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To complete the conversion process from 2000i to TS6 it needs to have the
ability to work with external data such that more extensive backtesting can
be performed.
Some way to download or use from a CD more than is currently available on
line.
Jim Bronke
Phoenix, AZ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Fulks" <bfulks@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "Melody Blais" <mblais@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "President"
<OfficeOfTheCEO@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2002 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: An open letter to TradeStation users from Bill and Ralph Cruz
: At 2:57 PM -0500 3/28/02, Melody Blais wrote:
:
: >An open letter from Bill and Ralph Cruz has just been posted addressing
: >numerous changes in our business policy and pricing based on user
requests.
: >I thought you might like to see it.
:
: Assuming they are serious about again becoming a supplier of trading
: software, (albeit connected to a real-time data feed), what features
: do the members of this list think that the company would have to add
: to TradeStation 6 to allow it to TOTALLY REPLACE TS2000i and TS4.0?
:
: The letter says, "you've spoken and we've listened". Maybe they will
: listen again...
:
: Here is my list below. I have TradeStation 4.0 and TradeStation
: 2000i but not TradeStation 6 so some of these items may already be in
: the product. I would like nothing better than being able to retire
: these old products and move to a better version...
:
: Please post your ideas as well while they seem to be in a "listening
: mood".
:
: Bob Fulks
:
: ----
:
: Bad Ticks
:
: Bad ticks happen - that is a fact of life. They can have bad-tick
: filters to improve things but we will still get some. It is
: unrealistic to assume that their staff can fix all of them promptly
: so it seems necessary to allow the user to correct or delete bad
: ticks locally on their systems as we can with TS2000i.
:
:
: Historical Data Resolution
:
: They now provide historical data with resolution down to 1-minute
: bars. (They supply 1-tick bars but only very little data - far too
: little for meaningful backtesting.) 1-minute bars are simply too
: course for trading today. Many symbols have several hundred ticks per
: minute and waiting a full minute for a new bar seems like an eternity
: now days. We certainly do not need the 40,000 bars per day of a
: 1-tick chart for backtesting but we do need something better than
: 1-minute resolution. I think 0.1-minute (6 second) resolution would
: be OK (although 1 second would be better).
:
: Using 0.1-minute resolution would require only 4000 bars in a day for
: high volume symbols such as ES or CSCO (instead of the present 400
: one-minute bars or 40,000 tick-bars). I would think there could be
: some compression algorithm that would make this more efficient for
: storage and transmission.
:
: The extension of the EasyLanguage statements could be pretty simple
: using one place after the decimal:
:
: if Time = 1203.2 then ....
:
: The precision of TradeStation could handle this. Having 0.1-minute
: resolution would pretty much eliminate the need for having a lot of
: 1-tick data for backtesting.
:
:
: Ability to Use Existing Data
:
: We all have lots of existing data - going far back in time. We need
: to be able to use that data for backtesting. The ability to load OMZ
: and XPO files into a chart (even if they are not stored in a server)
: would be a great convenience. ASCII might be OK but it is pretty
: verbose. Alternately, they could supply extensive, accurate,
: historical data down to 0.1 minute resolution but it seems
: unrealistic that they would ever have all the data we need.
:
:
: Reliability of Internet Feeds
:
: I have been using DynaStore with QFeed for several months now and
: QFeed is barely reliable enough day-in and day-out for trading
: real-time. The Internet mechanism still has lots of possibilities for
: missing or delayed data. Severe Internet congestion can delay packets
: for as much as a minute or two.
:
: I previously used BMI. I have friends that use DTN satellite. These
: are rock solid because the broadcast mechanism is fundamentally more
: reliable than the Internet. A winning combination would be historical
: data-on-demand for loading a chart, as they do now, plus satellite
: data to update the charts on a tick-by-tick basis.
:
:
: Incompatibilities with Previous Versions
:
: Users report that programs that work in TS2000i work differently in
: Version 6. (Missing divide-by-zero checks in internal function
: libraries, different command syntax, functions re-written such that
: they now do not work correctly if you change inputs such as "Length"
: from bar to bar, etc.)
:
: They should make Version 6 upward compatible with version 5 and
: Version 4 programs to simplify the migration of the present
: customers. Obviously, if it is hard to migrate or TradeStation 6 is
: missing features of TS2000i and TS4.0, users would need both
: TradeStation 6 and an older version for research. Then, we have to
: ask ourselves, "Is having on-line data worth the trouble of having
: two different versions of the platform?"
:
:
: Second Copies
:
: Most of us have one workstation for trading and one or more for
: development. I originally bought two copies of TradeStation 4.0 for
: this purpose. I do not know their policy for this but some reasonable
: price for a development station (using intraday data but not
: requiring real-time data) would be needed.
:
: I understand that the new "research version" only works on
: "end-of-day data". That will not do it. It has to also allow
: intraday data - even ASCII might be OK (but there ought to be
: some more compressed format such "real" zipped ASCII.)
:
:
: Quality
:
: As we all know, many of the customers have never moved from Version 4
: to TS2000i. The main reason was the issue of quality. There are
: just too many defects in their software!
:
: It took until build 16 for TradeStation 4.0 to be usable, It took
: until about Service pack 4 until TradeStation 2000i was usable. I
: understand that Version 6 is finally becoming usable.
:
: In a prior life, I was a VP of Engineering of a major software
: company supervising several hundred software engineers around the
: world. I know that developing quality software is no longer an art
: but requires very well developed processes and modern development
: tools. Their software development processes need major improvements!
:
: There is no excuse for such poor quality today. It has been proven
: over and over that high quality software saves much more in support
: costs that it costs to produce. And now that customers are using the
: software in real time to trade, the potential liabilities of paying
: damages for customers losses due to bugs should make the tradeoff
: obvious. This has to become a major priority!
:
:
: Summary
:
: I do not have Version 6 so this list is compiled from comments by
: people who have tried it. As I said, the information may not be
: up-to-date. But if they are serious about migrating all of their
: customers and keeping the software licensing fees coming in, then
: it seems clear that there is still a ways to go...
:
: Bob Fulks
:
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