U.S. Bonds & Notes - other musings

Questions about MultiCharts and user contributed studies.
traderstuff
Posts: 68
Joined: 24 Jul 2005

U.S. Bonds & Notes - other musings

Postby traderstuff » 03 Sep 2008

Is the new beta 4 MC version Finally able to Correctly chart the 10 year and 30 year interest rate contracts?

If so, please provide the correct settings to use.

This feature ( actually Neccesity ) has been requested and promised for over 3 years, some of the older posts are not even on this current forum board.

Here is the Exchange mandated settings for the US 30 year Bond contract.

***************
30 Year U.S. Treasury Bonds Futures

Tick Size

Minimum price fluctuations shall be in multiples of one-half of one thirty second point per 100 points ($15.625 per contract) except for intermonth spreads, for which minimum price fluctuations shall be in multiples of one-fourth of one thirty-second point per 100 points ($7.8125 per contract). Par shall be on the basis of 100 points. Contracts shall not be made on any other price basis.

Price Quote

Points ($1,000) and one-half of 1/32 of a point; i.e., 80-16 equals 80-16/32, 80-165 equals 80-16.5/32.

*******************

I bought a couple of new quad core computers and still find that if for whatever reason, MC is closed down for a short time, a few minutes or a couple of hours, AFTER being fully updated on incoming quotes from IB, the charts will can take HOURS to fully display.

The above is based on only 15 futures contracts, and only Volume based charts, using IB data.

And yes I am aware of IB's 'Pacing' stuff, but that should not be applicable here as the data history was already up to date.

I have a very fast Cable internet connection.

I wish TS engineers would try some of these things themselves, and watch it first hand.

I have read the frustration of some on this forum, including those that have given up on MC after a long time trying to use it, and can
understand why.

Such a simple thing in QuoteManager for example, when one uses the 'Exchange' settings for the J YEN, it reverts to 4 decimal places, which is completely Wrong.
Why can't the MC programmers set this up correctly for each futures contract or other tradable, instead of making the user do it?

Best,

User avatar
Marina Pashkova
Posts: 2758
Joined: 27 Jul 2007

Re: U.S. Bonds & Notes - other musings

Postby Marina Pashkova » 03 Sep 2008

Hi traderstuff,

I have tried to answer all of your questions below:
Is the new beta 4 MC version Finally able to Correctly chart the 10 year and 30 year interest rate contracts?

If so, please provide the correct settings to use.

This feature ( actually Neccesity ) has been requested and promised for over 3 years, some of the older posts are not even on this current forum board.

Here is the Exchange mandated settings for the US 30 year Bond contract.

***************
30 Year U.S. Treasury Bonds Futures

Tick Size

Minimum price fluctuations shall be in multiples of one-half of one thirty second point per 100 points ($15.625 per contract) except for intermonth spreads, for which minimum price fluctuations shall be in multiples of one-fourth of one thirty-second point per 100 points ($7.8125 per contract). Par shall be on the basis of 100 points. Contracts shall not be made on any other price basis.

Price Quote

Points ($1,000) and one-half of 1/32 of a point; i.e., 80-16 equals 80-16/32, 80-165 equals 80-16.5/32.

*******************
We have been planning to add fractional scales for quite a while now (as you pointed out). We are still planning to support those and soon. We already have specifications outlined. However, I still don't have an ETA for the actual implementation.
I bought a couple of new quad core computers and still find that if for whatever reason, MC is closed down for a short time, a few minutes or a couple of hours, AFTER being fully updated on incoming quotes from IB, the charts will can take HOURS to fully display.

The above is based on only 15 futures contracts, and only Volume based charts, using IB data.

And yes I am aware of IB's 'Pacing' stuff, but that should not be applicable here as the data history was already up to date.

I have a very fast Cable internet connection.

I wish TS engineers would try some of these things themselves, and watch it first hand.
Could you please e-mail me your workspace/workspaces so that our engineers could reproduce your situation? Also, could you please specify how exactly this problem can be reproduced? So you open MultiCharts, download the data and let it sit for a while? How long do you wait before you close it? How long do you wait before you run it again? Do you have the downloaded data in the database when you re-open MultiCharts? From what I understand, you do receive 'pacing violation' messages? Is the problem consistently reproduceable?

Thank you.
Such a simple thing in QuoteManager for example, when one uses the 'Exchange' settings for the J YEN, it reverts to 4 decimal places, which is completely Wrong.
Why can't the MC programmers set this up correctly for each futures contract or other tradable, instead of making the user do it?
From the very beginning, we adopted the 'exchange' approach: exchange settings are applied to all the symbols traded on that exchange. But since lots of different securities are traded on each exchange, they all have very different settings. In theory, our engineers could specify all the settings for each individual symbol. However, there are hundreds and hundreds of only USA futures which is just a fraction of the universe of symbols out there. This would take a very long time to implement. That's why we leave the adjustment of those settings to our users.

Regards.

traderstuff
Posts: 68
Joined: 24 Jul 2005

Re: U.S. Bonds & Notes - other musings

Postby traderstuff » 07 Sep 2008

Hi Marina,
Hi traderstuff,

I have tried to answer all of your questions below:

We have been planning to add fractional scales for quite a while now (as you pointed out). We are still planning to support those and soon. We already have specifications outlined. However, I still don't have an ETA for the actual implementation.

*********
Thanks for the update - hope it does not take 3 more years...



Could you please e-mail me your workspace/workspaces so that our engineers could reproduce your situation? Also, could you please specify how exactly this problem can be reproduced? So you open MultiCharts, download the data and let it sit for a while? How long do you wait before you close it? How long do you wait before you run it again? Do you have the downloaded data in the database when you re-open MultiCharts? From what I understand, you do receive 'pacing violation' messages? Is the problem consistently reproduceable?

***************
As stated, I am using ONLY VOLUME charts on an assortment of Futures symbols.

These symbols are set for either 5 or 7 days of history, and are 'supposedly' fully backfilled in the MC database, as the program is 'usually always running collecting real time data, except for the weekends.

I'll give 2 scenarios that your engineers should be able to easily reproduce,
using a portfolio of 15 or more actively traded futures contracts on a 24 hour basis.

1. Sometime around midnight, IB servers shut down, and 3 or 4 hours later one reboots the computer and tries to collect that missing data.

2. During early US morning hours, when not much market activity, one shuts down IB and MC to reboot computer.
Total downtime perhaps 5 minutes.

In both instances I have found the Looong reload time of MC, - can be hours.

I currently am using Vista with 4 gigs of memory, but the problem was there with XP Pro too.




From the very beginning, we adopted the 'exchange' approach: exchange settings are applied to all the symbols traded on that exchange. But since lots of different securities are traded on each exchange, they all have very different settings. In theory, our engineers could specify all the settings for each individual symbol. However, there are hundreds and hundreds of only USA futures which is just a fraction of the universe of symbols out there. This would take a very long time to implement. That's why we leave the adjustment of those settings to our users.

Regards.
**************

Yes, I agree there are many symbols, however the pricing specifications do not change very often, and the symbols that 'Actively trade are a whole lot less in number.


Best,

User avatar
Marina Pashkova
Posts: 2758
Joined: 27 Jul 2007

Postby Marina Pashkova » 25 Sep 2008

Hi traderstuff,

Here is an update on the fractional price scale:

Fractional price scales will be supported in 4.1 version.

I apologize for all the delays that you have experienced so far.

Regards.

traderstuff
Posts: 68
Joined: 24 Jul 2005

Postby traderstuff » 29 Sep 2008

Hi traderstuff,

Here is an update on the fractional price scale:

Fractional price scales will be supported in 4.1 version.

I apologize for all the delays that you have experienced so far.

Regards.
******

Good to hear Marina!

How about the extended time to load data - did anyone check?

Here is an easy scenario to verify, it involves shutting down one of your real time computers After US futures markets close on Friday afternoon.

Then early Sunday afternoon Before any trading occurs, restart everything.

[Note, I know some TS personnel must be around on Sundays as I recall in times past the 'Boss actually posting.. ] :)

ALL your data files Should be right up to date with real time data from IB, and load quickly, correct,?

For some reason it does not do that here, and I encounter all the problems explained above concerning the slow data.

Again, using IB real time data, having MC open 3 workspaces and update various VOLUME based charts of the following 17 Futures contracts.

Globex- AUD, GBP, CAD, EUR, JPY, CHF, ES, and NQ

ECBOT - YM, ZB, ZC, ZN, ZS, and ZW

NYMEX - CL, GC, and SI

These are all the most active front months, and all volume based with an average of 5 days history for charts.

There does not seem as much problem with time based.

An alternative replication might be to shut down one of your computers for a couple of hours right before/after midnight, US Central Daylight Time.

Best,

User avatar
Marina Pashkova
Posts: 2758
Joined: 27 Jul 2007

Postby Marina Pashkova » 08 Oct 2008

Hi Traderstuff,

Thank you for taking the time to describe the scenario on how to reproduce the problem. However, some of the information that we need to reproduce your scenario is still missing:

How long did you wait after updating the charts and before closing MultiCharts?
Did you check to make sure that the data that you downloaded has really been saved into the Database? (this is really important to know)

I will be looking forward to your reply so that we could run those tests.

Thank you.


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