresh from any of our supported vendors, the FXCM refresh download is the snappiest. One idea we do have in mind is to put in another server in our server farm that is dedicated to just refresh requests and not shared by the data feed processing. This might make the refresh a bit snappier, but how much snappier is yet to be determined.
19:18 Tony: Actually I was referring to the spurious missing data that we discussed yesterday. Will that server help this issue
19:19 Ensign Howard: The main reason for the 2nd server with a separated function is so that the data feed server can handle an ever increasing customer connection load.
19:19 Ensign Howard: 1 moment, let me refresh that GBP/CAD chart
19:20 trendtrader: I used Transact in the past, it's much quicker than eSignal or IB and ideal for those with front ends that utilize tight and active trailing stops. glad to see you'll be allowing them to feed Ensign. I might have to reopen my account with them
19:21 Ensign Howard: Tony, I do not spot any change from the refresh and from the original. The 2 tick gaps and the 1 3 tick gap in the chart seem to still be present after the refresh
19:22 Ensign Howard: As per the discussion yesterday, we rebuilt our intra-day database directly from FXCM so the bars you see are the bars FXCM collected too. They match what we built form the raw feed. Now please explain why you think the data is missing.... with what are you comparing
19:23 Tony: There are some errant ticks on the chart that I can not make go away
19:24 Ensign Howard: ok, document how you know they are errant
19:24 Tony: I do not have them on FXCM's Tradestation. No other charts show them either i.e. IntelliChart
19:24 Ensign Howard: so you have a feed from FXCM into a Tradestation product?
19:25 Tony: Yes, I do
19:25 Ensign Howard: Where does intellichart gets its feed/data
19:25 Tony: I can only assume from FXCM but don't have a clue
19:26 Ensign Howard: When we developed to the FXCM feed, they had an initial API and in fast markets users observed that there was lots of lag introduced. When we complained to their engineering they said, there was a better, faster and more virgin source for a feed if we would bypass the API that is for the general public and go direct to their Order to Go dealing desk. So we reworked our interface with FXCM to have the upstream source feed instead of the pampered and lagging public feed. With Ensign you are getting the real deal from FXCM order to do. This is also the source feed they use in-house to update their internal database and I am please to see that our real-time built data base appears to match perfectly with their in-house database so there are no errant ticks.
19:29 Tony: I'm not using an API for Trading Station II, it is FXCM's built-in proprietary software. It is probable however that IntelliChart is using the API. It DOES show about a 2 second lag but its data is reliable
19:29 Ensign Howard: I cannot say how TradeStation or any other chart package implemented their feed. If they used the API intended for developers, then they will have an inferior feed subject to lag like we initially experienced back in Jan of this year. Though you have observed differences, I am not convinces you have documented any lack of reliability or inferiority. All you are documenting is a difference in source within FXCM's own house and we are on the superior feed and it takes more engineering to accomplish the feat we have accomplished.
19:31 Tony: Interesting, your quotes match to the second. It's the chart data that I'm having a problem
19:32 Ensign Howard: ok, I do not have any more that I can add to the discussion.
19:35 Ensign Howard: Thanks for attending class..
19:35 Ensign Howard: Good night and enjoy the new features if you try the beta and give feedback in detail if you see a problem or a visual quirk needing a fix. Bye.
19:35 cyndc: ty
19:35 Saroj: thanks for being so generous with your time, Howard. Bye