Hi,
I’ve discovered the joys of Composite symbols. However…
I ran into what appears to be a serious issue when creating Composite
symbols – ticker symbol length. It appears that the maximum length
for a ticker symbol is 25 characters.
When creating Composite symbols, you append or prepend a
character string to differentiate types of Composite symbols. If the first
25 characters of a Composite symbol are exactly the same, the excess characters
are truncated and values are merged to one symbol. The symbol is then
corrupt.
For example, I create QP Industry Composite indexes of my
stock list, and then create an “Indicator” Composite symbol of each
Industry Index symbol. Here’s how the error occurs:
·
QP has two Industries:
Aerospace-Defense
Aerospace-Defense Eqp
·
Composite Industry indexes are
created by prepending “~iInd_” to the industry name:
~iInd_Aerospace-Defense
~iInd_Aerospace-Defense E
Notice that “qp” is truncated
from the second industry.
·
Then Composite Indicator symbols are
created by prepending “Rk” to the Industry Index symbols:
“Rk~iInd_Aerospace-Defense”
However, instead of two Composite Indicator
symbols, only ONE is created! Since the left 25 characters of the Indicator
Composite symbol (“Rk” + Industry Index symbol name) are same for
both Industries, values from the two Industry Index symbols are merged to one
Indicator Symbol!
Composite Indexes and Indicator symbols are a HUGE
benefit. Composite Indicator symbols allow me to preprocess and save Indicators
like RSI, and then use them like a normal ticker. Before, my
scans and charts computed Sector and Industry Rank on the fly, which was SLOW!
Now, with Sector and Industry Composite Rank symbols, scans and charts are at
least 3 times faster!
How can I get around this character length limitation?
Tweaking symbol names might work for a while, but at some point the
symbol names will become meaningless. Can I increase the Symbol
length? Tomasz, can you increase Symbol length?
Thanks and regards,
Dan.