MarketDelta Version 10.3.3

Released: November 15, 2010

 

Version 10.3 Enhancements

1. Improved License Activation.

2. Transact/Infinity Improvements.

3. Zig Zag Enhancements.

4. Profile Indicator: Heat Map.

5. Scrolling Charts with Scrollwheel.

6. IQFEED Symbol Lookup and Equity/Index Option Chains.

7. New Method for Adjusting Indicator Colors.

8. Volume Breakdown Efficiency Improvements.

9. Label Current Value by Default.

10. Pairs Historical Data Generation - New Option.

11. Layout Management Improvements.

12. Profile Indicator: Major Improvements.

13. Exporting Naked POCs from Market Profile.

14. Text Window Floating Option.

15. Trading Notes Marker Improvements.

16. DTN Historical Data Compressed Downloading.

17. Miscellaneous 10.3 Fixes and Improvements.

 

1. Improved License Activation. MarketDelta 10.3 includes upgraded software components for license activation designed to improve the reliability of license activation and verification. The Windows Service "ASTSRV" is superseded by an improved service named NLSSRV32, the "NLS Service". The new service is installed automatically the first time MarketDelta 10.3 starts up. Windows 7/Vista users will have to run MarketDelta once "As Administrator" to install the service. The new licensing software operates effectively when RAID disk arrays are in use.

 

2. Transact/Infinity Improvements.

 

3. Zig Zag Enhancements. Two new options were added to the Zig Zag Indicator.  The "Minimum Change" can now be specified in "Bars" in addition to "$" and "%".  Also, a new "Trend Coloring" option was added.

When "Minimum Change" is specified in "Bars" (20 bars for instance), this does not mean that each leg will be 20 bars in length.  Instead, it uses the bar count in respect to new highs and lows.  If the last leg was downward, then only a bar with a high greater than the high of the previous 20 bars can establish a new pivot and a new upward leg.  Once that upward leg is established, only a bar with a low that is less than the lowest low of the previous 20 bars can establish a new pivot and a new downward leg.  After establishing a downward leg, if we encounter a bar with a lower low than our pivot bar, that bar replaces the pivot for the downward leg (just like "$" and "%" currently work).  This "Bar" method allows the volatility of the market to power the Zig Zag instead of requiring the user to supply a specific $ or % value.  The "Bar" method should also translate well among various instruments and security types.

A new check box has been added titled "Trend Coloring".  When this check box is checked, each leg of the Zig Zag will be colored green when in an uptrend and red when in a downtrend.  When in an uptrend, our state can only be reversed to a downtrend by a downward leg whose pivot low is lower than the previous downward leg pivot (a lower low).  When in a downtrend, our state can only be reversed to an uptrend by an upward leg whose pivot high is higher than the high of the previous upward leg pivot (a higher high).  This coloring options gives the user visual feedback to reflect whether the instrument is in an upward or downward trend.

 

4. Profile Indicator: Heat Map. A new "Heat Map" option has been added to the Profile Indicator.  This option can be found by choosing "Draw As: Volume Shading" and then choosing "Heat Map" from the menu of colors.  When this option is selected, the profile transforms into a vertical block showing a color gradient reflecting the relative volume at each price.  The color gradient starts at black for lowest volume price and from there goes to blue, green, yellow, then red as the volume increases.  This option gives the user a new visual display of high and low volume areas, especially on longer term profiles.  When Heat Map is turned on, the user can check "Right Align" to position the Heat Map along the right edge of chart, or un-check "Right Align" to position it along the left side.  In addition, the user may check the "Width" check box to specify the width of the Heat Map block, in pixels.  The user may stack multiple Heat Maps on either side of the chart, one for last month, one for last week, one for current session, etc. 

 

5. Scrolling Charts with Scroll wheel. Users may now scroll multi-pane charts horizontally (in time) using the scroll wheel. Simply hold down Ctrl+Shift (hold down both Ctrl and Shift keys together) while operating the scroll wheel, and the chart will scroll back and forward in time horizontally.  Operating the scroll wheel alone (without Ctrl or Shift depressed) will zoom the chart horizontally.  Ctrl+scroll wheel zooms the chart vertically.  Shift+scroll wheel scrolls the chart vertically. Mac OS X users: use the Option key instead of Ctrl key.

 

6. IQFEED Symbol Lookup and Equity/Index Option Chains. Users of DTN IQFEED (Windows) now have access to the DTN lookup server for symbol lookup and listing of near month option ticker symbols for underlying equity/indexes. To use the new built-in symbol lookup feature, choose Symbol Lookup... from the IQFEED menu in MarketDelta. Enter a word or partial description optionally followed by a comma and a security type code (STK, OPT, FUT, INDX, FOPT, MUT). For example, enter STARBUCKS and MarketDelta will show a list of symbols (any security type) having the word STARBUCKS in the description. GOLD,FUT will list futures contracts whose description contains the word GOLD. AGGRESSIVE,MUT will return mutual fund symbols having the word AGGRESSIVE in the fund name, etc. Having identified the ticker symbol of interest you can then copy/paste or type it into the quotepage or the Setup: Instruments window to begin following it.

The option chain feature is available via the quotepage. Right-click on any equity or index and choose "Option Display". MarketDelta will respond with a list of 8 in-the-money and 8 out-of-the-money option ticker symbols with contract expirations in the nearest four months. Calls are listed first followed by a list of puts. The list of ticker symbols appears in a text window, one ticker per line. If you wish to add the symbols and begin tracking them with IQFEED you can select one or more (or all) the lines and copy the text to the clipboard (Ctrl-C), then open a quotepage and do Edit->Paste to paste the ticker symbols into the quotepage page, adding the symbols automatically. IQFEED will immediately begin watching the options and data will fill in.

 

7. New Method for Adjusting Indicator Colors. Revising the color of an indicator line, reference line, trendline, etc. can now be accomplished more simply and directly from the right-click menu in multi-paned chart windows. For example, right-click on a trendline and use the "Edit TLINE Color" submenu to change the color, style, or thickness of the trendline. The submenu includes some common color choices (red, green, blue, black, etc.). A Color Picker menu item allows any color to be specified. Right-click on any indicator and choose Edit Preferences... to view and/or edit the full set of preference settings for the indicator. For those who plan to use these color revision menus often, we have added a shortcut: Hold down the Ctrl key (Option key on Mac OS X) while right-clicking on an indicator and the menu of color choices will appear (rather than the more comprehensive indicator popup menu). Almost all indicators present in MarketDelta support this new color menu. For the few that do not, the menu will be dimmed when you right-click on such indicators. Some indicators that support multiple color settings will typically update the primary color setting only. A few special cases such as stochastics which have multiple lines and multiple line color settings will assign the color change to the appropriate line based on the current settings of the indicator. Use the Edit Preferences... menu item in cases where the line color you need to adjust is not the one affected by this new Edit Color menu.

 

8. Volume Breakdown Efficiency Improvements. Certain implementations (combinations of settings) of the Volume Breakdown Indicator (VB) require an extensive amount of memory upon initial loading/calculation of the VB.  The most notable implementation involves VB with volume filter (Consider Trades w/ Vol >/< x). When VB involves a volume filter, then VB must go through all the ticks/trades to evaluate if each one should be considered.  In past versions, all trades have been loaded into memory and then processed by VB, using only the ones that pass through the volume filter.  In this release, the ticks are evaluated for meeting the volume criteria BEFORE being loaded into memory.  The net result of this change is that VB will use much less memory when initially adding VB to a chart or opening a chart which contains a VB with a volume filter.  The difference will be more dramatic for those that retain more tick data and who have volume-filtered VBs in charts with extended viewing periods.  This memory issue has caused some users to run out of memory on initial startup/backfill and this should greatly alleviate that problem.

 

9.Label Current Value by Default. Each indicator is equipped with a "Label Current Value" option at the bottom of the indicator preferences window.  This option can only be seen when opening the preference window after the indicator has been added to the chart.  When this option is turned on, the current value of the indicator is highlighted and displayed in the scale to the right.  In past releases, this option has defaulted to off.  In this release, this behavior has changed to turn "Label Current Value" on for any indicator that is newly added to a chart.  It will not affect indicators that have already been added to existing charts, only indicators that are added to charts after upgrading to 10.3 Beta 2 or later.  For those that wish to retain the previous behavior of this option defaulting to off, choose "file: open: configuration file", and inset the following line on a blank line by itself, then choose "file: save: save".

 

LabelPriceByDefault=false

 

10. Pairs Historical Data Generation - New Option.

A new option has been added for the generation of historical data on pairs (custom instruments).  By default, when the user performs a download or backfill on a pair, every tick/price of each component is processed and included in the generation of the tick data and intraday data of the pair.  For pairs of stocks, often a stock may have a bad tick (a tick well out of line with other prices) which in turn results in the generation of a bad tick on the pair.  To help prevent this phenomenon, a new option has been added which results in the intraday pair data only considering the closing 1-minute prices of each component.  This option can significantly clean up not only the intraday data, but also the daily data which is built from the intraday data.  This option is off by default.  To turn it on, choose "file: open: configuration file", and inset the following line on a blank line by itself, then choose "file: save: save".

 

PairsUseCloseOnly=true

 

11. Layout Management Improvements. Improvements were made to enable charts and other windows that participate in layouts to be shared in multiple layouts, with each layout possibly having the same window in a different position and/or a different size. Even when the same window is kept open but hidden until needed, it will appear in each layout at the size and position it was in when the layout was last saved. In prior versions, hidden windows would never change size or position when switching from one layout to another.

 

12. Profile Indicator: Major Improvements. Two major improvements were made to the software which will have a substantial impact on the Profile Indicator, and specifically those using the Profile Indicator for long-term composite profiles.  These improvements will substantially reduce the calculation time for the indicator as well as substantially decrease the memory requirements of the indicator.

First, the calculation of this indicator is now much more efficient for composite volume profiles.  In past versions, the Profile Indicator processed all the data every time it recalculated.  Now the previous calculations are being stored and only the last minute of data is being merged in.  This results in an extremely quick recalculation where it might have taken up to 2 or 3 seconds in the past.  Many users should see a performance boost from this change.

In addition, charts which contain the Profile Indicator should see a great reduction in the amount of memory required.  In testing, one chart that consumed 30mb of memory before the improvements consumed less than 1.5mb after.  Internally, this improvements were made possible due to a change in how the volume-at-price data of each bar is stored.  Periods which contain only 1-minute data (no tick data) are now stored using much less memory.

 

13. Exporting Naked POCs from Market Profile. The nearest naked point of control above and below current price can now be exported from Market Profile charts to any user variable.  In order to export these values, the user would setup a reference line with a label of "=NPOCA" (for the nearest naked POC above) or "=NPOCB" (for nearest below), and set the refernce line value to "V#10" or whatever user variable the user wishes to export the NPOC to.  This allows user to easily place reference lines on multi-pane charts at the closest NPOC above and below current price.  And this line will update dynamically as NPOCs are taken out over time.

To access more information on how this is accomplished as well as how other prices may be export to user variables, visit: http://support.marketdelta.com/entries/114800

 

14. Text Window Floating Option. Any text window, e.g. the message log, can be a floating window for placement on a secondary monitor. The menu button at the upper left corner of all text windows has a  menu item, Floating Window, that appears check marked when the window is a floating window. Choose this menu item to toggle the state of the window between non-floating (unchecked) or floating. Floating text windows can participate in layouts and the state of the window is honored when you activate a layout containing one or more text windows. Note that once you have a text window open you can use the menu button at the upper left of the window to view any file you like. Click the menu button and choose the Open menu item, then select the text file you wish to view in the window.

 

15.Trading Notes Marker Improvements. Trading Notes Marker indicator now has marker setups for  both a "Buy Marker" (the default marker) and a "Sell Marker". Trading notes created automatically by the Trading Simulator or during live trading begin with the text "BOT" or "SLD". Any trading notes beginning with "SLD" (or "SELL") will use the sell marker (marker, color, and position), while other trading notes will be denoted with the buy marker setup. The indicator will now show the text of the trading notes associated with any marker displayed in the chart when the mouse pointer hovers over the bar in question. Options are provided to show the marker text in the main toolbar message area, the chart pane title, or as a tip window that appears for a few seconds when the mouse hovers over the bar. When the trading notes marker indicator is the selected indicator, the (possibly abbreviated) text of every marker is displayed as a label centered above or below the marker. The setup for the trading notes marker indicator also  permits the displayed note text to be trimmed in a user-specified fashion, showing only N words of the trading note, optionally skipping over the first M words. A "word" in this context is any span of characters ending in one or more spaces. Users of the brokerage features of MarketDelta, including the trading simulator, will now find the trading notes marker an excellent tool for reviewing the trading order fills that took place during the session. When there are multiple trading notes that fall into the same bar on the chart, the bar will be marked with the last of the notes that occurred during the bar's interval. The note text display(s) will show the text of the last note for the interval. To see all the notes, you can double-click on the marker image and then click "View All Trading Notes". Displaying multiple notes per bar is under consideration for future development. The improved trading notes marker is now automatically added to charts when a brokerage fill is received for the symbol in the chart. Similar to the trading related annotation, fill and working order reference lines, the trading notes marker will now automatically mark the bars where buys and sells have occurred.

 

16. DTN Historical Data Compressed Downloading. MarketDelta 10.3 support compressed downloading of historical data from DTN IQFEED and DTN MA users. Typically, the compressed data sent by the DTN historical servers reduces bandwidth requirements by 50% or more. Historical download times are reduced and the reduced bandwidth improves performance of data reception for real-time data.

 

17. Miscellaneous 10.3 Fixes and Improvements.

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The Plugin Indicator now supports V# variables as parameters. For example, the MarketDelta plug-in is programmed to accept two whole numbers as moving average periods, e.g. 10,20. You can now setup the parameters using %RTL tokens, e.g. %V#22,%V#23. When the plugin is calculated, the values of V#22 and V#23 for the associated symbol will be passed to the plugin instead. This enhancement means that plugin indicators, including all the Jurik proprietary indicators, may now be backtested via the optimization features of the MarketDelta trading system tools to find optimum values for the periods.

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Trading Notes import is now supported via the File: Import: Definition File or File: Import: Clipboard command. Trading note definition files look like this:

 

BEGIN MarketDelta TRADING NOTE DEFINITION

<ticker>,<timestamp><note>

<ticker>,<timestamp><note>

END MarketDelta TRADING NOTE DEFINITION

 

Each line between the BEGIN and END lines must contain a recognized symbol being followed by MarketDelta, followed by a date in the form mm/dd/yyyy optionally followed by a space an the time in hh:mm:ss form. Seconds (ss) are optional. The <note> is any text up to 255 characters long. Ticker, timestamp and note can be comma or tab separated. Trading notes, imported this way from external sources, can be viewed in the Trading Notes window in MarketDelta or you may add a Trading Notes Marker indicator to a chart and MarketDelta will mark the bars that have associated trading notes. When the mouse pointer hovers over a marker in the chart, the text of the associated trading note appears in the main toolbar message area.

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Custom Columns can be setup to show numeric values as percentages by checking the Show Value as a Percentage check box in the Format tab of the custom column setup window. When checked, the result value of the custom column is multiplied by 100 and shown with a percent sign suffix using the user specified display format. For example a custom column setup to show as percentage having a display format of 99.99 whose result is 0.1234 will display this value in the quotepage cell as 12.34%.

 

In a related improvement, when editing V# variables in a quotepage a numeric value with a trailing percent sign will be divided by 100 when storing the edited the value. For example if you edit 12.34% where a custom column is showing a V# variable's value, the actual value of the V# variable being edited is .1234. If you then edit the value to 12.99% and press tab or enter, MarketDelta will adjust the V# variable to 0.1299. In other words, the % suffix indicates that the internal value has been multiplied by 100 to display the result as a percentage.

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The File: Reconfigure menu item has been renamed File: Configure Data Source/Brokerage. The Configure menu item is now present in the data source specific menu adjacent to the Help Menu, and is present in the menu that pops up when you click on the Heartbeat icon on the main toolbar. The Configure window has been simplified, eliminating rarely used database location setups. Users can change database location using Setup: Preferences: Database, or add AllowDBLocConfigure=true to the configuration file to enable the database location setups in the Configure window as they were in version 10.2 and earlier.

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Renaming custom columns no longer impacts the association of the newly renamed column with the quotepages in which it resides.

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Marketdelta Footprint charts by default revert to candlestick charts when the mouse wheel or arrow keys are used to reduce the Footprint bar spacing (pixels per bar) below 10 pixels. A configuration variable can be used to set the minimum allowable spacing of Footprint charts. Include the line:

 

MinFootprintPixelsPerBar=10

 

in the configuration file. Setting the value to 10 or higher will prevent the Footprint from reverting to a candlestick chart when adjusting pixel spacing. The volume numbers in the Footprint are typically more readable when the spacing is 25 or higher. In a related change, chart buttons of type "Set Chart Style" will automatically adjust the spacing of the chart to 25 pixels if necessary when the target style is Footprint. This ensures that the Footprint chart will indeed appear as a Footprint rather than a candlestick chart when the former spacing would be too small to display the Footprint.

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When importing text files containing historical data, current quotes or other data, fields in each line of data can be separated by either commas, tabs, or semicolons.

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When importing chart definitions containing indicator presets, MarketDelta will not replace existing presets having the same name as those being imported. This precaution prevents changing of presets unknowingly when importing charts exported by other users. For example, Signal Actions and Trading Order setup are stored as presets so the default behavior is protective of existing setups of these kinds. A configuration variable has been added for those who want presets to be updated when importing chart definition. This may be useful to a client who is importing his own definitons created on another machine for example. Use File: Open: Configuration File and add a new line: OnImportReplacePresets=true; then press Ctrl-S to save the configure.txt file. Remove this line to return MarketDelta to the default behavior. When importing presets, the message log will show a message for each preset added or updated.

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