December 2004 Letters To The Editor
The editors of S&C invite readers to submit their opinions and information on subjects relating to technical analysis and this magazine. This column is our means of communication with our readers. Is there something you would like to know more (or less) about? Tell us about it. Without a source of new ideas and subjects coming from our readers, this magazine would not exist.
Address your correspondence to: Editor, STOCKS & COMMODITIES, 4757 California Ave. SW, Seattle, WA 98116-4499, or E-mail to editor@traders.com. All letters become the property of Technical Analysis, Inc. Letter-writers must include their full name and address for verification. Letters may be edited for length or clarity. The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily represent those of the magazine. -Editor
NOVICE TRADER
Editor,
I'm a new subscriber to S&C magazine, as well as a novice investor. I'd like to thank you for the articles aimed at those of us who are relatively new to technical analysis, such as the ones on candlestick charting. The articles are well written, educational, and easy to understand. Please continue to publish this kind of article and keep up the good work.
Steve Howell
Taylor, MI
PROGRAMMING INDICATORS
Editor,
I would like to know how we can build our indicators and charts. I like the article published in March 2004 for mechanically recognizing triangular formations ... how can we produce additional charts? Could you provide the link or site name from where we can download or produce more indicators?
Varun, via email
You can build indicators by programming them into your software. We offer a Traders' Tips section in each issue, which provides code for programming a select indicator from that issue. Code is provided by software vendors for their various software platforms. All readers can access our Traders' Tips through our website, www.traders.com. Use our search engine to locate particular indicators.--Editor
NYSE DATA
Editor,
I am not sure to whom my question is best addressed, but I assume the editorial department would know where to send me. Do you know if there is a service that does or can provide an electronic version (spreadsheet or HTML file) of the weekly NYSE composite trades listing? I know it is possible to get the immediate past week's data from the Barron's website; however, it appears that the prior week's data is discarded when a new week's data become available.
My interest stems from my long-held belief that having such data and being able to manipulate and sort it is an important first step in selecting stocks for technical analysis.
Len Goodman
Orange, CA
Try the New York Stock Exchange's website at www.nyse.com.--Editor
COMMODITY OPTIONS DATA
Editor,
I trade mostly commodity options, and have always been intrigued by the vast amount of data that is made available every day. Who is actually compiling all this data, and where can I get a downloadable file suitable for a spreadsheet? This file should contain all end-of-day commodity options data. I look forward to your comments.
Alan Parry, via Message-Boards
You can go to the Chicago Board of Trade's (CBOT) website at (https://cbotdataexchange.if5.com/DataEODOverview.aspx) for the end-of-day data download page. Select "Options," then choose your contract, and finally specify the start and end dates for your download.--Editor
EVENT TRADING
Editor,
I received a mailer for the book Event Trading published by
Tradewind Publications. Have you or any of your readers had any feedback
on this system?
John G. Kemper
via email
You might try posting your question to our Message Boards at https://message-boards.traders.com. Sorry, we don't rate trading systems.--Editor
TBOTS
Editor,
Your April 2004 issue contained a review of TBOTS.com. Do you know whether it is possible to still subscribe to TBOTS? TradeSignals says that they do not support it and I doubt that anyone else does. Do you know if someone now supports it or who may know?
Tom Sedlock
via email
It appears that the site no longer exists, so it's likely the company went out of business.--Editor
TIME SERIES IMAGING
Editor,
In financial systems analysis imaging, it would be interesting to develop x, y, z, t models for technical analysis and volume indicators, with volume as the z-axis. We could assign helixes, but noninverted and parallel for the technicals, with one helix being computed as the final assigned price. Such an imaging would allow for price scatter so that the viewer has a readily viewable presentation of time and depth on price series for particular issues or contracts.
Sufficient types of graphical imaging systems have been created that this modification of the time series axis with scatter for time series and depth may already have been completed.
Eric Hands, Dutch Harbor
STOCK-PICKING SOFTWARE
Editor,
I am looking for information on stock-picking software, specifically, software that gives exact buy and sell signals. Which software would you recommend or is considered to be the best or has had an excellent track record?
Harry Deol, via email
We avoid making recommendations to individual traders about what software they should buy. You can review software packages and some of their features at the Traders' Resource section of our website, Traders.com, to help narrow down the packages with the features you need. You can browse the software or systems section there. Software is generally charting software, while systems produce exact buy and sell indications based on trading rules, which could be disclosed or undisclosed (that is, a black-box system).
We also review software every month in STOCKS & COMMODITIES. We generally comment on how easy or difficult the product is to use and how useful the product appears to be. (However, we don't rank, rate, or track systems, which is a comprehensive, ongoing task beyond the scope of this publication, since we focus on providing articles describing trading techniques.) You can use the search engine at our website to find out whether we've reviewed a particular product, and you can purchase past reviews through our Online Store at Traders.com.
Finally, we publish our Readers' Choice Awards every year in our Bonus Issue, which comes out March 1. The Readers' Choice Awards list the products and services that our readers tell us they like the best or find useful.
If it's a system you're after, we suggest investigating Futures Truth, a publication dedicated to tracking and ranking trading systems (no connection to us). They provide third-party, objective results from various futures trading systems and a few stock-trading systems. The publication has been around for a quarter century and subscription prices are available at their website, FuturesTruth.com.--Editor
ERRATA: McClellan's Oscillator
Editor,
I found John Devcic's article in the September 2004 issue ("Understanding McClellan's Oscillator & Summation Index") very interesting (specifically, using any exchange, not just the NYSE).
However, I believe there's a slight error in the formulas on page 61. The formula for converting time periods to percentage is:
Ema percentage =
2 / (Time period + 1)
where:
Ema = Exponential moving average
Thus,
2 / (39+1) = 0.05,
and 2 / (19+1) = 0.1
Since the time period is in the denominator, the larger time period will always have the smaller percentage. Therefore, the percentages in the formulas have to be reversed.
Rudy Teseo
New Mexico
ERRATA: UPDATA REVIEW
Some incorrect information was given at the beginning of our November 2004 review of Updata Technical Analyst. The correct information is:
Email:
sales@updata.co.uk
Price:
From $27 per month
We regret this error.--Editor
Back to December 2004 Contents