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Volker,
>++ I think he means that he would like to see Wealth Lab maintain a
>++ database of all the different futures contracts specifications.
>
>Since we are not a data provider (yet) we do not maintain a database. But
>you can specify your own futures contracts with
>
>1. point value
>2. margin
These things are pretty much invariant; they don't depend on the
data provider. They are basic facts about a futures contract, like
trading hours, point values, option strike increments, minimum
allowable movement, and so on. There is no reason to have to input
all that manually. If I tell the software that the root ticker
symbol is GC, the software should immediately configure itself for
Comex Gold, using $100/basis point.
I say again, this is a pretty basic requirement for futures traders.
>We plan to do that with our own data. It is impossible to know that
>for any software, because every data vendor uses different names
>for different future contracts.
That's false. The names, and especially the ticker symbols, are
pretty well standardized, with just a few minor exceptions like JO
vs OJ for Orange Juice, or GO vs GC for gold.
>This will be added once we have our own data. Also margin
>is changing all the time, so is point value from time to time.
Margin requirements do change, but there still should be a database
of them for the user to change.
Point values rarely EVER change. 100 ounces of gold will always
have the same point value, forever. The only time it may change
is if the contract size changes, for example when Lumber went from
160,000 to 80,000 board-feet. That is a rare occurrence. Again,
there's no reason not to maintain a database of these facts --
ESPECIALLY for anybody wanting to analyze a portfolio of contracts.
>Most people want to use there data provider, so we would like to allow them
>to use any data vendor. Of course that means additional work.
The only differences are data formats, like how dates are
represented, whether the data are tab or comma delimited, etc. Not
many differences. I wrote an import routine to support 5 different
data sources once. It's not hard!
>++ This is a critical feature, *especially* when testing
>++ a portfolio of futures, all having different point values and margin
>++ requirements.
>
>You can adjust that on your own... very easy.
Does the software remember that ES is $50 and SP is $200 and O is $25
(or whatever)? In other words: is there a database? Or is it something
the user has to set manually for every situation?
>I think most of your concerns are solved already. I see WLD2 as a mixture of
>Trading Recipies and Trade Station 2000i. I must admit WLD2 is very complex
>and has so many feature that even out hardcore users dont know them all. But
>surely not all requests are included yet.
That's nice to know. Now if only you could fix the language to be more
EL-like and less Pascal-like, without the need for bookkeeping....
While I have your attention, here's one feature I would really
like to see -- let me know if you've done it: I want to be able
to optimize custom results. TS2000 lets you optimize net profit,
win/loss ratio, and a bunch of other canned analysis results. But
suppose I had my own version of the Sharpe Ratio, or my own idea
of how to measure system performance, and I could express it in a
function? THAT's what I'd want to optimize, not what the software
already provides. I'd like have available an empty function whose
result the optimizer checks, and that function I'd fill in with my
own code, using inputs like equity, number of trades so far, length
of time in trade, and so on.
--
,|___ Alex Matulich -- alex@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
// +__> Director of Research and Development
// \
//___) Unicorn Research Corporation -- http://unicorn.us.com
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