Hi,
Over the last several weeks, I’ve
posted questions about Quotes Plus data. This a quick report on
what’s happened so far.
When I started using AB again in
April, I used TeleChart as my data source. As a source and as a
charting package, TeleChart had some advantages. The TC charting
had a few, minor advantages over AB. And, the data had some good
features when compared to Quotes Plus – Media General Industry Group and
Sector Indexes, intraday data updates, and clean data (minimal dead tickers).
However, on the downside, the TC
UI had loads of idiosyncrasies and is not even in the same league with AB for
scanning and back testing. And, as I became more familiar with QP3
data, TC data advantages started to disappear:
·
While TC intraday data updates are
still an advantage, I can work around it with intraday updates from my broker
– Interactive Brokers.
·
With the new QP plugin, the QP
data appears to be much cleaner; dead tickers are excluded.
·
It turns out that TC’s
implemention of Hemscott’s Media General industry/sector hierarchy doesn’t
work well for me. TC stripped off the Hemscott macroeconomic Sector
Level (8 Sectors) of the hierarchy and uses the bottom two levels of the
Hemscott hierarchy – Business Segment and Industry Group.
Unfortunately, TC refers to the “Business Segment” level as the “Sector”
level. IMO, the 31 TC “Sectors” provide too much granularity and
are not useful as macroeconomic indicators.
Quotes Plus apparently uses the
Reuters Industry and Sector hierarchy which I now find more
useful.
·
Now that I’ve gone through the
process of creating my own indexes, I find that it’s an advantage. Using
“AddToComposite” I can create custom indexes that meet my needs and do not
have to depend on the TC definition.
·
While I don’t invest in Mutual
Funds, I do like to use them sometimes as economic indicators.
With TC, they are an added cost item. With Quotes Plus, they come as
part of the standard package.
·
Except for Money Stream and BOP,
TC provides little additional data to AB other than price and volume.
Quotes Plus has a wide variety of fundamental data and “other” data. For
example, it provides market cap data and the percent shares held by
institutions – which I use in my system.
·
My scans run much faster with QP
data. Accessing TC’s data from AB is slower than accessing QP
data. I haven’t quantified how fast the scans run, but scans running
against QP data appear to run 50 to 100% faster.
One final issue with TC is more
emotional in nature...
TC is a VERY marketing oriented
company. Although TC’s trainers seem like pretty good folks, asking a
basic question to TC management get a marketing hype response. In some
cases, the answers are quite insulting. At one point, I posted a
question on forum about the Worden Studio product (a web-based product) and
how it related to Telechart. Instead of a clear answer, I got
marketing hype. When I complained that I couldn’t see any value
with Worden Studio, they condescendingly stated that I just didn’t know how to
use it!
I’m a Data Warehouse Architect by
profession (fancy name for database developer) and have developed analytical
software for 34 years. I don’t claim perfection, but I do
understand a fair amount about analytical systems. For TC
management to try to explain away their products’ deficiencies by telling me
that I just don’t know how to use it is extremely insulting! What’s
worse is that it displays a lack of sensitivity for customer needs and
requirements.
OK, flame off!
Because I’m cautious, I’ll keep
the TC subscription for another month or so to ensure that I haven’t missed
anything. From this point forward, Quotes Plus is my primary EOD
data source.
I hope you’ve found this report
useful.
Best
Regards,
Dan.