---

---

hello and good day all. 

 

i'm a returning user to MS and some things have changed. i don't doubt these things are easy fixes but i can't get it. the intro videos i watch fail me at step one. what she does first is not available to me, far as i can tell. i don't have local data and can't find data on demand. using MS 13 EOD.

 

1) i can't open a chart (SPY for example) without it plotting the trades from a previous exploration on there. just want a fresh SPY (or any other chart that was included in any exploration) without the trades showing up. see example A.

 

2) in the explorer or charts tabs, i can't see the names of securities. see example B. the security highlighted in blue appears to be the sept 14 emini s&p contract, but as today is november 9th i don't understand why it's still listed. if i could see the security names, maybe i could readily find what i'm looking for. ctrl+scroll wheel and changing screen resolution doesn't help. 

 

3) for futures, all i'm really after is continuous contracts so i don't have to update them each expiration. without being able to see the names, how's it even possible to update them anyway? i cannot find an up to date  security naming convention or list for MS 13. all i have found is a couple year old list for quote center. don't know how to tell if that's relevant to me or not. tried what it says and can't get anywhere. it is annoying beyond words that i can't plot a sugar #11 continuous (or any other futures) chart.

 

4) some stocks have multiple listings. see example C. the 5 stocks checked are all versions of Arbor Realty. how do i know which one is the Arbor Realty that is quoted on the news, for instance? I just want the one version that the vast majority of people associate with Arbor Realty, without checking all of them for trading volume and more legwork to find the only one that people care about.

 

realizing i'm well behind the 8-ball here, i very much appreciate any help with my troubles. thank you all very much and i look forward to a positive resolution to these issues.

 

And now i'm finding out i don't know how to upload the pics i referenced in the text. oh boy, off to a bad start.

 

JGoat

1. Explorations wouldn't draw anything in your charts, but you might have old signals from a system test plotted on chart. You can use the "Edit-->Delete All" option to delete "Symbols" from the chart. This will eliminate all non-Expert symbols that have been drawn in the chart (This would include system test arrows as well as anything you may have manually drawn).

2. With Continuous Contracts, the Instrument Name displayed in the "Chart" Title Bar is pulled from the Instrument List. Continuous contracts will display the month they were tracking at the time the Instrument List was updated (we update these lists monthly). This means that if your instrument list was updated in September and this was also the contract month that ESc1 was tracking, then the contract name would display September even if ESc1 is now tracking December. The "Inner Window" Title Bar actually pulls the name from the data we receive when retrieving the price data, which is why the Inner Window will display the proper contract month while the chart title bar is reliant on your Instrument List being up-to-date.  Ultimately we may change the Chart Title bar to update like the Inner Window Title Bar does.

You may want to update your Instrument List via: https://metastockpublics...InstrumentListSetup2.exe

3. See above for updating your instrument list. Also be advised that as above the "c1" contracts are accurately tracking the current contract months that have not yet expired, regardless of what the Chart Title Bar shows or the Power Console shows as the contract month. The "Inner Window" title bar should always display the contract currently being tracked.

4. As a general rule for US Stocks, I would look for symbols with the following priority:

-No extension (such as IBM)
-A symbol with a .K or .O (i.e. ORCL.K or FB.O)

Beyond that you will occasionally come across symbols that have preferred shares, class a/b/c shares, etc. and you will likely need to look at the Company Name field to get a better idea which one you want to use. In your example, you would want to simply use "ABR" for the common listing. Most of the other symbols seem to be preferred shares or senior notes.

Edited by user Tuesday, November 11, 2014 5:33:09 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

We've found that certain Display settings in Windows (i.e. 125%, 150%, etc) will cause the Power Console dialogue boxes to display improperly.

I don't think this will be changing in version 13, but we are reworking the Power Console in version 14, and there should at least be a horizontal scroll-bar at the bottom of that window pane so that you will be able to scroll to the right to view the full text in the field. If you run Windows with the standard display size (100%) I do not think you will experience the issue.

There is no way to change the actual 'symbol' field as this is what is directly passed off to the server for making a data request. You can of course make your own custom list of "common spots" so that you don't have to guess when wanting to quickly access the correct pair. This would be done via Manage Lists in the Power Console. You can also save a non-smart chart or layout where you give the chart / layout a specific filename that could include the direction of the pairs.

I believe the reasoning for this was because the ones where the USD is dropped are in fact the common spot forex pairs that most people trade. Chances are if you are trading currencies against the US Dollar, it is going to be one of the symbols that only has 3-characters (i.e. EUR=, GBP=, JPY=, CHF=, etc).

The symbol format is controlled by Thomson Reuters. While we can make requests for things like this, these RICs (Reuters Instrument Codes) are used all over their products and it is unlikely this will change without a strong business reason to do so, since it would ultimately cause a lot of confusion for their clients who have gotten used to things working a certain way.

Edited by user Friday, December 5, 2014 4:35:09 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified