Does anyone know if it's possible to show month-to-date data in a monthly chart?

For example, if today is April 7, I'd like to see a bar for April on my monthly OHLC chart, with the closing price being the April 7 closing price.

The reason why I'd like to see this is because I follow the monthly MACD and like to see how it's trending for the current month-to-date. I've been using this feature on StockCharts.com, and it has been very useful. I'd love to have the same feature on MetaStock.

Thanks,
Bill

Normally, the last bar on a monthly chart is the current month. As the last complete trading day for the ASX was on Friday 04 April 2008, the close of the monthly bar will show the closing price last Friday. When you download EOD data for today or intra-day snapshots, the bar will be updated to reflect the new information.

Another way to demonstrate the same concept is to look at a weekly chart. As today is Monday and we have not downloaded our EOD data yet, the last bar on the chart is for the week ending on Friday 04 April (I am looking at ASX here, some other exchanges might have traded through?) If I take an intraday snapshot of the ASX now and re-open my chart I will see another bar representing the week so far, i.e. from the market open this morning to the time at which the snapshot was taken.

If this is not the case, then something must be awry with MS, your data or both?

It is possible to achieve other effects using live data feeds and adjusting the Tools > Options > Real Time...


Hope this helps.

wabbit [:D]

I don't know what I've done, but all of a sudden, my monthly chart for GE is showing the bar for April!!!

I'll continue to investigate...

Thanks all,
Bill

Hi again Bill,

I was just doing some reading of the Forum on another topic and stumbled across your post again, which got me thinking...

It makes sense (to me) that you cannot download the monthly data from Reuters DataLink and see the current month, as this month's data will only be available as a monthly-data download when the month is completed, i.e. end-of-month data.

The analogy I use to justify this to myself is; like the EOD chart, you do not get to see the current trading day until the trading day has closed (that's what "end-of-day" means). If your data vendor provides RT or intraday snapshots, you can get to see the current trading day in the state when the snapshot was taken or the last update of the RT data. You can use the high resolution data to see the lower resolution timeframes

If a data provider does not provice intra-week, intra-month and intra-year snapshots, then you use the capabilities inherent in MS in combination with the data you have to attain the resolution you are looking for. I don't subscribe to Retuers DataLink, but guess their weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly data sets do not include the period if it is still "open". Maybe you could have a look and see if this is the case? You might also like to try downloading say weekly data from Reuters, then opening this chart and selecting a longer timeframe, say monthly or longer to see how the data is being incorporated. Experiment a little and let us know of the outcome.



wabbit [:D]

Thanks, Wabbit and Richard. Yes, with Reuters Data Link, for weekly and monthly prices, they only include data for "closed" periods, and do not include data for the current week/month that's still in progress. I've confirmed this by downloading daily, weekly, and monthly data for the same security and examining it in The Downloader.

As for template settings, I haven't spent a ton of time experimenting, but I haven't discovered a way to "cut off" the last month on a monthly chart if I download daily data. It appears to be caused solely by the data set.

And yes, MetaStock is smart enough to do all the calculations for me to convert from daily to weekly and monthly. It does this for both charts and for Explorations. Storage space and download speed isn't an issue for me, so I will simply download as much daily data as I need to calculate all my monthly RSI indicators. 1980 and later should give me decent values for older stocks and of course will give me perfect accuracy for newer stocks.

Thanks again,
Bill