Welcome to the new MDSnewsBlogs page. My name is Martin Clear, and I write the indicators for the Market Analyser products put out by MDSnews. I write both Plotted Scripts, which are line indicators displayed on a chart, either as separate lines beneath the main chart, or on the main Chart itself; and Entry Scripts, which calculate to “true or false” results which can then be displayed on a Chart, or used to scan a market in the Analyser or used to test profit and loss as a buy or sell trigger over a period of time in a Trading Strategy.
I intend to make a lot of use of the MDSnewsBlogs page to write up anything to do with the indicators. I will write descriptions of new indicators as I write them, I may discuss their application to trading strategies, and I may also talk about new types of indicators. Users can respond to Blog posts with comments, and hopefully I will be able to reply to those as well. This Blog is not intended to replace the forums, however.
I hope to keep my Blog posts interesting and entertaining, as well as educational. I’m hoping to write in a manner that beginners can understand, and where I have to be technical I’ll try and preface my remarks with a warning.
I look forward to learning more about the program.
Likewise I will be interested in this section….have been too scaredto use plotted and entry scipts not knowing enough and also comments by others that they froze their programme..
Hi Martin,
I wish to do a top down analysis of sectors in Australia,comparing the individual sectors against the ASX200.Does this type of analysis fall within your brief with plotted and entry scripts.If it does can I set the ASX200 as zreo and the sectorial EOD plotted against it.
Cheers Ian
Ian:
You should be able to do that already. To get a list of the Sector Codes, open a Watchlist plugin, click on the Watchlist Wizard button, select Australia, then select “ASX GICS”. Click Update, and then select “ASX GICS” from the pulldown list. This gives you the list of Codes you will need.
Then to compare them against the ASX Top 200 (Code: .AXJO), open a chart of the sector to be looked at (say .AXEJ, the energy sector). From Standard Indicators, select Pair Chart and type in .AXJO as the comparison Code. This will then create a line under the sector chart of .AXEJ compared to .AXJO across time. The line is a direct divisor (.AXEJ/.AXJO) so it does not oscillate around zero, but the line still represents the relative movement of the two Code’s prices.
If you want to look at the two lines on the same chart, you can use the Overlay function, also from Standard Indicators. Type in “.AXJO” as the overlaid Code. This will add the .AXJO line onto the chart, though with a separate hidden axis of values.
Both of these functions can be used with any pair of Codes. The details are described in the Help pages: when you have the parameter input screen for either Pair Chart or Overlay, click the Help button and you will go straight there.
Susan:
The Entry Scripts and Plotted Scripts are rarely guilty of actually freezing the program. Scripts run a certain amount of calculations, and if the program is in the middle of these calculations and the user tries to change from Daily to Weekly for example, the operation can lock up. However this usually only affects the actual chart you are looking at, and you can simply close the Chart and open another. The problem will rarely occur if when running a script you look at the bottom of the Chart where the word “Calc: 1″ (or a higher number if more than one script is currently calculating) appears, and wait for it to finish calculating before making any view changes.
Hi Martin,
Recently, I have been doing a lot of backtesting involving the Analyzer Wizard and various entry scripts. In the case of EMA crossovers, there have been some consistent anomalies. For instance, lets say I use an exponential EMA 3 crossing over (upwards) an EMA 8 based on closing prices over a given period of time…detects every crossover for any stock that I choose. However, when I build the same settings as part of the Analyzer Wizard, not a single crossover is detected for any stock. No similar problems with any of the other indicators tested. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Brian Collins
Brian:
I’ve heard of similar problems before. I’ve just had a look and there certainly seems to be an issue with using the MA Two Crossover in the Analyser Wizard. It’s an odd error, as MA Two Crossover runs fine in the chart, and MA Two Above Below works fine in the Analyser Wizard. There must be some problem with the combination of the two. I’ll see if I can find out what.