MarketDelta Version 10.4.0

Released: June 1, 2011

Version 10.4 Enhancements

1. Historical Database Management and Importing Improvements.

2. Revised Behavior for Buttons Using Drawing Tool Indicators.

3. Sharing Preferences and Share Picture Improvements.

4. DTN Market Access Improvements.

5. Trend Line Drag and Drop Improvement.

6. Profile Indicator - Sharing Peaks and Valleys Among Charts.

7. Reference Line - Plotting Series of User Variables.

8. Auto Titling of User Variables.

9. Watermark Indicator.

10. Chart Time Axis Drawing Improved.

11. Volume Breakdown - Indicator Access to High and Low.

12. New Formats for Export of Fractals, Volume Breakdown.

13. Technical Indicator Text Label Option.

14. Profile Indicator - In Range Duration Option.

15. Latest Rithmic R | API for Zen-Fire/Rithmic Users.

16. Miscellaneous 10.4 Fixes and Improvements.

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1. Historical Database Management and Importing Improvements.

Version 10.4 adds a new database file for retaining intra-day interval historical data (bar data) apart from tick data. This change doubles the intra-day database storage capacity to 4GB. MarketDelta 10.4 incorporates zlib compression to manage the storage of tick data on the database. The compression ratio achieved varies from instrument to instrument. For the S&P Emini futures contract, compressed tick data uses about 10% of the database storage of uncompressed ticks. Testing across a wider universe of futures and equities, compression of tick data shows a ten-fold to four-fold improvement in storage capacity. These two data management improvements, on average, increase the intra-day historical storage capacity of MarketDelta significantly. Version 10.4 can store 16GB to 20GB of uncompressed intra-day data versus the 2GB capacity of the 10.3 database. Upon upgrade to 10.4 the database is migrated automatically. Compression takes place automatically as new tick data is captured from the real-time feed or as tick data is downloaded from a historical server. The database wizard window (Alt-U) has a new button to "Compress All Tick Data". This new utility function applies zlib compression to all tick data stored in the database and also compresses the tick.d01 database file to minimal size. See the message log for output showing how much tick.d01 disk storage was used before and after this utility is run. Minute bar interval data is now kept apart from tick data and new import methods in 10.4 ensure that minute interval downloading does not affect the tick data retention period. If you have Historical Data preferences setup to retain say 100 days of intra-day data overall and the last 5 days as tick data, and you perform a100 day minute download, the incoming minute bars will replace any minute bars on file for the period but will not replace any tick data already present for the most recent five days. If you decide to increase your historical intra-day retention from 100 to 200 days, you can use the Data Download window to request 200 days of one minute bars for all symbols. Each download will backfill the one minute data 200 days back, but will leave the last five days of tick data as is. This is a major improvement versus 10.3 and earlier where every minute interval download had to be followed by a tick data download. Backfilling intra-day charts with the last few minutes of ticks or last session or two of ticks is now faster and efficient. The improvement will be especially evident to users who retain many days of tick data. The MarketDelta database is now updated directly with the incoming data. If you have 60 days of tick data on file, a short term backfill will update just the most recent session of ticks on the database, leaving the prior 59 days of stored tick data in place. The improved data import process uses very little memory and is independent of the amount of tick data already on the database for the instrument. Since tick and intra-day bar data are now kept in separate physical files, initialization utilities are now provided for each in the Database Utilities menu and in the Database Wizard (Alt-U) window.

2. Revised Behavior for Buttons Using Drawing Tool Indicators.

If you right-click on a trend line, reference line, Fibonacci line, annotation indicator in a multi-pane chart and choose Add Button, MarketDelta adds a button to the chart that uses the preferences of the subject indicator to invoke the drawing tool associated with that indicator. If instead, you wish to actually toggle on/off the actual indicator, then you can right-click on the button and choose Edit button. You will notice that the button purpose has been setup as "Activate Drawing Tool Preset". Simply revise the purpose to "Add/Remove Preset Indicator" and click ok. Thereafter, clicking the will alternately remove and add back the subject indicator. This is an improvement over 10.3 where Add/Remove Preset Indicator was not available for drawing tool related indicators.

3. Sharing Preferences and Share Picture Improvements.

Setup: Preferences: Sharing has been simplified. When using the Share Picture command to share a window over charthub.com, a prompting dialog will appear in which you can specify a comment and indicate whether you want the window definition shared along with the image.

4. DTN Market Access Improvements.

MarketDelta users with no streaming market data source who use DTN MA as their source of market data will see some improvements in Version 10.4. Whenever historical data is downloaded, MarketDelta will process the intra-day data for the most recent trading session and update the values for open, high, low, close, volume, and previous close automatically. These values will be updated in any open quote pages and charts. User who run scans after the day session closes, can setup a schedule to automatically download tick or minute interval data for all symbols and follow this with a schedule step to "Post History". This will record the newly acquired OHLVC data as a new bar into the daily historical database so that scans on daily bars can be run immediately on the latest daily bar. DTN MA users will also notice that as new symbols are added into charts or quote pages or using the Setup: Instruments window, historical downloading is initiated automatically. Charts and quote pages will update right away. This auto downloading can be turned off by adding a line to the configuration file: DownloadFullDataNewSymbols=false;

5. Trendline Drag and Drop Improvement

 The behavior of trendlines when dragging within charts has been modified. In past releases, users could drag either end of the trendline to any position on the chart while the other end retained it's position. This behavior remains when the user drags the endpoint of the trendline. However, when the starting end of the trendline is dragged, the entire reference line will be dragged together, holding it's length and slope/angle. This gives the user the flexilibity to adjust the slope and length of the line by dragging the endpoint, or move the line altogether while retaining the length and slope by dragging the start point. Users may ctrl-drag the start point of any trendline to make a duplicate of the trendline that retains the slope and length of the original trendline. Users may still access the original behavior when dragging the start point by shift-dragging the start point, to move the start point while retaining the position of the endpoint. The new method for dragging the start point allows users to drag trendlines into positions where the endpoint protrudes into the future past the current bar.

6. Profile Indicator - Sharing Peaks and Valleys Among Charts.

The Profile Indicator has a new option which makes it easy to transfer peaks (or high volume nodes) and valleys (or low volume nodes) of composite profiles to other charts easily and efficiently. This allows the user to place the nearest three peaks and nearest three valleys on any chart without the overhead of increasing the overhead of expanding the viewing period of those charts and adding the Profile Indicator to those charts. Once chart computes the peaks and valleys and the other charts use that single calculation. This is implemented within the Profile Indicator by checking a new check box "Store 3 Peaks + 3 Valleys Into V#x thru V#y". The user specifies the series of user variables (V# variables) they would like the nearest three peaks and valleys stored in. The three nearest peaks will be stored in the first three user variables and the three nearest valleys will be stored in the next three variables. Once this is setup, the user can make use of the next two new features mentioned below to easily display these peak and valley lines on other charts.

7. Reference Line - Plotting Series of User Variables.

The Reference Line indicator now has an option that allows users to plot lines for a series of user variables with a single indicator. When the user choosing to base his reference line on "Use V#", a new check box now appears to the right of this option labelled "+ x". If, for example, the user has chosen to "Use V#2" and then checks the new option with "+5", the reference line will then plot a line for not only V#2, but also the next 5 user variables of V#3, V#4, V#5, V#6, and V#7. If applicable, these reference lines will also use the title of the user variable as the label of the line. All lines will share the same color and style.

8. Auto Titling of User Variables.

The User Variables preference window (Setup: Preferences: User Variables) now has a new option titled "Auto Title". When this button is pressed, user variables will be automatically titled based on their usage for exporting values from indicators and charts. This option currently handles peaks and valleys in Profile Indicator (HVN1, HVN2, HVN3, HVN1, HVN2, HVN3), Pivot Indicator (S3 thru R3), and Market Profile chart price levels (DPOCv, IBH, DVAH, etc). If a user variable is not used to export a value from an indicator or chart, it's title will be left alone.

9. Watermark Indicator.

A new Watermark Indicator has been added to allow user to identify themselves, their organization, or the symbol in the chart with subtle translucent text overlaying the chart. The indicator gives the user the option to supply the text used, the position, the font and size, along with several levels of translucence/opacity.

10. Chart Time Axis Drawing Improved .

Multi-Pane charts now show the date time labels and lines into the future ( to the right of right of current bar) for time-based charts. This includes minute or seconds interval charts, daily, weekly, and monthly charts. Prior to Version 10.4 the lines and labels ended at the current bar. This makes it easy to identify the date time of future periods when there is a lookahead period or a right margin of white space in the chart.

11. Volume Breakdown - Indicator Access to High and Low.

The Volume Breakdown indicator has been improved to allow indicators easy access to the high and low of delta bars or cumulative delta bars. When the user chooses "Statistics: Indicator" and specifies an indicator to operate on the VB results, this indicator now has access to not only the closing price of the delta bars, but also the open, high, and low prices of those bars. So for instance, if the user choose an indicator of "Session Statistics" and setup SESST to give the highest high of the session, the indicator will now operate properly on the high values of the delta bars. When this combination is now used, VB also allows the user to specify any drawing style (Stepped Lines, Histogram, etc) with which the result will be displayed.

12. New Formats for Export of Fractals, Volume Breakdown. Fractals:

When the user right-clicks on the Fractal Indicator and chooses to "export data", the resulting data file is now formatted to provide the respective high or low price of each fractal. In past versions, a 1 was provided for any up or down fractal. This gives the user quick access to these fractal prices in the exported file without having to use alternate means (e.g. Excel) to extract that information. Volume Breakdown: When the user right-clicks on the Volume Breakdown Indicator and chooses "Export Data", the data is now presented in a much smarter and easy-to-understand format. If delta bars are in force, the user will see four columns of data for VB_Close, VB_Open, VB_High, and VB_Low. Otherwise, a single column will be displayed providing the single array of results for each bar. If the user holds down the shift-key during the export process, the columns for open, close, high, and low prices of the underlying bars will also be appended to the data.

13. Technical Indicator Text Label Option.

Indicators may now be labelled with a text string just left of the current value on the vertical scale. This makes it easier to identify what each indicator represents when multiple indicators are present in a pane. To access this option, double-click on the indicator to view the indicator preferences. The "Text Label" settings appear near the bottom of the window beneath the "Label Current Value" settings. Choose "Custom" and provide a your own label or "Automatic" to use the default label for the indicator. If the "Use Scale Color" check box is checked, the label will use the inverse of the scale colors. Otherwise, the label will be drawn using the indicator colors and the background color of chart.

14. Profile Indicator - In Range Duration Option.

A new duration option has been added to the Profile Indicator titled "In Range". This option is similar to the "All Data" option in that it considers all bars loaded in the chart. However, the In Range option takes an numerical period which dictates how many prices above and below the current price are to be considered in the profile. As an example, if a period of 100 was specified, then the profile would look at all bars in the chart, but would only process bars which were within 100 ticks or price increments of the current price. This allows users to limit the drawn profile to the relevant activity in general proximity of the current trading area.

15. Latest Rithmic R | API for Zen-Fire/Rithmic Users.

MarketDelta Version 10.0 adopts the Rithmic R | API Version 4.0.0.0. All trading orders sent to the Zen-Fire/Rithmic brokerage destination are designated as Automatic or Manual trading orders. Any trading order that involves some user interaction that initiates the sending of the order are sent as manual orders. Orders that are sent by some automation, e.g. a trading system rule or a signal action will be marked automatic unless the trading order itself requires a user confirmation before sending the trade to the broker. Any automatically initiated trading order that requires a user interaction to specify a stop or limit price, e.g. via a mouse click, will be sent as a manual trading order.

16. Miscellaneous 10.4 Fixes and Improvements.

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At startup 10.4 checks for key sub directories inside the MarketDelta working

directory and creates them if necessary. Folders such as admin and tickdata must

exist in the working directory for MarketDelta to operate correctly.

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Multi pane charts setup to display background as a "gradient" would sometimes

revert to a gradient color of black. This bug has been corrected in 10.4.

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String comparisons with the empty string are now possible in RTL, e.g. SECTOR = ""

will scan for symbols having nothing for the sector field.

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A rare bug would cause instruments with volume-like values over 10 million, e.g.

$VOLD on eSignal, to auto scale incorrectly. Symbols this extremely large price

values now auto scale properly.

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A bug was fixed in the eSignal version. Open interest is now properly download

when daily bar data is downloaded for futures and options symbols.

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When DTN MA is used in conjunction with a broker feed, and the host ticker symbol

having a correctly specified DTN alias symbol contains special characters

(slashes, quotes, colons etc.) the historical download would fail. For example, a

symbol setup as TICK/Q with DTN Alias NASTICK.Z, would get an error, while a

symbol like TICKQ with the same alias would work fine. This has been corrected.

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A memory leak was fixed in RTL scans where the PROF (Profile Indicator) was used

in conjunction with the MPD (Mixed Periodicity) token.

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The Window-->Bring To Front menu has a new menu item titled "All Alert/Message

Windows". The effect is to show any open alarm windows and message display windows

in a staggered fashion in the main MarketDelta task window.

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All MarketDelta Preferences windows now open as floating windows positioned

initially at the top center of the main MarketDelta task window. This enables such

windows to be left open and positioned on other monitors if desired, and it also

ensures that opening a preferences window will result in a viewable window even if

you have open floating charts or quote pages inside the main MarketDelta task

window. In version 10.3 newly opened preferences windows could not be seen if a

floating chart or quote page was occupying the main task window.

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An improvement was made to custom instruments where a custom instrument composed

of only a single component using a multiplier and the last price will now carry

the trading volume and the multiplier adjusted bid and ask prices of the component

symbol in the custom instrument. This was only done when the multiplier was 1 in

earlier versions. This allows the custom instrument to product a real-time stream

with matching buy/sell volume of the underlying component.

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MarketDelta 10.4 has been updated to use the latest Transact/Infinity API (Version

3.0.0.666). This release features improved real time streaming data in high

trading volume conditions.

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Candlestick wicks are now drawn with a bolder line when the candlesticks reach 12

pixels in width. The wicks are drawn bolder again when the candle body is 30 or

more pixels wide. There is a configuration variable for this new feature. Add a

line to the configuration file: CandleWickIncAtWidth=10, for example. The number

you specify is the candle body width at which the wicks begin to be drawn bolder.

Users who prefer the 10.3 rendering where all wicks are drawn as a thin 1 pixel

line, set CandleWickIncAtWidth=0. Use File: Open: Configuration File; add the

CandleWickIncAtWidth line; press Ctl-S to save the configure.txt file. The new

setting goes into effect immediately.

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The built-in help window opens taller and wider. The window typically needed

manual resizing in earlier versions; this should no longer be necessary.