You might be overlooking composite / breadth data. With composite data you can write indicators on any index or ETF using statistics like total advancing and declining components within the composite, total advancing or declining volume, total new 52 week highs or lows, total components trading above their 200 day moving average and many, many more. Yes, each component issue is measured by some specific factor based upon OHLCV, and then the data combined to provide a total composite number, but many times these very important breadth indicators are overlooked because the data to build them was previously hard to come by. Indicators like the McClellan Oscillator & Summation, Advance/decline line, TRIN, etc. are all based upon composite / breadth data and can be applied to any index or ETF where composite data is available. I use it daily in MetaStock. MasterDATA

Jose, I appreciate the straight line, but I am not going to jeopardize your good name by giving the obvious reply. Jose is a prolific and one of the best "gurus" on another large forum I belong to. You are fortunate to have him as a member. Let's just say, I am responding in the "Plug-ins, Add-ons" forum. MetaStock cannot, by itself, generate composite / breadth data on a scale to handle the Russell 1000 or 2000 Indexes or even the NASDAQ 100 Index. MetaStock is a great program, but even the best has to have some limits. The pre-compiled data I use is integrated into MetaStock through a plug-in. Yes, it is available for all MetaStock users. MasterDATA

How about DeBry's Spyglass at http://www.debry.com ? And then there is the market breadth MS dll for the ADT market filters: http://www.metastocktools.com/ADT/ADT-05.htm http://www.metastocktools.com/ADT/ADT-06.htm This dll gathers data from a market breadth exploration, processes it, and writes it to a file. I'm fairly sure that composite data is not unique to MasterData, although who knows - perhaps its data may be more comprehensive than others. jose '-) http://www.metastocktools.com

Hi Jose, I looked at the sites you mentioned and here are my impressions: DeBry: If someone wants to really work at generating there own composite data within MetaStock, this may work, at least to a degree. In my experience, I have found that if something is not easy, in the long run, it will stop being done. As I mentioned previously, there is virtually no maintenance with the MasterDATA Composite Plug-in. Just a download and you are ready to go. Additionally, I cannot tell how long it takes to generate data for historical files with SpyGlass. Once downloaded, MasterDATA's files display just as fast as downloaded Reuter's data and are updated and provided hourly throughout the trade session. For the price, you can have 2 1/2 years of fully maintained composite data from MasterDATA (or $10.00 per month with no contract period - the plug-in itself is currently free). ADT-05 market trend filter & ADT-06 market trend filter: From what I see the dll included with this program seems to generate advancing and declining issues and also advancing/declining volume. I am not sure these values can be used in other MetaStock functions, however. With MasterDATA's Composite Plug-in you can use the data just like any other data in any MetaStock function. If you want to use the MetaStock function "base" symbol, one formula does it as follows: ExtFml( "md.base", advances) For specific data there is one other formula as follows: ExtFml( "md.alpha", RUT, advances, D) No matter what MetaStock function this formula is used in, it will always display daily advancing issues for the Russell 2000 index (it is totally independent of the MetaStock "base" symbol). Also, with this formula you can specify mixed data periods thus display, daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly data all in one chart or use them in any MetaStock function. By the way, to make these formulas easy to write, we supply a formula builder. Make your choices of the data you want and the formula is automatically created, ready to be pasted into MetaStock. I personally use them all the time. Also, on both the ADT-05 and ADT-06, it is not clear how easily, it can be used with composites other than the ASX 500. As with SpyGlass, it appears you must maintain your own component list(s). I am sure that the individuals that developed these tools for MetaStock did their best to provide value to their customers. I am not criticizing them in any way. For their stated purposes, I am sure they are exactly what many need (although I have not personally used any of them). Frankly, I developed this plug-in and data because I wanted to use it myself, for my own trading. Knowing myself, I needed it to be as easy and clear as possible, or I too, would stop using it. The MasterDATA Composite Plug-in was developed for ease of use and flexibility for any possible MetaStock application. You use the data just like any other data you are used to. I fully expect many others to develop and offer composite data and tools over time. I encourage them. Together, we expose the investment world to the incredible power of composite / breadth data. It takes a while to get the ball rolling, but roll it we will. Best Larry Carhartt http://www.masterdata4metastock.com

Larry, So basically, you provide Market Breadth data. Here is another MB data provider, with claims of reliable and clean data feed: http://www.pinnacledata.com/idx.html The ADT dll extracts Adv/Dec $ turnover & normalized TRIN values as well. And yes, it produces data that may be used by any other MetaStock process. Historical market breadth data can be extracted from any MS database using the ADT dll. However, this process takes a few minutes per data day, and would take several hours work for each year of data to be extracted. No - the ADT dll simply extracts data from whichever data folder it is pointed at. Of course, doing it this way cannot deal with the survivorship bias issue. It sounds good to me. :) jose '-) http://www.metastocktools.com

[quote=on-the-fly" except for very small composites. As processors get faster the day will come though. Our download takes less than a minute on broadband connections and dates from 1990 through current (or the begin date of the index or ETF). All datafiles, are updated hourly during the trade session and include, in addition to the composite data, OHLCV MetaStock format price files for each index and ETF with total component volume. All indexes now show volume. Even MetaStock EOD will display intraday values for our 61 indexes and ETFs. By the way, the numbers on approximately 3400 individual stocks are crunched each time we run an update (which takes about 6 minutes currently for an intraday run - then we re-run everything from scratch every night taking about an hour). Best Larry Carhartt http://www.masterdata4metastock.com PS I use this plug-in and data daily. It works on MetaStock version 7.22 and higher. I have yet to experience a crash or system freeze on my 9.0 version using it (over a year). Its as fast as Reuters data and, with a bit of experience, just as easy to use

The dll itself is only 96 KB. The rest is data. With a modem, 22 MB is a lot. With a broadband connection, less than a minute. Daily data updates are 16 MB. Data includes the following: 1. Composite data on 61 major indexes and ETFs (beginning 1990) 2. MetaStock format price files with total component volume (ready to run in MetaStock) 3. Up to date component lists of all indexes and ETFs followed (in .sym files) - just copy to your Downloader folder to cycle charts or create explorations on a list of components 4. Numerous composite Custom Indicators, Layout, & Templates Soon a mechanism will be provided to reduce the "update" only file size. Basically, it will append and/or replace current data in the datafiles already on your computer. There will still, however, be the need for a full download on occassion to provide for changes in the component lists of the indexes and ETFs (a very regular occurance). Honestly, I am not sure how much, if any, time this will save users (because of processing time on their computer), but it will allow the addition of more composites to our list. Currently the list is about as big as practical for data download. [quote=md.base", advances) It only operates with data from the MasterDATA site. It makes no changes in MetaStock and uninstall is simply deleting one file (the dll). Just like the Downloader is free, but only works when you pay a data vendor for price data. Best Larry Carhartt http://www.masterdata4metastock.com

Hey Greg- Welcome to the forum! :D

I have removed the moving average "smoothing" from the Select Sector SPDRs comparison chart I posted previously. Doing so makes the chart a bit busier, but I think most of us can see through the resulting haze. Here is the updated chart: http://www.masterdata4me...art5_SPDRsAbove200MA.htm I will update these charts regularly (although maybe not daily - that is done hourly in another section of the site), but if there is anything to this one widely known composite / breadth indicator, you would have to take a closer look at the XLP (Consumer Staples SPDR), XLB (Materials SPDR), and XLY (Consumer Discretionary SPDR). All recently showed more than 30% of components trading below their 200 day moving averages with the subsequent number rising above that percentage. It never means "straight up", but it is a good reason to take a closer look. Although I am straying into the fundamental world, it does sort of make sense. Think of Katrina and Rita and pumping $200 billion into what was once an impoverished section of the United States (now, of course, it is, at least, publicly perceived as devastated) and how that money expansion will ripple through the US business complex. In the past, the Fed has seldom pumped that much money into the entire economy over the short run. I trade by technical analysis, but I like to make some common sense of it, too. If one decided that these SPDRs were a "buy", the entry price is another question altogether. Obviously, this is only a "reason to look closer" at this point in time. Best Larry Carhartt