StockWatch Pro comments & ideas

snorton · Jul 2, 2002

Originally posted by 1Reason
SWP works for screening hugh amounts of stocks for formulas that you program. I dont know of any other program that does this for the same or even close price.

SWP "crashes/locks up" almost every day at least two or three times. Usually doesnt require a reboot of the computer but sometimes its hard to spot as it just stops doing anything. I have a level II display on it just so I will notice when it stops working.

When it works it works pretty good, especially when you consider the price.

What I would like to see done includes

1. current symbol listed window (upper left) made longer to fit in the whole symbol. usually it says NASDAQ:Q or something like it so you know the current symbol is in the nasdaq but you may not know what the actual stock is. big pain

2. more stable more stable more stable

3. LOTS MORE documentation. I wish the amount of examples and etc. were times by twenty. Should have a 200 page manual to come with. That would be great for us formula guys. - I will say in all fairness that when I have emailed asking how to make a formula they have replied quickly with the correct methods.

4. Fix the trend lines in multiple time charts for the same symbol. The trend lines get messed up if you change the time period and go back to the original time period.( i.e. go from 5min chart to 15 min chart back to 5 min chart)

5. Allow a change in the default time and sales window. I wish everytime I set a new T&S window I did not have to go in and filter for only trades.

6. The formula building is great ( its the main reason I use SWP), one way to make it better is to allow if then statements like tradestation so that I could build better alert formulas. As it stands right now I have to manually do counting of bars that I wish SWP would do for me.

Thanks
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1Reason,

What you described under "crashes/locks up" sounds more like a Quote.com server disconnect. If it actually crashes, I suggest you get the new version 2.3.1 just released. You can download it from http://www.crontech.com/swp/download.html

Issues with trendlines are already fixed (as of version 2.3 and above).

If-then statements are available in SWP formula language. Example: If RSI is below 25 plot the low of the price bar, else if RSI is above 75 plot the high of the price bar:

(RSI[RSI,14,D] < 25) * Bar[Low,D] + (RSI[RSI,14,D] > 75) * Bar[High,D]

I noted the rest of your suggestions. Thanks.

Steven Norton
Cron Technologies
http://www.crontech.com/swp
snorton@crontech.com

fleance · Jul 2, 2002

I have posted a picture of my workspace in QCharts and in SWP. They look pretty similar.

http://www.geocities.com/afleance/Workspaces.html

Fleance

Bugs and Requested Features for IB's Java Trader Workstation (JTWS)
http://www.geocities.com/afleance/jtws_feedback.html

corvus · Jul 2, 2002

I just started using it, haven't noticed any crashes on my Win2K machine.

But I did notice that I couldn't get some simple formulas to work. Bar[Open,D] didn't work as a custom field for some stocks, but worked for others. Worked for LTBG but not GETY. Then, hours later, GETY but not LTBG. Huh? I spent hours trying to set up a backtesting formula that used this painfully simple piece of information, and it turned out that this was why it missed half the stocks that qualified. I only discovered it by trying to set it up as a custom field to try and figure out why stocks that should be hit weren't being hit. It makes me quite wary of trusting their backtester or screener as it missed most of what I was after.

It would really help to have a function evaluator so I could verify what the return value of an expression was.

snorton · Jul 2, 2002

fleance,

- You can control the frequency of hot list updates via Edit -> Preferences -> Misc tab.

- You can adjust candlestick spacing by clicking on "SP" buttons with horizontal arrows on chart toolbar (see http://www.crontech.com/swp/demo3.html for Horizontal Scaling buttons)

- You can adjust vertical scaling by clicking on "SP" buttons with vertical arrows on chart toolbar (see http://www.crontech.com/swp/demo3.html for Vertical Scaling buttons)

- When you add a screener, the current list of symbols in Level I is automatically filled into the Screener Wizard. If you want to type your own symbols, right-click on Symbols textarea, click on Select All, and start typing your symbols. If you want to scan another symbol list, click on Symbol Lists button and select one.

Thanks for the feedback. I passed your findings to our dev team.

snorton · Jul 3, 2002

Originally posted by corvus
I just started using it, haven't noticed any crashes on my Win2K machine.

But I did notice that I couldn't get some simple formulas to work. Bar[Open,D] didn't work as a custom field for some stocks, but worked for others. Worked for LTBG but not GETY. Then, hours later, GETY but not LTBG. Huh? I spent hours trying to set up a backtesting formula that used this painfully simple piece of information, and it turned out that this was why it missed half the stocks that qualified. I only discovered it by trying to set it up as a custom field to try and figure out why stocks that should be hit weren't being hit. It makes me quite wary of trusting their backtester or screener as it missed most of what I was after.

More...

corvus,

I see you tried this around 3am. Quote.com resets daily bars after midnight, so you won't get Bar[Open,D] (and other daily bar values) until 9:30am when the regular session starts.

fleance · Jul 3, 2002

snorton> - You can control the frequency of hot list updates via
snorton> Edit -> > Preferences -> Misc tab.

Thanks, I didn't see that. The more important feature is to be able to suspend the update. Often, I like to click on each symbol starting from the top of the hotlist so that I can see the chart. When the hotlist updates it is very disruptive, esp. in SWP because it blanks out. In Erlangerquote, you can suspend the update, checkout charts, then turn the update back on.

snorton> - You can adjust candlestick spacing by clicking on "SP" buttons
snorton> with horizontal arrows on chart toolbar (see
snorton> http://www.crontech.com/swp/demo3.html for Horizontal Scaling buttons)

Great. Exactly what I was looking for. I had turned off all the toolbars, so I didn't see this.

snorton> - When you add a screener, the current list of symbols in Level
snorton> I is automatically filled into the Screener Wizard. If you want to
snorton> type your own symbols, right-click on Symbols textarea, click on
snorton> Select All, and start typing your symbols. If you want to scan
snorton> another symbol list, click on Symbol Lists button and select one.

So, how does this work for a Hotlist, since the symbols are constantly changing? This goes back to my original question => Can you have a screener with no symbol filter for the HotLists? A screener on a HotList should reapply the screener to new set of symbols from each update. Erlangerquote does this very well, and was one of the features that distinguished them from QCharts.

Fleance

snorton · Jul 4, 2002

Originally posted by fleance
So, how does this work for a Hotlist, since the symbols are constantly changing? This goes back to my original question => Can you have a screener with no symbol filter for the HotLists? A screener on a HotList should reapply the screener to new set of symbols from each update. [/B]
More...

SWP screener works on HotLists by scanning the new set of symbols from each update. To setup a screener on HotLists, open that HotList in Level I window, then add the screener. Screener dialog will show up with the current symbols from the hot list. It doesn't really matter what shows up in the Symbols textarea of Screener Wizard because the list of symbols scanned will change dynamically on each hot list update.

Steven Norton
Cron Technologies
http://www.crontech.com/swp
snorton@crontech.com

corvus · Jul 7, 2002

Ok, thanks snorton, I did get it to work later. Again, an evaluator would be nice for a sanity check.

I have used this for about a week now...and as I've become more familiar with it things have gotten a bit easier. I like it for backtesting better than wealth-lab and other things I've played around with.

Beyond an evaluator of some sort, I noticed two other things I'd like...perhaps I'm missing a detail as well (snorton)? 1) How do you jump back to a specific date in a chart? Say I'm looking at qqq 5-min. How do I jump back to 6/7 without the left-click, drag, repeat technique? Also, some sort of user feedback would be nice when anything is working...ie, when a graph is trying to acquire data, I'd like to see some thing like a progress meter. Screeners too. In fact, the backtester always says "Backtesting {n strategies} Working..." on the title bar, even when it is done. The byte count in the lower left helps, but when you are doing multiple things at once, obviously you can't sort it out.

And, I'd like to add to the stability issues thread. I updated to 2.3.1 and I am now seeing some stability issues. It's late PDT on a Sat night and the Quote.com servers are not very reliable. If I leave my computer backtesting something, every once in awhile, I'll come back and my computer is frozen. SWP is obviously busy chewing up CPU cycles doing something, but I have no clue what. Perhaps trying to find a server? Trying to download that last bit of 5-min data from November for a backtest? Don't know. So, again, it comes back to user feedback. I need to know what is going on. For each window.

But I will say that this software has proved to be very useful in its first week of use. Thanks.