Suggestions on how best to bring additional data into MC?

Hi,

I am contemplating how best to bring additional time series data into MultiCharts, and would really appreciate any thoughts from the community on how best to do this. Below is a simple case of what I'm trying to do, and a couple of thoughts on how I might go about it. Any and all suggestions/ critiques gratefully received.

Simple case:
In Portfolio Backtester, I'm running five signals against 100 US-listed stocks with a daily bar length, going from 2002 to the present. I've imported the adjusted (adjusted to my idiosyncratic needs) stock history data (O,H,L,C,V) using the Quote Manager > Map ASCII capabilities. Now I would like to add an additional time series data set for each stock: days away from a scheduled earnings announcement day.

I have all the data, and I can put it into whatever format MC needs, but I'm wondering about the best way to do this in MultiCharts. As I look through things, the following two approaches occur to me.

Approach A:
Add the earnings data as another column in my adjusted stock history, and re-import my 100 adjusted stock history data using Quote Manager > Map ASCII. I'd have to pick one of the pre-defined Instrument attribute labels and use it for my purposes (maybe Open Interest).

Approach B:
Use Informational Instruments to hold the extra time series data set for each stock. Maybe each stock would have its own separate Informational Instrument with the earnings announcement data in it.

There are probably other, possibly better, approaches that I don't know about. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Eric

Hello Eric,

The two approaches that you describe should do the job. I would suggest you to try to do it with one file (one instrument) first to see if it suits your needs. Approach A seems to be less time-consuming.

Thanks Dave.

I made good progress on both Approach A and Approach B. Both seem to work fine. As you say, Approach A is easier, but only allows adding a single time series of data. Approach B allows adding 20+ data time series, but is more effort.