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Gary:
I hope the following may provide some clues as to what may be associated with
the current data problem QP2 is having updating MetaStock directories:
In preparation to implement your fix, I used the DownLoader to look at the
data files for some of the stocks in my directories. What I had hoped to do
was to delete the data in those stocks which did not pick up the correct data
on 2/2/2000 and where the date of 5/30/96 was inserted erroneously in last
night's download. My objective was to reduce the amount of work as compared
to deleting all the stocks and then having to key in all the names and
symbols once again.
To my surprise, on attempting to OPEN the data file on a stock with errant
data (using the MS DownLoader), a report came up saying there was no data in
the file. And when the report was closed, the opened data file had no data.
Conversely when I used MetaStock the same stock plotted all the data except
the bar for 2/2/2000. By comparison, a stock in the same directory that
properly downloaded yesterday, showed the data when OPENed with the last date
as 2/2/2000. Of course, the same stock plotted completely including the last
bar.
I then tried to update all my directories using QP2 (mind you, I was still
using yesterday's download since I do not want to freshly download data until
I'm sure my data files are "clean/ready"). The reason I wanted to update was
to fill the empty data files <dah>. This did not work, i.e., nothing changed.
Now to make things more complex, there was data in these data files earlier
today! Only the last date in the file and the associated O,H,L,C were wrong.
The date was 5/30/96. Now there is no data.
Using the techniques of Kepner - Tregoe on problem solving one has to focus
on "what has changed, what is different now". The ONLY thing I did was to
focus on one stock in one directory where I have a substantial position. I
wanted to see the chart updated to include the data of 2/2/00 which would not
plot. (It had the 5/30/96 date where it should of had 2/2/2000.) Using the
DownLoader, I made two attempts to purge the data from the one stock data
file. The first attempt was to delete data PRIOR to 12/1/97 which I had hoped
would delete the 5/30/96 row. This did not work probably because there were
dates later than 12/1/97 "in the way". So then I deleted all the data in that
one file and ran the QP2 update of ALL directories. Walla, the data for the
one stock plotted correctly in MetaStock. At the time, I did not proceed to
work on other stocks, hoping you would come up with a simpler, more universal
fix. (I have about 1,300 stocks in 57 different directories. Just finding
which ones would be errant appeared to be daunting.)
Rather than delete each of the 1,300 securities, I found a way to delete the
data in each stock data file and adjusted the first date so that the first
date and the last date are the same (11/4/96). I also updated all 1,300
stocks in the 57 directories from QP2 as of 2/2/00 download. Guess what, all
the data appears to have been updated correctly. I will now proceed to get on
line and update for today 2/3/00 (I hope without difficulty.)
Now, while all my data appears to be correctly updated as of yesterday, I
must tell you, I do not feel very secure with the answer you provided in your
e-mail. Some of my data files on indices go back to 9/3/91 and they now are
correct. That's a very large file. This leads me to believe there may be
something else contributing to the problem. Could it be that some flag is not
set properly or becomes errant from time to time? Why would some data be
correct and others not correct when the start dates (file size) are the same?
I hope this helps in some way. I spent 5 hours tonight chasing this problem
and re-initializing the start dates on all my files. I hope there is a more
fundamental answer / correction to QP2 because I do not want to go through
this again.
Good hunting,
Jim Barone
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