eSIGNAL ANNOUNCES A NEW UPDATE TO THE POPULAR 7 SERIES SOFTWARE

eSIGNAL ANNOUNCES A NEW UPDATE
TO THE POPULAR 7 SERIES SOFTWARE

eSignal Version 7.4 Offers New Streaming Asian and Pacific Rim Market Data, Advanced Tools for Simplifying Trading and New ActiveX Technology

Hayward, Calif., July 29, 2003¯eSignal, a division of Interactive Data Corporation (NYSE: IDC), and a leading provider of streaming, real-time financial market data, news, analytics and decision support tools to professional and individual traders, has released eSignal™ 7.4, a new version of its premiere real-time quote service and charting software application. eSignal 7.4 offers traders hundreds of world indices, new European, Asian and Pacific Rim exchange information, and custom-configurable tools for analyzing stocks, futures, bonds and options to assist traders in making better informed trading decisions.

“Our goal is to offer the best desktop trading support system available for both retail and institutional users. Our strong focus on R&D and the resulting upgrades to our award-winning trading support platform have added more value to our users by providing them with the latest tools to assist in their trading decisions,” said Chuck Thompson, president of eSignal. “The 7 series software offers a full set of tools for traders that initially included advanced charting, back testing, a new formula language and integrated “paper trading” as well as increased market depth and data content from many European exchanges. Now with eSignal 7.4, we've significantly improved our advanced toolset and added data from the Asian and Pacific Rim Markets.”

Additional Global Market Data and Information

eSignal 7.4 increases the range of its global market data offering with real-time and delayed data now available for hundreds of world indices from exchanges located in Australia, New Zealand, Sydney, Singapore Hong Kong, Italy, Greece and South Africa – bringing the total number of exchanges available via eSignal to more than 75. eSignal 7.4 users will also have select access to historical market information, making it possible to identify trends and back test their trading strategies.

Advanced Customization Tools to Simplify Trading

Subscribers to eSignal 7.4 are given an extensive assortment of tools to help them customize their trading environment and simplify their decision-making. eSignal 7.4 adds the ability to customize trading tickets. Users can create customized trading tickets with buttons containing their most often-used order sizes and other pre-set information. By attaching the custom trading ticket to any window – a Quote window, a Market Depth window, an Advanced Chart window – users have their trading ticket at hand whenever they are ready to place a trade with their broker. Users save time with this feature by eliminating the need to switch back and forth between windows.

eSignal 7.4 lets you manage your workstation through a new page formatting method that allows users to automatically flip from page to page to view multiple charts, quote or other windows. And, using a new keyboard customization tool, users can assign key combinations to any function or feature in order to reduce the number of keystrokes needed to execute a command.

Also available is the new multiple-symbol linking feature that allows users to link sets of selected windows to one another. With this feature, when a user changes the symbol in one window, it automatically changes the symbol in those windows that have been linked. Users can easily set up groups of windows within a layout and control them as if they were one window using the multiple symbol-linking feature.

eSignal 7.4 provides futures traders more robust trading tools than ever before with CBOT’s Market Profilesm now available in the Advanced Charting window. Market Profile is a charting tool that forms a three-dimensional graphic of developing supply and demand. The graphical representation takes the form of a distribution curve or histogram, which organizes and displays market activity as it unfolds. Users can also plot spreads on all chart types — line, candlestick and bar — and display the open, high, low and close. Futures traders will now receive the contract high and low on all futures contracts, plus Fast Market Indicators and real-time updates on the S&P 500 Premium and S&P e-Mini Premium indicators showing the difference between the cash and the front month.

New eSignal Desktop API with ActiveX Technology

Going far beyond conventional customization to create a truly individualized trading support platform, eSignal 7.4 allows users to develop their own mini-applications quickly and easily using the eSignal Desktop API. The eSignal Desktop API provides an interface to the eSignal application using ActiveX® technology. Using this interface, third-party applications can exchange data with the eSignal application and leverage the power of eSignal features such as real-time data, historical data and trading information. The eSignal Desktop API may be used in conjunction with numerous programming languages to allow developed applications the ability to send and receive data to a trading platform.

Availability and Pricing

eSignal 7.4 is available immediately at no cost to all registered users of eSignal and eSignal Pro. Customers may download the latest version at www.esignal.com/download.

eSignal can be purchased at www.esignal.com or by calling, toll free, 1-800-833-1228. Currently, monthly subscriptions are available starting at US$49.00 for active traders and US$175 for professionals.

About eSignal

The eSignal division (www.esignal.com) of Interactive Data Corporation (NYSE: IDC) (www.interactivedatacorp.com) is a leading global provider of financial and business information to professionals and active individual investors. Building on a 20-year legacy of delivering time-sensitive financial information, eSignal provides streaming, real-time market data, news and analytics. The company's suite of products includes eSignal, eSignal Market Scanner™, Advanced GET™, eSignal Pro™ and MarketCenter™.

Market Profile is a service mark of the Chicago Board of Trade. ActiveX is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

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i see that Hong Kong Futures are now available.. does anyone happen to know the exchange code for HSI?

thanks,
qwik

 

hkfe

 

im trying "HSI U3-HKFE" and get nothing..

-qwik

 

Probably, you don't subscribe that futures data source.
Go to the accout management or ask the support.

 

im signed up.. it wasnt available until today.. at least, it wasnt available last week.. but, i got that part thanks though..

-qwik

 

The symbol guide is also now available (under "Support" @ eSignal Central) and it looks like the exchange code may be HKE.

 

thanks Allen.. its working now.. i was trying to use ensign but i didnt have the market hours or something right and it wouldnt pull up the info.. switched to esignal and it works fine..

-qwik

 

I tried eSignal V7.3, and was disappointed with it, relative to RealTick, for the following reasons:

1) I have built elaborate spreadsheets using RealTick's DDE API
interface, based on their Level I data. I use these
spreadsheets as my screening tool. eSignal has an equivalent
DDE interface, so I converted my spreadsheets over to use
them. Lo and behold, on eSignal, I found many
instances where the Level I data was not in synch with their
Level II market depth data - only for illiquid stocks. This drove
me crazy, and happened many times.

2) Which leads me to problem # 2. The telephone support is very
bad. Had to wait on hold for almost 40 minutes once during
the trading day, and when I finally got through to someone to
complain about specific instances where the data was out of
sync (problem above), the guy on the phone new nothing at
all. Very poor customer support. Contrast that
with RealTick - I never seem to wait on hold more than 15-20
seconds, and a good number of their staff is knowledgeable.


3) I have dual internet lines at home (broadband and a backup
dialup line), both of which are always active. If my primary line
fails, RealTick always detects that, and automatically
transitions over to my secondary line. With eSignal, if my
primary line went down, the application would
attempt to re-connect on my other line, and I would get
a "DUPLICATE ID" error, that would prevent my connection. I
had to exit the app, and re-start to get it working. Hence,
eSignal's failover algorithms are inferior to that of RealTick's.

4) You may think this is stupid, but RealTick has an audible
indicator that can be invoked, any time the book changes on
the market maker screen. I have become totally reliant on this
indicator to alert me to a change. eSignal does not have this -
I requested it as a feature improvement. I found it very hard
not to have this indicator around.

That was my opinion at the time 7.3 came out. Has any of this been remedied in the 7.4 timeframe ? The cost of eSignal is significantly cheaper (by about $ 130/month), but without the above, it just wasn't worth it to me. The one advantage that eSignal has over RealTick, is that it's interface is certainly slicker.