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.