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Ken Hunt<br>
<br>
Ken some of us try to make our livings using the visual capabilities of
your software. Metastock is currently the only provider I know of of
visual analysis software which includes layouts. I wonder if you
understand that when you release bug filled updates like 6.52 / 7.01 we
are actually prevented from earning a living for our families for a
period of time.<br>
<br>
6.52/7.01 was buggy enough on the visual side that it makes me wonder if
anyone at MetaStock is actually using the software for visual trading and
analysis? I know that Allan McNichol used to, he told me so at the
futures shows in Chicago. Has he given it up since he got promoted? Do
you have any visual traders in your beta program?<br>
How did this mess get past you guys? Could it happen again? That is a
scary thought.<br>
<br>
I realize that mechanical trading is big right now. Newbies especially
prefer it cause it looks easy and less time consuming. And the mechanical
guys are the ones who do most of the research and posting. They have to,
they are always looking for something that works (and never finding it
form the look of things). Us Visual/discretionary folks spend that time
analyzing and trading markets.<br>
<br>
But studies have shown that mechanical traders tend to burn out (even the
successful ones) faster and more often than visual/intuitive traders. It
has something to do with the roller coaster ride their equity balances
take and feelings of lack of control, etc.. Also it's tougher to develop
an edge training a machine than it is training a brain. <br>
<br>
Anyway, visual/intuitive traders are the ones who stick with you. For
instance, I have been doing this for years now and have yet to trash an
account. I buy every upgrade, etc. just to offer support.<br>
<br>
Ken, to my knowledge, MetaStock is the best visual analysis app extant. I
sure hope you folks are not going to let it slip. Especially not in favor
of developing mechanical capabilities and features which are already
available in various other apps. Please do not abandon us visual
traders.<br>
<br>
Finally, how about a utility for editing layouts? Not while they are up
on the screen. You miss too much that's not shown that way. But an app
that lets you edit MetaStock layouts in words, like you guys had years
ago? it was great. Where did it go?<br>
<br>
Thank you for posting here Ken. Had to take some guts.<br>
Ray<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
At 09:39 AM 7/10/2000 , you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite cite>Ron and others:<br>
<br>
I appreciate your candor also. As I stated in my first posting, I
am not<br>
here to defend anything we have done in our products.<br>
<br>
Personally, I find any program crash as unacceptable. Hopefully,
7.02 will<br>
be an improvement.<br>
<br>
As for resource problems, we did identify and fix some resource leaks in
the<br>
program also. Beyond that, I can only hope that our products are
acceptable<br>
when it comes to "small enough" or "fast
enough". Measuring the<br>
acceptability of a program when it comes to speed and efficiency is
very<br>
imprecise. A real-time environment makes it more difficult.
>From the<br>
beginning, we designed the real-time aspects of the program to have
no<br>
built-in limitations. The program operation is only limited by the
demands<br>
placed on it by the user combined with the number of updates being
received<br>
in real-time. This means that it is indeed possible to "max
out" a system<br>
by opening many charts and placing calculation intensive indicators on
the<br>
charts. Each machine will behave differently based on what the user
is<br>
trying to accomplish in conjunction with the number of real-time
updates<br>
required. If the demands on a machine are getting too intense, the
software<br>
will display a series of warnings about low resources or an inability
to<br>
keep up with the real-time data flow.<br>
<br>
I do know that it is a never ending challenge to balance program
speed,<br>
efficiency and usability with the escalating demands of new and
complex<br>
features requested by our users. We are always attempting to
improve our<br>
software and I hope we can get it right also.<br>
<br>
Ken Hunt <br>
Programming Manager<br>
Equis International<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Ron Scott
[mailto:ron@xxxxxxxxxx]<br>
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 4:14 PM<br>
To: metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<br>
Subject: RE: Where in blazes is 7.02 ????<br>
<br>
<br>
Ken-<br>
<br>
I appreciate your candor. Fact of the matter is, I have had more
trouble<br>
with Metastock crashing than any other financial software package I
have<br>
used. The realtime charts are especially prone to cease updating,
requiring<br>
deleting the chart from the layout and then opening the security again in
a<br>
new chart and adding it to the layout, several times a day. Also,
Metastock<br>
is a huge resource hog, even on a Dell Workstation 933mhz 420 with 256mb
of<br>
RDRAM! System resources low, it says. What are we supposed to do,
lease<br>
time on a supercomputer?<br>
<br>
However, your charts do have a better look and feel than any other
program.<br>
I hope you do get it right soon, so I can stay with Metastock.<br>
<br>
Another big problem is lack of easy data organization. You should
provide<br>
lists of securities by industry and sector group, not by
alphabetization.<br>
That does me no good. Also, backtesting is inferior since you can only
test<br>
one security at a time. In AIQ for example, you can test as many as
you<br>
want all at once.<br>
<br>
Ron Scott<br>
<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: owner-metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<br>
[mailto:owner-metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of PD Manager<br>
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 9:25 AM<br>
To: 'metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'<br>
Subject: RE: Where in blazes is 7.02 ????<br>
<br>
<br>
The final release build of 7.02 for MetaStock was completed on June
28th.<br>
The final release build of 7.02 for MetaStock Professional was completed
on<br>
July 3rd.<br>
<br>
The master CDs for both of these programs have been given to our
order<br>
fulfillment department and they are currently undergoing
duplication. I<br>
would expect the CDs to be available within 2-3 weeks.<br>
<br>
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their
patience<br>
while waiting for this release.<br>
<br>
I would also like to address the quality issue with some of our most
recent<br>
releases of MetaStock. After the release of 6.52 and subsequent
versions,<br>
we recognized that we had a quality problem with our software. The
long<br>
delay for version 7.02 was a direct result of our focus on trying to
improve<br>
the overall quality of MetaStock.<br>
<br>
Does this mean that we have fixed everything or that users will not<br>
encounter problems with 7.02? Not likely. With software of
the magnitude<br>
of MetaStock, it is impossible to promise that all problems have been
fixed<br>
or even identified. I can promise that we fixed numerous problems
with<br>
MetaStock. Most of these were reported by customers. Many of
them were<br>
identified and fixed through an increased effort of internal
testing. All<br>
of this increased focus on quality has taken additional time. We
delayed<br>
the release of 7.02 many times over the last several weeks because we
wanted<br>
to make sure we felt good about it. No, it won't be perfect but I
can<br>
promise that it will be better.<br>
<br>
Although this is my first posting to the list, I have been lurking on
this<br>
list for many months. I want everyone to know that I do read your
postings<br>
and I do feel and understand your frustrations. I am in awe of the
passion<br>
that our users have for the analysis they are doing. With that
passion<br>
comes the frustration that MetaStock doesn't always do exactly what
an<br>
individual user requires. It may be caused by a design issue or it
may be<br>
caused by an outright bug. I have also come to realize that the
passion of<br>
our users makes it even more impossible to make everyone happy. We
are<br>
trying to develop and maintain software that works well for
everyone. This<br>
means that it most likely will not be perfect for everyone. There
is no<br>
shortage of analysis techniques and methods among the users of
MetaStock.<br>
Each user is very passionate and convinced about their own methods.
If you<br>
don't believe that, just look at the contents of this list over the
last<br>
several months. We constantly agonize over how we can make
MetaStock a<br>
good, solid, overall solution for everyone, from the novice investor to
the<br>
professional. It is an ongoing work in progress. It is also
no easy task<br>
but we are trying to meet the challenge head on.<br>
<br>
I will continue to monitor this list, and I will make an occasional<br>
contribution. In return, all I ask is that the members of this
list<br>
continue to be patient with us. We do not enjoy frustrating our
users any<br>
more than they enjoy being frustrated. Hopefully, those times are
rare and<br>
isolated. I admit that MetaStock is not perfect software and my
development<br>
team and I have made mistakes in design and implementation. We will
almost<br>
certainly make mistakes in the future that will frustrate our
users. We do<br>
not find this acceptable, but if we admit to ourselves that we are
not<br>
perfect, we are better able to always improve.<br>
<br>
If in the future we are delayed with releases of our products, please
be<br>
patient. I will promise to end some of the overwhelming silence to
the<br>
question of "where is the next release you promised".
Please be prepared to<br>
get answers similar to "It just isn't ready yet" or "We
are having problems<br>
and you wouldn't want it in it's current condition."<br>
<br>
In closing I would like to clarify my purpose for monitoring and posting
to<br>
this list. I monitor it to keep in touch with our users and how
they use<br>
our software. I also monitor it to keep in touch with the problems
they are<br>
having with our software. I will admit that it isn't always easy to
read<br>
the criticism of the software that my team and I have helped
develop. My<br>
team and I, however, are not above taking criticism and we DO take
it<br>
seriously.<br>
<br>
Recently, I have decided to make occasional postings when I can clear
up<br>
some misunderstandings or when I can contribute some meaningful
information.<br>
I do not plan on using this as a forum to defend Equis against
criticism.<br>
<br>
Please be aware that I cannot provide technical support for our
products.<br>
The Equis Product Support team is much more capable of providing
quality<br>
support and troubleshooting than I. I am also not a good person to
contact<br>
to campaign for a feature addition or a design change. No single
person<br>
within Equis decides the feature set of our software or it's overall
design.<br>
The Product Development team is responsible for the creation and
maintenance<br>
of the product as designed by the design group within Equis. I am
not a<br>
good person to ask for information regarding upgrade policy or
pricing.<br>
<br>
This does NOT mean that I am not willing to contribute meaningful<br>
information where I can.<br>
<br>
Thank you again for your patience and understanding.<br>
<br>
Ken Hunt<br>
Programming Manager<br>
Equis International<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Nicholas Kormanik
[mailto:nkormanik@xxxxxxxxxx]<br>
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 12:07 AM<br>
To: metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<br>
Subject: Where in blazes is 7.02 ????<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
This is getting ridiculous! </blockquote></html>
</x-html>From ???@??? Tue Jul 11 14:37:22 2000
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Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 16:49:27 EDT
Subject: Re: Risk of Ruin
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Status:
Two years is a very short period for a trader who hope to survive. There are
some events that may happen once in four or five years and you have to be
ready and able to go through without getting killed. They are very unlikely
events but they happen.
Few examples of my almost 30 year experience: in 1974 Sugar rose in Paris
from 2,000 FF per tone to 8,500 FF and the market went sometimes four or five
days in a row limit up. They were very unlikely circontancies and to make a
long story short it happend (among other reasons) because of different
regulations between Paris , London and NY. It should not have happened but it
did not help the short who got absolutely whacked. And of course they where
right. Subsequently prices collapsed soon after. No need to day that if your
risk was 30% before 4 limit up in a row, I don't know by how much you would
have ended down but I would guess between 500% and 1,000%. As a matter of
fact then exchange closed because a lot of overleveraged clients just did not
pay.. and for the one that were winners their money was under escrow during
one year.
A lot has been said about LTCM but the circunstancies were indeed
exceptional.
Those extraordinary events happen and you will never survive them if your
risk/trade is too big.
Anyway to go back to the beginning of this controversy , the mesure of risk
pertrade has absolutely nothing to do with the initial margin. The assumption
that your risk is 30% because you have deposited 30% in initial margin is
absurd. And what if you have not deposited initial margin (that happens if
you are extended a line of credit) is your risk zero?
Jean Jacques
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