MarketDelta Version 10.3.9

Released: January 26, 20101

Version 10.3.9 Enhancements

1. Layout Toolbar Improvement

2. Intraday Chart Day-of-Week Labling

3. Profile Indicator Volume Distribution Improvement

1. Layout Toolbar Improvement. Layouts now be excluded from display in the layout toolbar. This is accomplished using the layout toolbar to select the layout in question, checkmark the "Exclude Tab from Toolbar" checkbox and then save the layout. The layout remains defined and accessible using the menu system, but its tab will no longer appear in the layout toolbar. The Open-->Layout menu or the File-->Open-->Layout command can be used to open any layout independently of the layout toolbar. When the menu system is used to open a layout that is presently excluded from the layout toolbar, the layout's windows will open and a tab for that layout will be added to the layout toolbar temporarily. This enables you to uncheck the "Exclude Tab..." checkbox and save the layout if you wish that layout to be available in the layout toolbar thereafter. At startup, any layouts having the "Exclude Tab..." setting will be passed over for inclusion in the layout toolbar. This feature may be of interest to users with a large number of layouts, many of which are rarely needed, or when the layouts of interest might change from time to time.

2. Intraday Chart Day-of-Week Labeling. A new option is available for labeling day-of-week transitions in overnight session charts. There are now two checkboxes in Setup: Preferences: Charts: General that control boundary labeling. One for specifying that session boundaries should be drawn and a new one that pertains to day of week transition. Check the box titled "Label Day-of-Week Boundaries Within Overnight Session" to engage this feature; it is "on" by default. When "on", the session boundary vertical line (if enabled) is labeled with the session start time and the date. In addition, a day of week boundary line is drawn at midnight and the new day of the week is labelled there rather than at the beginning of the session. Showing both the session start/stop boundary and day of week boundary as separate lines make it clearer that the session passes through midnight and the day-of-week shown will now denote the day of the week that the session ends rather than the day of the week the session begins. If you want only session boundaries to be labeled, simply uncheck the box to see the same labeling as version 10.3.6.

If you want to see day of week boundaries labeled only in selected chart setups but not others, then you can turn off this new option and instead add a Vertical Reference Line indicator to any charts you want. Setup the Vertical Reference Line with any date and a time of 00:00:00 (midnight) and check the box "Draw every day at the Specified Time". Such midnight vertical lines will show the day-of-week label for overnight session charts when trading passes through midnight. This method might be desirable if you want more control over the line color and style, where the label is drawn, or you wish to be selective about which charts have such boundary lines, or if you only want these lines to be drawn inside your instrument pane rather than through all panes in the chart.

3. Profile Indicator Volume Distribution Improvement. The Profile Indicator is commonly used to implement both short and long term composite profiles. When tick data is available, the Profile Indicators uses that tick data to compute true volume-at-price information. However, for periods in the past when only 1-minute data is available, the volume within each 1-min bar must be distributed in some way among the prices in the bar. Invisible 1-min bars are loaded into the chart for use by the Profile Indicator so it may provide the most accurate volume-at-price information possible based on available data.

Prior to version 10.3.9, the volume within these 1-minute bars was divided up equally among the prices. We have done some statistical analysis on the average distribution of volume among the prices in 1-minute bars using tick data for the S&P Emini contract. As a result of the studies, new distribution models were developed for allocating the volume among the prices within bars of various ranges. Upon further testing, these new distribution models resulted in a 35% increase in accuracy when compared to the method of equally dividing volume among prices. This new distribution method is in place for 10.3.9 and should result in more accurate volume distribution, especially for longer term composites.