The way the DJIA is quoted, the "open" is yesterday's closes plus the very first trade of today. This means Dow data rarely gaps on the open, but of course this is misleading. In a few seconds, all opeing trades for all 30 Dow stocks have occurred and the Dow moves to it's real opening price. What do you guys do to get an accurate measure for the opening of the Dow? Look at where the DIA's open (assuming that the DIA's will be priced according to premarket, futures, etc. and come pretty close to where the "real" Dow open should be)? Look at the $INDU or $DJI after a few seconds? Some other method? Thanks a lot.
Thanks, but 1-While that will give a direction of the open, how do you accurately estimate what the open will actually be? Do you use one of the Fair Value formuals or just use a ratio that generally holds true? 2-How do you get what the Dow open ACTUALLY is/was (that is, the value of the Dow using the opening prices of all thirty Dow stocks) quickly enough for it to be useful? Thanks again.
I'm not sure what you're after.. You could use a DDE link from your quote vendor to track the thirty dow stocks. The index is price-weighted. The divisor is available at www.dowjones.com. You could setup the spreadsheet to calculate the index value based on the last price of each stock. However, until all 30 stocks open you're not going to get the real picture, unless you've settled on using bid/ask or some other combination. I don't really see the point. I suppose one could do a fair value opening play, similar to the one done on the S&P (see Don's opening order threads), but I don't recall ever having seen available numbers for the Dow F.V. Maybe with a bit more back-n-forth an idea or two might emerge..
very funny Ambush, The main problem I'm trying to solve is when I look at daily DJI OHLC chart the O is useless. Now what exactly I'll be doing with the O, I'm not sure, but I'd like to know what it would be taking into account the opens of all 30 Dow stocks. I was hoping some quote provider or symbol could be used to either find this value or used as proxy. The best I've been able to find so far is the DIA. I like the DDE idea. I've been wanting to/avoiding using DDE w/ TS or IB, but feel like it's probably time to bite the bullet. So maybe the time has come. Thanks for your help. P.S. As for fair value, I believe the formula doesn't change for the different equity futures but the inputs for things like dividends do. I'm a little skeptical of using FV for intraday trading/valuation, since just a quick spread chart btwn the DJI and the YM will show an approximate 7 point range. A mile wide in intraday terms. Thanks again!
If you want the "open" then I'd go the DDE route if anything just to save having to type 30 opening prices into a spreadsheet everyday. I use eSignal's DDE sometimes and they have a field for open. I would suspect most do. Before you go to the trouble you might scour the dowjones site to see if you turn up any other options. Good luck and by the way I'm learning too from your questions on the board. I wish I'd found this place 3 years ago.
Thanks. I just started playing around w/ IB's DDE and have made SOME (not a lot by any means) of progress. Yeah, today was a very big ? day for me, I'm very glad the guys here have been willing to oblige. Take care.