If you are connected to MyTrack or Quote, and wish to add stocks, press the + button.
Type in the symbol name. This is case insensitive. E.g., type in "ibm". The program will then verify that IBM is a valid symbol. If so, it will add a new record.
You will then be prompted for an additional symbol. Continue adding symbols. Stop by pressing Cancel.
You may select an Exchange .
If you wish to add csi data, you need to secify the directory where the data is located. If the data is csv ascii data, csv must be checked:
You then press Contracts in the above directory. You will be prompted for a directory. When you select the directory, all the dta files (or csv) in the directory will be added to the database. If you press Directories, then it will act the same as pressing Contracts, but all the files in all directories in the selected directory and below will be added.
You now have the option of using csv files as data files directly. Press Use csv. With this option, san files are not created. The advantage of using san files is the option of having the files updated. With this option, the files are not updated. Furthermore, you will not be able to change the time frame (hourly, weekly, etc.). Instead, the files are read as they are.
5.2
Spreads
To view the chart of a spread, you must first view the chart of the first contract. Then enter the value of the spread.
This is the spread AC + 1.0+78.48::BORL.
What this means is this. The first stock is AC. We subtract 1.0 times each value of BORL. The program requires positive value for all calculations, and so 78.48 was added to each value. There will be a value of 0.01 somewhere. In this example, it occurs on 1/2/1992.
5.3
Filters
You select a filter as you wish. Press Cancel to cancel the filter. E.g., you want to see stocks beginning with SP9. Press Filter|Letter. Then press Use|Use Filter to see the stocks SP92, SP98, etc. Press Use|Use All to see everything.
If you want to cancel the letter filter, choose Filter|Letter. Press Cancel.
If you just want to look at SP98, it is faster not to set a filter, but to search for in the
incremental search. Type the letters in the little box, the search box, which is at the top of the database file, and for each letter you type, the data will move to those files. E.g., type S, and you will see SA, etc. Type P, so that SP is in the box. You will see SP89, etc. Now type 9 to see SP9. The filter is good if you are going to do a run, for then it is quicker.
The filters remain in the ini file. To cancel the directory from the ini file, press Filter|No Directory Filter.
After a run test, the filter will be those that have the output tagged. I.e., after the run, you will see only those that passed the test. To see all of them, click again Output tag number to clear this tag. You will then return to the original filter.
If you set a bookmark, and then a filter, you will receive an error message if you attempt to go to a bookmark that is not visible (filtered out).
One important use of filters is in data collection. There are three phases to data collection: 1. Adding records to the database. The database contains the list of stocks you wish to examine. You may add records manually, from a sym file, or from a csi directory.
2. Setting the filter. You must decide if you are interested in 60 minute data, daily data, or whatever.
using the new filter.
The assumption is that when on line there are a small number of stocks that you are watching (e.g., 100). If you put in 2000
stocks, it will take a few minutes to load up the memory database. That's why you want to set the tags so that when you are on line not too many stocks come up.
5.3.1 Tags
Press Tags to select a filter based upon tags. This is useful if, e.g., you are looking at a group of stocks for an account. Set tag 1 for the stocks in this account, and set the filter to tag 1. You will then see only the stocks in the account.
In the above example, the table was filtered on both tag1 OR tag2. The OR filter means, in this example, that the visible records have either tag1 or tag2 set.
If you wish to clear the tags from the filtered database, press the last menu item: Clr Tbl Filter. When you do a run history, and choose one of the items from Output, the stocks that passed the test will have an item tagged with this item.
When you add stocks, you can have one tag automatically set by choosing an item by choosing Ntag:
5.3.2 Filter
You may choose a directory. Only stocks with the data in the given directory will be visible. If you want to include subdirectories, press the next item: Sub Filter Dir.
Press Letter if you want to choose stocks which begin with a certain letter. If you want to use an OR filter, press Letter OR. You can now choose the first letters. This permits you to filter on, e.g., stocks beginning with an E and a M.
Press Volume to choose a minimum volume. You will see stocks with either no volume defined, or volume larger than the given volume.
Press Close to choose a minimum close value. You will see stocks with either no close value defined, or close larger or equal to this close value.
To cancel out the volume or directory filter, press the next two items, No Volume or No Dir Filter.
Press Not Enough to filter out stocks with not enough data to evaluate the pivots. Press Not Enough Only to see only the stocks with not enough data. Both of these are toggles. Press it again, and it is cancelled.
You can set the filter to hide csv files, or to show only csv files. You can view only csv daily, or csv 130 minute, or csv 65 minute files, or dta files, or MyTrack files. MyTrack files are
5.3.3 CSV filters
The program can read csv files. There are various types: Daily, 130 minute, or 65 minute files. Press CSV 130 to see only the 130 minute files. Likewise for CSV Daily or CSV 65. Press No CSV to see files that are not csv files. This is a toggle, and so press it again, to cancel. To see only csv files, press CSV only.
CSV Daily or Daily will show daily files, either csv or not.
5.4
San files
San files are files on the hard disk which contain the stock data. You can collect data, save the files, and then view and analyze them off line later.
Press the + button (See Adding stocks ) while connected to MyTrack or Quote. Enter a stock symbol (e.g., ibm or IBM). It is not case sensitive. The program will verify that the symbol is valid, and then add a record to the table. If NTag is set for anything but 0, the new record will have the tag selected. You will then be prompted for another stock. Cancel when you have entered enough stocks. This merely adds records. You will then have to actually get the data, as shown below.
If you have csi files, and wish to create san files so that MyTrack can collect, then
ConvertDta1. This will convert the dta files to a file which can be read only by this application. The extension is san. The program then goes to the site and downloads the latest data,
overwriting relevant parts of the dta data. The advantage of dta data is the fact that it extends back earlier in time.
The san files are put into the directory \pivots\Quote\A, for stocks beginning with $ or A, in B for stocks beginning with B, etc.
You may wish to create csv files from the data files so that other programs can read the files. Press Create ascii files. Before you press this, you must have the filter set for Intraday or Daily Filter, so that you see only the daily or intraday files. A directory selector will pop up. Choose the directory where the files are to go to. A subdirectory of this directory will be created. The subdirectory is named Daily or Intraday, depending on the filter you choose. The files are put there.