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The World of AmiBroker Support
http://webhome.idirect.com/~ddalley
ddalley@xxxx
What Are The Advantages?
You might be wondering what advantages the DalleySuite programs give
you. As you can see with the example here, all of the programs are written
to make daily Internet data access as quick and painless a chore as
possible.
The DalleySuite importers help you acquire more data in less time, too.
With more stocks in your database, the better chance you have of finding a
trade. This easy data access lets us all get on with actually using
AmiBroker to help make buy-sell-hold decisions - the ultimate goal.
Technical Analysis Needs Long Histories
Having *long* stock price histories is extremely important to technical
analysis, if you can find them. The AmiBroker 2.71 update now allows
importation of MetaStock's data from CDs or other external sources. These
expensive histories are out of date when you buy them, leaving you with
big data holes and no current data. Other sources are needed to update
them with the intervening data. Where can you get updates?
A few days ago, Terry Chadban suggested to Tomasz to use the StockTools
site as a source for free American stock histories. (It also has most
Canadian stocks.) StockTools' recently improved US histories can extend
at least twenty-two years, making these very worthwhile acquiring indeed!
That is why I wrote an importer for their data, about one year ago.
StockTools now provides historical chunks of one year's data each. Tomasz
suggested using AmiBroker's ASCII import command to import the data.
Using a browser, though, you have two choices: Export As ASCII; Save HTML
Sources. In my experience, HTML is much faster and easier than using ASCII,
and here is why.
Dare to Compare
With the DalleySuite's StockTools importer, multiple history chunks load
in one step. All new tickers are automatically added to AmiBroker's
database in CONTinuous mode, along with the full company name. Also, there
is *no editing* of any data files when you use any DalleySuite importer!
Extra data is imported, and feedback is given with a summary report panel.
None of the above is available with the ASCII importer. Although my ASCII
import skills are getting rusty, even if I found a way to cut the editing
time by half, it still would take more than double the time as my importer!
In the time needed to prepare *each* ASCII data chunk for import, I could
have imported many more HTML histories.
If you have a favourite data source (especially an open, free Internet
server) and want a customized importer too, please contact me.
Comments are welcomed,
Donald Dalley
======================================================================
The following is a time comparison of importing 10 identical histories
using my importer verses AmiBroker's ASCII importer. Remember, every
second of the HTML method's time is spent extracting & importing data.
HTML:ASCII = 2.75:16.0 minutes = 1:6
So, ASCII takes about 6 times longer, depending upon how efficient YOU are.
It actually took me longer, since 1 out of the 10 ASCII files [the default
year of Sears (S)] refused to enter and, after 3 minutes of checking and
retries, I gave up on it. The point had already been made.
Therefore, the DalleySuite's custom StockTools importer is much more
efficient at building or updating your US and Canadian histories, in a
hands-off way.
Describing the two methods use to import StockTools' data:
(best read using a mono-spaced font)
DalleySuite's Importer AmiBroker's ASCII import
====================== ========================
- Save data chunks as HTML - Save/Export data chunks as ASCII
(Aweb's keyboard shortcut) (used AWeb's ASCII export script)
- import all data chunks - create any new AmiBroker ticker symbols
- Save data - enter each full company name manually
- check CONTinuous graph mode each time
- Load & carefully edit garbage text from
top (and bottom, if needed) of each
data file
- make a new header, then Save each file
- import each file individually
- Save data
Comments:
- much faster & easier, - boring, slow, manual editing of each
more reliable (automatic, ASCII file (with possible human error)
hands-off operation; no - no company name import or graph setting
human mistakes) - no summary report
- one key press imports all - if data or header format is in error,
data files immediately you must figure it out
- imports full company name
- auto sets CONTinuous mode
- summary reports give
feedback
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