The McClellan Oscillator and Summation Index are two of the most widely known and used breadth (or as I prefer, composite) indicators. Unfortunately, in the past, you could only apply them to one of the exchange composites (NYSE, AMEX or NASDAQ). I wanted to apply them to other composites like the S&P 500 Index, NASDAQ 100, Russell Indexes, etc., that, perhaps, in today's world are more important or better reflect "pure" stock price moves. To my surprise (and I have been involved in the financial markets for over 30 years), the composite / breadth data did not exist. So, I decided to compile it myself. It is available to MetaStock users at http://www.masterdata4metastock.com. The attached charts reflect the McClellan Oscillator and Summation Index on the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 Indexes. Here is how Sherman McClellan describes the indicators on his web site: "The McClellan Oscillator offers many types of structures for interpretation, but there are two main ones. First, when the Oscillator is positive, it generally portrays money coming into the (composite); conversely, when it is negative, it reflects money leaving the (composite). Second, when the Oscillator reaches extreme readings, it can reflect an overbought or oversold condition. While these two characteristics are very important, they merely scratch the surface of what interpreting the Oscillator can reveal about the (composite)." There are books and numerous articles written about these two indicators alone. I believe, that the field of "Composite Analysis" is barely scratched due to the fact that data has just not been available for in depth development. One area, of particular interest to me, is new component 52 week highs and lows. A trading system can be developed with this statistic alone. I have taken it one step further with new component quarterly highs and lows which offers, perhaps, an earlier indication of the index or ETF price movement. Highs and lows occur primarily at the beginning or the end of a price move. On prolonged price moves, they may appear at both the beginning and end. There is a significant tendency that a new high in an individual issue will be followed by subsequent new highs. When an index or ETF has numerous components making new highs or lows, the effect is even more pronounced and predictable. There is much work that can and will be done with composite data. Again, the surface is only scratched. The growing importance of ETFs, really just another composite type, makes composite / breadth analysis compelling. MasterDATA http://www.masterdata4metastock.com

Larry, why do you need a custom Dll to extract the market breadth data from an imported database, when you could just as easily make the data available to MetaStock in MS (CompuTrac) format? jose '-)

If you are suggesting that the composite data be provided in MetaStock price format, the answer is different. Actually, I originally started writing the datafiles that way. Unfortunately, MetaStock has only six data fields available in its price file format. Doing it that way got to be exceptionally confusing and file size skyrocketed. To contain 40 to 50 columns of data for daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly data periods dictated a multitude of price files and was simply mind boggling. I believe that simple is better. With two basic formulas, you can pull any composite data from our composite files. You can mix data periods, symbols and composite statistics subject only to your imagination. When you look at your formula at some later date, its readable (you know what it means just by the names). While initially, I thought as you suggest, I soon found that things became so complex, so quickly that it was almost unusable by me (and I wrote it!). There had to be a better way. The plug-in was the answer. Combined with the Formula Builders on the web site: http://www.masterdata.co...s/FormulaBuilderBase.htm The process is not only easy and fast, but quite clear and intuitive. Of course, the plug-in will never be a "finished" product and will certainly evolve. You have to get to the top of one hill sometimes before you can see the next. Best MasterDATA

CompuTrac data format is the ancient data format used by MetaStock - you know, MASTER/EMASTER/Fn.dat files. All data read by MetaStock is in CompuTrac format. As for the MasterData data format & dll combination, is there any way to view/edit the market breadth database once the subscription expires? Or are subscribers to your service locked into your native data format? jose '-)

I don't know, but I have my doubts you'll get rich out of it. You see, there is already free software around that can read external data. Besides the obvious old-fashion way through The Downloader, there are also these useful utilities: http://www.ksr.sp.ru/msx/msxen.htm http://www.geocities.com/mimansoor http://www.trading-tools.com jose '-)

I Look forward to it - swap you the ForumDll for it. :wink: http://forum.equis.com/viewtopic.php?t=2047 jose '-)