What's New in MarketDelta

 

MarketDelta Version 10.2.1 [Beta]

Released: May 17, 2010

 

Version 10.2 Enhancements (20 through 21)

 

20.  Main Toolbar Customization.

21.  Math Lines Indicator.

22.  Improved Drawing of Time Bars.

23.  Volume Breakdown Efficiency Improvement.

24.  Profile Indicator Efficiency Improvements.

25.  Market Profile Playback - Go To Today.

26.  Volume Price Statistics: New Results.

27.  Time and Sales: New Options.

28.  RTL Improvement for PCHG() and CHG() Functions.

29.  Mixing Market Data Feed and a Brokerage Feed.

30.  Automatic Historical Data for New Symbols.

31.  Custom Instrument Setup Improvements.

32.  Miscellaneous 10.2 Fixes and Improvements.

 

20. Main Toolbar Customization. The main toolbar may now be customized to include just the buttons of interest. In addition, up to eight user-customizable shortcut buttons may be added to the main toolbar if desired. Each color coded shortcut button can be assigned to a keyboard shortcut that has been setup in the Setup: Preferences: Keyboard Shortcuts window. Thus, shortcut buttons on the main toolbar can run schedules, open particular charts or layouts, execute trading orders, add indicators to the front chart, etc. To customize the main toolbar, choose Setup: Preferences: Main Toolbar. If the main toolbar is visible you may right-click in its message area and choose Main Toolbar-->Button Setup. See the Video Library section of the MarketDelta, LLC web site for a video tutorial on customizing the main toolbar.

 

21. Math Lines Indicator. Under construction.

 

22. Improved Drawing of Time Bars. MarketDelta users are able to create pseudo-daily bars using only the day session data by creating a chart assigned to session 2 (day session) with 405 minute bars.  Since there are 405 minutes in the day session 2, each bar will represent a full sessions activity, but is limited to only the day session.  When this method is applied the horizontal scale will now draw as if the chart is a daily chart, resulting in the display of much more meaningful labels and lines on month boundaries.

 

23. Volume Breakdown Efficiency Improvement. Due to the nature of the Volume Breakdown Indicator (VB) calculations, it is required to see and recalculate on every tick or trade.  In general, VB recalculates very quickly and efficiency. However, certain combinations of settings, including the application of Statistics or Indicators within the VB preferences, can reduce the efficiency of this calculation.  In version 10.2, VB was made much more efficient on this front, limiting the calculations of the statistic or indicator portion of the VB to every 1 second while still processing every tick into the underlying data of the indicator.  Heavy users of the VB indicator, which use VB in this fashion, should see a big boost in performance in 10.2.

 

24. Profile Indicator Efficiency Improvements. The Profile Indicator, when setup to display longer term composite profiles, can take longer than most indicators to process the extended data using the method involved to divide volume and time among prices.  In addition, since these composite profiles are profiling such an extended period of time, it's not as important to recalculate the Profile Indicator frequently.  Some additional measures have been put in place to keep the Profile Indicator from recalculating too frequently.

 

25. Market Profile Playback - Go To Today. When operating the playback that is built into the Market Profile charts (buttons at bottom of Info Box), the user now has two new convenient shortcuts.  The + button is used to step forward one increment (price change, TPO, etc) based on the settings the user has provided for playback in the Options tab of the Market Profile preferences.  However, if the user shift-clicks on the + button, the chart will advance to the first letter of the next session.  This allows users to quickly skip forward to the start of a day of interest.  In addition, the user can Ctrl-Shift-click on that + button to advance to the first TPO of the current (last) session.  This allows the user to quickly advance to the current session or the session that just completed and playback the most recent profile.

 

26. Volume Price Statistics: New Results. Several New Results were added to the Volume Price Statistics Indicator.  The user can now access the following information:  Volume Above or Below the Volume POC, Delta Above or Below the Volume POC, Buy Volume Above or Below the Volume POC, and Sell Volume Above or Below the Volume POC.

 

27. Time and Sales: New Options. The Time and Sales window was enhanced with two new options.  First, the user can now check the "Aggregate Similar Ticks (Live)" checkbox and then all live ticks that trade at the same price, bid, and ask, will all aggregate on a single line.  The volume of that line/entry will continue to build while price continues to trade at the same price, bid price, and ask price.  In addition, a "Color Basis" entry was added with options of "Bid/Ask" or "Up/Down".  Prior to version 10.2, each row in the Time and Sales window was always colored based on the price of the trade relative to the price of the bid and ask.  If the price traded at or above the ask, the row was given the Buy Color.  If it traded at or below the bid, it was given the Sell Color.  In version 10.2, the user still has the Bid/Ask coloring option, but also has a new "Up/Down" option.  The Up/Down color basis will paint rows in the Buy Color for all trades that follow an up tick in price.  The Sell Color will be used to paint trades that follow a down tick in price.

 

28. RTL Improvement for PCHG() and CHG() Functions. A new numeric constant token ALLDATA has been added to the RTL language. It can be used in conjunction with the PCHG (percent change) and CHG (change) functions to produce a custom indicator of changes or % changes since the beginning of the time series. The RTL formula PCHG(CL,5) produces a moving line showing the % change in price over the preceding 5 periods. PCHG(CL, ALLDATA) produces a line showing the % change in price since the beginning of the entire time series of data. When this CI is added to a chart, the plot is identical to the line you would see if you were charting the underlying instrument as a % Change Line (with Price set to Close). If you save the formula PCHG(CL, ALLDATA) as a custom indicator named "Percent Change" and you use Setup: Preferences: Prices, Custom to set Percent Change as one of the eight "Custom Price" types, you can add technical indicators to the chart that do analysis on this Percent Change line. Simply choose the Custom Price "Percent Change" in any of various indicators that support price type. Moving Averages, Keltner Bands, and scores of other indicators can be applied to such custom price types. You can also apply other indicators to the PCHG or CHG function easily in RTL to form compound custom indicators. For example the RTL formula RAWK(PCHG(CL, ALLDATA)) produces a RawK stochastic line of the % change in price since the beginning of the time series.

 

29. Mixing Market Data Feed and a Brokerage Feed. In version 10.1.4 and earlier 10.x versions, brokerage integration features are available when a brokerage data feed is the market data feed. Users with brokerage accounts with supported brokerage feeds who use a non-broker data feed (DTN IQFEED or eSignal) can now setup MarketDelta 10.2 in a "dual feed" mode where market data is supplied by the market data vendor while brokerage actions are performed with the brokerage feed. At present, any of three brokerage feeds (Interactive Brokers, Rithmic, or Zen-Fire) can be used by DTN IQFEED or eSignal subscribers. This capability is new and experimental in the 10.2 Beta testing version. It is recommended that paper trading/simulated demo brokerage accounts be used to test these new capabilities. During the beta testing period, the mixed market data / brokerage feed capability is "off" by default. To gain access to this feature, it must first be enabled by setting a configuration file variable. Do File: Open: Configuration File and add a line at the bottom of the file that reads:

 

AdditionalBrokerageFeed=true;

 

Then press Ctrl-S (or do File: Save: Save) to save the configure.txt file. Then, you can go to File: Reconfigure. DTN IQFEED and eSignal users will see choices for the supported brokerage destinations. Select your brokerage destination from the list and click the Reconfigure button. Next check the feed setups by choosing the Setup menu item in the data feed menu. You can also access the Setup menu item by clicking on the heartbeat icon on the main toolbar. Notice that both market data feed preferences and brokerage feed preferences windows will open. Setup both windows and click OK. Then start the feed. MarketDelta will first connect to the market data source and then establish a connection to the brokerage feed. You can point your mouse at the main toolbar heartbeat icon and, assuming button help is enabled, see a text tip indicating whether both feeds are active. If you have your market data feed already running when you reconfigure to a brokerage destination, MarketDelta will automatically connect to the brokerage. This connection attempt may fail if your login id and password are not setup for example. After enter the setup information, stop and start the feed again.

 

Thereafter, any brokerage trading orders submissions will be done via the brokerage feed, while streaming market data flows as it normally does from DTN IQFEED or eSignal. Since two distinctly different data feeds are in use, your instruments must be setup with the proper "Broker Alias" symbol. For example, trading through Interactive Brokers using DTN IQFEED as the market data feed, the symbol @ES# or @ESM0 will be the instrument you see in your charts. You must setup @ES# with a broker alias of ESM0 so that trading orders initiated on @ES# will convey the proper symbol to IB. The @ES# symbol also must be setup with all the required IB settings: the expiration date, currency, underlying, and override exchange code must meet IB requirements for identifying the symbol when trading orders are submitted.

 

You may return to File: Reconfigure or use the Trading Order Desk at any time to set the brokerage destination back to the Trading Simulator. To disable further use of dual feeds, do File: Open: Configuration File and eliminate the AdditionalBrokerageFeed=true line or simply change true to false and Ctrl-S to save the file. Quit and startup MarketDelta again. Thereafter, only the market data feed will be used by the software.

 

30. Automatic Historical Data for New Symbols. When new symbols are added to MarketDelta, the software now auto-detects when the new symbol starts feeding real-time data. Reception of data validates that the symbol is valid, so a full complement of historical data (daily, one-minute, and tick data) is requested preemptively, before there is a request for charting. As a result, after adding a new symbol and then opening a chart on it, you will often be greeted with a complete chart instantly; there is no need to initiate a download manually. This preemptive downloading of historical data pertains to all methods of adding new symbols: importing symbols or chart defintions, using the Setup: Instruments window, or simply typing a new symbol into the chart setup wizard or into a quotepage ticker cell. The data feed must be active for this to occur. If you add several new symbols while MarketDelta is not connected to the data feed, the preemptive downloading will be initiated when you start the feed later. If you enter a new symbol that is invalid, then there will be no data flow and no historical data either. If you correct the symbol or change one or more of its properties (exchange, expiration date, etc) and data then begins to flow, the preemptive downloading will be initiated for the new symbol when the first valid quote or trade report is received by MarketDelta. Users of brokerage data sources who use DTN MA for historical backfill will also benefit from this improvement so long as the DTN Alias Symbol is setup correctly. For most futures contracts and for all equities, adding a new symbol automatically creates the proper DTN alias symbol. When DTN MA is in use and the addition of a new symbol does not yield any historical data, the problem is likely to be the DTN Alias symbol is incorrect. Fix the alias and perform a Full Download manually to remedy (right-click in a chart and choose Download Data: Full Data).

 

31. Custom Instrument Setup Improvements. The Setup: Custom Instruments window has been improved to allow the user to adjust the symbol selector at the left to show only the symbols in a particular quotepage. Click the "+" button at the upper right corner of the symbol select and choose "Show Quotepage..." from the ensuing popup menu. A list of quotepage names will appear. Pick one and click OK. When forming SUM type custom instruments you may now do an "Add All" operation to add all the symbols currently listed in the symbol selector to the new custom instrument. The Add All is performed by holding down the SHIFT key while clicking the --> (Add) button. Similarly you can clear the list of components currently listed on the right side by holding down the SHIFT key and clicking the <-- (Remove) button. Using these new capabilities, you can form a new custom instrument SUM of all the symbols in some quotepage very quickly with a few mouse clicks. First use the + button to display the quotepage's symbols on the left, then Shift-Click on --> to add them all as components. The software now detects when an attempt is made to add a component with identical settings for symbol, price and multiplier and rejects any addition that would result in a duplicate in the list on the right with an explanatory message.

 

32. Miscellaneous 10.2 Fixes and Improvements.

-----------------------------------------

A long standing bug was causing multi-paned charts that were setup with "Look Ahead Bars" to draw without the look ahead period when the chart updated in real-time. This has been corrected. While the "Right Margin" chart setting is now the recommended method for specifying white-space to the right of the last bar, the look ahead bars alternative may be desirable for those who wish to see trend lines or regression lines extended some fixed number of bars into the future to observe where the line extension intersects the vertical price axis.

-----------------------------------------

Duplicating a multi-paned chart while one or more indicators were selected was producing a fatal error. This has been corrected. The selection is released before the chart is duplicated.

-----------------------------------------

The Zig-Zag indicator was producing a fatal error if the turning points were setup to show total delta and there was no tick data on file to compute the delta values. This has been corrected.

-----------------------------------------

RTL formulas using WCCI indicator token were not working properly when the WCCI token was setup to use the CCI Turbo method. This has been corrected.

-----------------------------------------

A bug was fixed in the Database Wizard (Alt-U Window). The Compress Before Backup check box was not being considered properly. This is fixed now so that checking this box runs all of the check marked compressions marked in the Database Compression section of the wizard when you use the wizard's Backup Database button. A Windows 7/Vista specific bug was fixed to permit compression of Trading Notes. Windows 7/Vista was blocking this utility because of a disk write permissions issue.

-----------------------------------------

Two additional keyboard shortcuts were added under the "Open" Action. Open Object Editor and Open Market Profile Chart are now eligible for function key shortcuts in Setup: Preferences: Keyboard Shortcuts. The Open Chart keyboard shortcut enable the specification of a particular chart name to open. Open Market Profile Chart shortcut will show a list of available Market Profile chart names for selection at the time you invoke the shortcut.

-----------------------------------------

Version 10.2 checks the database backup location at startup to determine whether the backup_f folder in the current data_f (database) folder is setup as the backup location. This the recommended setting for most users. If the backup s specified as some other location, a prompt will appear at startup alerting you to this fact and requesting permission to change to the default backup location. Click OK to reset the backup location to the backup_f folder in the current data_f folder, click "Setup" to review the backup preferences, or click "Cancel" to do nothing. If you have some reason for specifying a non-standard backup folder location, these prompting messages can be eliminated by setting a configuration variable:  CheckBackupLocAtStartup=false;

 

The checking for non-standard backup locations is aimed at preventing accidental running of two instances of MarketDelta, both using the same backup location. By using the recommended setting, each database data_f folder will contain its own backup_f folder so there is no confusion about which backup goes with which database.

-----------------------------------------

Version 10.2 adds efficiency measures when RTL objects in the chart reference the VB or Profile Indicator. MarketDelta detects this usage and automatically inserts a hidden VB and/or Profile Indicator into the chart. This hidden indicator will efficiently track the real-time data and keep the VB or Profile data up to date. The RTL objects within the chart will then use the resident VB or Profile results directly instead of having to compute them. This has a major positive impact in reducing resources requireed for signals and custom indicators that relly on VB or Profile analysis.

-----------------------------------------

 

 

MarketDelta Version 10.1

Released: March 16, 2010

 

Version 10.1 Enhancements (1 through 19)

 

1.  Efficiency Improvement Using Invisible Instruments.

2.  New Indicator: Woodie's CCI (RTL WCCI).

3.  New Indicator: Two Array Statistics (RTL TAS).

4.  New Indicator: ATR Stop (RTL ATRS).

5.  New Indicator: Volume Price Statistics. (RTL VPS).

6.  New Indicator: Empirical Mode Decomposition (RTL EMD).

7.  New Indicator: Quoteboard.

8.  Data Retention Options Simplified.

9.  Exporting Instrument Data in a Chart.

10.  File: Open: Admin File... Menu Item.

11.  Smart Tick Compression.

12.  Keyboard Shortcuts Added for Chart Scrolling.

13.  Layout Toolbar Improvements.

14.  Using the Mouse Wheel when Adding Indicators.

15.  Handling of Indicator Exceptions.

16.  Profile Indicator: Naked POCs/Closes/Extremes.

17.  Profile Indicator: Automatic Peaks/Valleys.

18.  Session Statistics - Ignore First x Minutes.

19.  Miscellaneous 10.1 Fixes and Improvements.

 

1. Efficiency Improvement Using Invisible Instruments. The MPD Indicator within multi-pane charts runs MUCH more efficiently when bars of the MPD periodicity and instrument are added invisibly to the chart.  MPD then uses those invisible bars without having to load data each time it calculates.  The net effect is a much more efficient MPD. Prior to version 10.1b8, the user was responsible for adding these invisible bars to the chart and ensuring that they were setup properly.  Now, MarketDelta will automatically add these invisible bars to the chart with the proper setup. In short, the user now will get the most efficient implementation of MPD each time without needing to be concerned with adding additional bars/instruments to the chart.  This is a very convenient enhancement for users of the MPD indicator.

 

2. New Indicator: Woodie's CCI (RTL WCCI). An Indicator titled Woodies CCI has been added to the library of technical indicators.  This indicator implements the WCCI as described here: www.woodiescciclub.com.

 

3. New Indicator: Two Array Statistics (RTL TAS). A new indicator called Two-Array Statistics has been added to the library of Technical Indicators.  This indicator allows the user to compute a variety of statistics historically between any two arrays of custom indicators, including: Slope, R-Squared, Correlation, Product, Ratio, Difference, and Sum.

 

4. New Indicator: ATR Stop (RTL ATRS). A new indicator titled ATR Stop has been added to the library of technical indicators.  ATR Stop helps define the current trend.  The indicator plots a line/dot above the prices bars when a downward trend is detected, and a line/dot below the bars when an upward trend is detected.  These lines are commonly used as trailing stops.  This indicator is commonly used as a exit tool rather than an entry technique.  When price crosses the ATRS value, the trend reverses and VSTOP moves to the other side of price.

 

5. New Indicator: Volume Price Statistics. (RTL VPS). A new indicator titled Volume Price Statistics has been added to the library of technical indicators.  The Volume Price Statistics indicator provides the user with a variety of statistical measures based on the volume at price.  These statistic options are described in more detail above.

 

6. New Indicator: Empirical Mode Decomposition (RTL EMD). A new indicator titled Empirical Mode Decomposition Indicator (EMD) has been added to the library of technical indicators.  The Empirical Mode Decomposition Indicator (EMD) helps identify whether a market is in a cycle or trend mode.  This indicator is discussed in the article titled "Empirical Mode Decomposition" in the March 2010 Issue of Stocks and Commodities magazine, by John F. Ehlers and Ric Way.  According to the article, when the Trend Component rises above the Average Peaks, the market is in an uptrend, when it is below the Average Valleys, the market is in a downtrend, and when it is between the two, the market is in cycle mode.

 

The EMD indicator has 4 optional components: the Bandpass Filter (or cycle component), the Trend Component, the Average Peaks, and the Average Valleys.  The inputs include price, period, delta, and fraction.  The price defaults to High + Low / 2.  The period should reflect the cycle period (or frequency) of the market being studied and defaults to 20 bars.  The delta should be set to half the bandwidth with common values of 0.1 to 0.5. The fraction is the fraction of the average peaks and valleys used to display the upper and lower limits for the trend component.  This value is subjective and can be adjusted to fit your trading style.  For swing trades that prefer to trade in cycle mode, a larger fraction might be used such as 0.25.

 

For more information on this indicator, please refer to the March 2010 Issue of Stocks and Commodities magazine, by John F. Ehlers and Ric Way.

 

7. New Indicator: QuoteBoard. A new indicator titled QuoteBoard has been added to the library of technical indicators.  The QuoteBoard allows the user to display columns of price and volume data on multiple symbols within a multi-pane chart.  The QuoteBoard has extended capabilities including automatic sorting of the price rows within each symbol, hot/cold color shading or custom coloring of each row, price or tick display options, auto-sorting of symbols based on % Change, and much more.  The QuoteBoard allows users to plot key Market Profile price values, OHLC, Pivot Levels (daily, weekly, monthly), all in a single column with automatic sorting and coloring.  Videos will be forthcoming on the QuoteBoard as MarketDelta 10.1 goes final.

 

8. Data Retention Options Simplified. For most MarketDelta users, the Setup: Instruments (Symbols) window no longer offers check boxes for daily, weekly, or monthly data retention. The recommended settings of daily data retention, no weekly and no monthly data retention will be used. These have long been the recommended settings, suitable for most users of MarketDelta. Weekly and monthly charts utilize the underlying daily historical data to draw the weekly or monthly bars. We are removing these options because they can be confusing; some mistakenly assume that it is necessary to retain separate weekly or monthly historical data in order to view weekly or monthly charts.

 

MarketDelta is capable of producing monthly, weekly, or daily charts from 1925 to present when there is adequate data on file. While daily bar data is hard to come by going back that far, long term weekly or monthly data for equities, indexes or continuous futures contracts can be imported for analysis. The weekly or monthly data retention options are useful for this purpose. You may want to retain only a few years of daily bars, a decade of weekly bars and several decades of monthly bars. This reduces data storage requirements compared with keeping many decades of daily bars, although storage savings are insignificant except when a very large universe of symbols is involved. Generally, the weekly/monthly options are of little interest to futures traders. We are simplifying the user interface while keeping these seldom needed retention options available to any MarketDelta user who wishes to use them via a configuration setting. Any user who has made weekly or monthly data collection a default setting (see Setup: Preferences: Instruments) will continue to see the three retention options in the Setup: Instruments window.

 

Alternatively, you may wish employ the recommended default settings, but utilize weekly/monthly retention on only certain symbols. This can be accomplished by adding a setting to the configure.txt file. Add the line:

 

EnableWeeklyMonthlyRetention=TRUE

 

to the configuration file (File: Open: Configuration File) and Save the file (Ctrl-S or File: Save: Save). Thereafter daily, weekly, and monthly retention check boxes will be available once again for specifying your preferences for any symbol.

 

9. Exporting Instrument Data in a Chart. Instrument data of any periodicity contained in a multi-paned chart may be exported to text now by right-clicking inside the chart window and choosing Export: Instrument Data. The Export submenu is new in 10.1, allowing export of any indicator data or instrument data in the chart. If there are multiple instruments inside the chart, a list of them will appear for selection. If there is only one instrument in the chart or if a particular instrument is selected in the chart when you do the Export: Instrument Data command, that instrument will be exported without prompting.

 

10. File: Open: Admin File... Menu Item.The File: Open submenu now has an Admin File... menu item that will start the file selection process at the MarketDelta Admin folder. On Windows XP, the Admin directory is located in the installation folder, typically named investrt, located in the Program Files directory. On Windows 7 and Vista, the Admin folder is located in the MarketDelta directory within the C:\Users\username directory, where username is your Windows 7/Vista user login. The File: Open: File... menu item starts the file selection process at the mostly recently accessed directory, while File: Open: Admin File... simply makes the Admin folder the starting location for opening a file. When using the File: Open: File or the File: Open: Admin File... menu items, if you hold down the Ctrl Key, navigation will begin at the install folder on XP, or at the local MarketDelta folder on Windows 7/Vista. Finally, on the main toolbar, the "Open Group" button also serves as an Open File button if you hold down the Ctrl Key while clicking on it. File selection begins at the install folder on XP, or at the local MarketDelta folder on Windows 7/Vista.

 

11. Smart Tick Compression. MarketDelta 10.1 introduces Smart Compression of Tick Data. This optional feature can be enabled in Setup: Preferences: Historical Data. Check or uncheck the box titled "Use Smart Compression of Tick Data". When Smart Compression is enabled, ticks are stored in the MarketDelta database in a more compact form by consolidating the trading volume for ticks which occur at the same time, price, bid and ask. The consecutive ticks are stored as one consolidated tick having a trading volume representing the cumulative volume of the component ticks.

 

Our tests with financial futures tick data show Smart Compression reduces the stored tick count consistently by over 85%. Similarly, actively traded equities showed a 50-70% reduction. This reduction in tick counts leads to reduced storage requirement on the database, reduced memory footprint for tick-based charts, and reduced processing time when opening charts that use tick data. Smart Compression has a widespread beneficial impact on the performance and functionality of MarketDelta: more tick data can be stored in the database, Market Profile and Multi-paned charts load and process much faster, databases verify and backup faster, backtesting and optimization of trading systems run faster, etc. For example, a futures trader having a tick data retention setting of 3 days could retain 20 days of tick data using less space on the database by enabling this feature.

 

When Smart Compression is enabled, there are some aspects of MarketDelta that are adversely affected; this is why Smart Compression is optional. One obvious impact is for ticks/bar periodicity, where actual tick count is used to construct each bar. If ticks/bar charts are a part of your analysis, such charts will reflect compressed ticks/bar and will not reflect the actual trade count per bar.  All other periodicities (Volume Bars, Range Bars, all fixed time interval bars) will be identical whether Smart Compression is enabled or not. Advanced volume functionality such as the Profile Indicator (Volume at Price / Delta at Price), the Volume Breakdown Indicator (Delta per Bar), and VWAP will be computed correctly when Smart Compression is enabled. Some of results choices for the Volume Breakdown (VB) Indicator are affected when Smart Compression is enabled. This includes any VB based on Trades instead of Volume, and any VB setup with a result that is based on tick counts. Tick count results include: Total Trades/Ticks; Average Size; Big Trades %; Average Buy Size; Average Sell Size; Buy Trades/Ticks; Sell Trades/Ticks.

 

Marketdelta Footprint Charts are fully compatible with the Smart Compression option and will benefit as described above when this option is enabled.

 

12. Keyboard Shortcuts Added for Chart Scrolling.. You may setup function key shortcuts for scrolling multi-paned charts left or right one bar at a time. This has been a requested alternative to having to repeatedly click the scroll bar. The Scroll Left and Scroll Right actions are extensions to the chart toolbar. In Setup: Preferences: Keyboard Shortcuts, choose "Toolbar / Chart" as the Action and pick "Scroll Left" or "Scroll Right" from the list of chart toolbar actions for your shortcut. If you setup F2 as Scroll Right, for example, you may then scroll the chart so it is positioned at some starting date and time in the past; then tap F2 repeatedly to bring one new bar at a time into view.

 

13. Layout Toolbar Improvements. The layout toolbar now offers a "Save As..." feature to save a copy of the existing active layout under a different name. Activate any source layout by selecting its tab on the layout toolbar. Hold down the shift key while clicking the "Save Layout" button or icon button. MarketDelta will prompt for a new layout name. A new layout tab with the specified name will appear in the toolbar and become the activate layout. You may then revise the layout as you wish. The original layout remains intact. When naming layouts, the first word in the layout name is used as the "short name" that appears on the tab face in the toolbar, e.g. doing a Save As under the name "Test Layout" will create a new tab named "Test". When using the shift key to perform a save as, you may specify the name of an existing layout. MarketDelta will ask you to confirm the replacement of the former layout having that name with the new one you are saving.

 

When the layout toolbar is expanded to show the layout setup options, there are blue ? help buttons positioned to the right of the Save Layout and Delete Layout buttons. The Delete Layout button was revised to request confirmation before deleting the current layout.

 

On the main toolbar, right-clicking in the message area reveals a more compact pop up menu. This menu has sub menus for Layout Toolbar and Main Toolbar related options. In the Layout Toolbar submenu are commands to toggle (alternately show/hide) the layout toolbar, center the layout toolbar in the main MarketDelta window, and a "Pin to Main Toolbar" menu item that positions the layout toolbar to the right of the main toolbar.

 

14. Using the Mouse Wheel when Adding Indicators. When adding an indicator to a multi-pane chart MarketDelta presents a dialog with all the indicators listed on the left. You can use the keyboard to cause the list to jump to some alphabetic position. Subsequent repeats of the same single letter takes you down the list of indicators starting with that letter, e.g. press the letter m five times moves you to the 5th indicator having a name beginning with m, Money Flow in this example. You may also tab the space bar when you are scrolled down to snap back to the top if the list where "Choose Indicator" is displayed and the rolodex of indicator names appears on the right. For those that like to use the mouse wheel to scroll, a few new twists have been added. Rolling the wheel up or down selects and displayed the indicator as your scroll one at time thru the indicator names. If you hold the SHIFT key down as you move the mouse wheel, each click of the wheel advances you 5 forward or backward, i.e. you scroll faster. Then there is the Ctrl key for alphabetic jumps. With Ctrl key down each wheel click jumps to the top of the list of names beginning with the next or prior alphabetic letter. You can use the keyboard and scroll wheel in tandem of course, e.g. press m to go to the 1st indicator in the M's, Moving Average then move the wheel to move down thru the M's. If you want MPD and you remember that MPD is the last indicator in the M's then press N and wheel up one. You can also use the up/down arrow keys to scroll thru the list one item at a time. Shift and Ctrl only modify mouse wheel effects.

 

15. Handling of Indicator Exceptions. MarketDelta for Windows now uses MS Structured Exception Handling for all technical indicator calculations. Sometimes an indicator calculation can cause a fatal error. This could be due to a defect in the software itself, or perhaps some user specified preference setting was entered incorrectly, or perhaps the indicator was a user-developed indicator running in MarketDelta as a PLUGIN indicator and there is a defect in the plugin (MarketDelta SDK required). In prior versions, such exceptions would be handled by stopping the data feed, closing the database, reporting the fatal error and requiring MarketDelta to be restarted. Now, these exceptions are handled in a manner that enables MarketDelta to continue running, only the particular indicator that failed is marked as having caused an exception and there will be no further attempts to calculate the errant indicator. The user will see no drawing for the indicator because it could not compute its results. If you revise the preferences for the indicator, IRT will try again to calculate the indicator using the revised preferences. If another exception occurs, it will be disabled. Sometimes a preference change will "fix" the problem and computation will resume normally for the indicator. This kind of exception handing will be especially welcome to users of the MarketDelta SDK where defects in programming plugins can now be detected without causing MarketDelta to terminate.

 

16. Profile Indicator: Naked POCs/Closes/Extremes. The Profile Indicator has been enhanced with an option to draw lines for naked POCs, naked closes, and naked high/lows.  The naked POC lines will extend forward in time past the profile period until a bar takes it out (touches it).  Naked closes work the same way but use the closing price of the profile period.  Naked highs and lows similarly extend the highs and lows of the profile period until they are touched by a future bar.

 

17. Profile Indicator: Automatic Peaks/Valleys. The Profile Indicator has been enhanced with an option to automatically draw reference lines at peak and valley prices.  A peak is defined as a price whose volume exceeds that of the prices surrounding it.  A valley is defined as a price whose volume is lower than that of the prices that surround it.  The user is given then option of selecting the Peak/Valley "Sensitivity".  A sensitivity of 10 would require a peak price's volume to be higher than the 10 prices above and below it.  A sensitivity of 20 would require a valley's volume to be lower than the 20 prices above and below it.

 

18. Session Statistics - Ignore First x Minutes. A new option has been added to the session statistics titled "Ignore the first x minutes of the session".  This option can be especially useful to those trying to get the high or low of the day session (session 2) while looking at a chart set to the full GLOBEX session (session 31).  In this instance, setup session statistics to ignore the first 1020 minutes of the session.  It would then begin to compute the highest high or lowest low on the first bar of the day session.

 

19. Miscellaneous 10.1 Fixes and Improvements.

-----------------------------------------

Layout Toolbar now permits empty layouts to be saved.

-----------------------------------------

Fundamental data items "Short Interest" and "NAICS" (industry classification code) are now available on IQFEED for display in quote pages. Either column may also be used in RTL formulas.

-----------------------------------------

Configuration variables were added. Use "AutoAddTempInvisInstruments=false" to turn off automatic addition of temporary invisible instruments. The default is true, the invisible instruments improve multi periodicity efficiency, when the Profile indicator and/or MPD indicator is used. For IB users, use "IBHistoricalPacingInterval=15" to allow 15 seconds between each IB backfill request. Default is 10 seconds. IB users with a DTN MA subscription have no pacing restrictions.

-----------------------------------------

Various tweaks for Windows 7/Vista were made. Pinned toolbars now align perfectly with their associated windows (as they long have on Windows XP). The position, size, and maximized state of the main MarketDelta task window is now properly re-instated at startup.

-----------------------------------------

Windows users will see a warning message if memory usage reaches an abnormally high level. The default warning level is 250MB, far beyond the memory footprint normally required by MarketDelta. Users with memory intensive workspaces can increase this threshold if the warning is bothersome. Use the configuration file variable "MemoryUsageWarningMB=300" for example to set the threshold to 300. If you see this warning consult with support to diagnose the cause of such abnormally high memory usage requirements.

 

-----------------------------------------

A bug was fixed in the Layout Toolbar. The Layout in effect when quitting was being retained as the startup layout only if the "Automatically Save Layout Changes" option was on for the layout. When this option was off, the "Last Session Layout" was mistakenly established as the active layout the next time MarketDelta is started.

-----------------------------------------

Clicking on a ticker symbol inside a chart QuoteBoard indicator will change the current chart to that symbol. This makes it very convenient to use the QuoteBoard as quickly changing symbols in the rest of the chart. If you set the multi-linking color of the chart to black using the color box at the lower right corner of the chart window, the chart becomes locked; symbol substitutions from multi-link operations or QuoteBoard clicks are disabled.

-----------------------------------------

A configuration variable was added to allow Windows users to specify whether the cross hairs show the price level near the intersection point of the cross hair, the new default behavior, or show the price level at the far right of the horizontal cross hair line near the price axis as in prior versions. Users who prefer to see the price at the vertical scale can open the File: Open: Configuration File; add this line to the bottom and save the file (Ctrl-S).

 

ShowPriceAtCrossHair=false

-----------------------------------------

A configuration variable was added for limiting the size of historical data arrays. The configuration variable, MaxMemoryArraySize, defaults to zero, meaning no limit. If MaxMemoryArraySize is set to a number, this number is multiplied by 1 million to set the limit on the size of historical data arrays. In prior versions of MarketDelta, a limit of 10 million could be imposed by checking a box in the Historical Data preferences window. Setting MaxMemoryArraySize=10 in the configure.txt configuration file has a similar limiting effect. When a limit is specified, attempts to open charts that call for millions of ticks to be loaded will fail if the tick data collection size exceeds the limit. The recommended setting is 0, no limit. If you are experiencing out of memory conditions, setting a limit of say 10 (million) will alert you to the chart that may be requesting too much memory before the out-memory condition actually arises.

-----------------------------------------

Layout Toolbar asks for confirmation when deleting a layout.

-----------------------------------------

The contextual menu when right-clicking in the message area of the main toolbar has an enhanced Layout Toolbar submenu. Menu items are provided for Enabling the toolbar, pinning the layout toolbar to the main toolbar at the right, and centering the layout toolbar in the main MarketDelta window.

-----------------------------------------

When symbols are deleted, e.g. using the red trash button on the quotepage toolbar or setup instruments window, any open windows containing the symbol are notified. Quotepages, for example respond by removing the affected row(s) from the quotepage. Multi-paned chart windows will remove the instrument from the chart and will close automatically if there are no remaining instrument(s) in the chart. Time and Sales windows will close automatically if they showing data for the now deleted symbol.

-----------------------------------------

System added temporary invisible instruments no longer appear in the pane title bar. User added invisible instruments are listed by ticker and periodicity only. The pane title displays drawing tool indicators (trend lines, ref lines, fibs, etc) after first listing all instruments and other indicators. Ref lines are listed last if present.

-----------------------------------------

Price labeling in the vertical scale area for instruments is now enabled when your scroll back in time, the value displayed is typically the close of the last bar displayed, not necessary the current price of the instrument. Value display is also enabled when the charting reflect percentage and not actual trading price. For example, an instrument with a drawing type of Histogram and a price type of %Change will now the %Change value of the last histogram block numerically.

-----------------------------------------

A bug was fixed in 10.1.3 where indicators associated with invisible instruments would not draw.

-----------------------------------------

A bug was fixed where intraday time interval charts expressed in minutes and seconds (not an even number of minutes) would not show a time scale on the horizontal axis.

-----------------------------------------

The Database Utilities Wizard (Alt+U) can now perform database initialization of the portfolio section of the MarketDelta database. All portfolios, positions, and historical position data are destroyed and the system starts with a clean slate with the Simulated portfolio setup for use with the MarketDelta trading simulator. The Control-->Database Utilities-->Initialize submenu also includes this new utility function.

-----------------------------------------

Versions 10.1.3 and later now support the most recent TransAct API.  In doing so, the "TransAct: Setup" menu now provides an option to "Connect to Demo Server".  If the user has a demo account with TransAct, they should check this check box.  Otherwise, if this check box is unchecked, the user will connect to the live TransAct server.

-----------------------------------------