WHAT`S NEW IN TRADESIGNAL 7.3.

Table of contents.

• Point & Figure price target indicator (PFPT)
• Point & Figure pattern indicator (PFPAT)
• Point & Figure long pole (PFLP)
• Square zooming and color change function for P&F charts
• Measurement tool
• Enhanced ribbon shortcuts to indicators and strategies
• Custom toolbar
• New DataConnect 5.10
• Equilla additions

POINT & FIGURE PRICE TARGET INDICATOR (PFPT).

Let’s start with the innovations in the area of Point & Figure charts. For all analysts and traders who appreciate Point & Figure charts, due to their filter qualities, the new P&F price targets indicator (PFPT) provides an automatic target price calculation.

The calculation of target zones is based on counts of various patterns such as multi top, catapult and trap whose parameters can be set individually. The indicator includes both the horizontal and the vertical target price method and shows not only the current price targets but the corresponding target areas from the past.

Now let’s look at an example of the DAX index. The target price indicator is set as follows: vertical count method, multi top, continuation only.

FIGURE 1: P&F PRICE TARGETS INDIKATOR.

With the new indicator price targets in the P&F chart are calculated automatically and displayed in the chart. The user choose from different counting methods, price patterns and parameters.

Figure 2 shows the result for the DAX, which comes as a 3-box reversal chart and a box size of 100 points. As you can see, the application of the price targets indicator provided valuable information for traders and investors in the past.

The current price target is highlighted using the color bar next to the price axis, so that a quick glance is enough to identify potential target areas in the future.

FIGURE 2: DAX INDEX WITH P&F PRICE TARGETS INDICATOR (PFPT).

The calculation and display of P & F price targets can be done quickly and easily with the new indicator P&F price targets.

POINT & FIGURE PATTERN INDICATOR (PFPAT).

Another highlight in the field of P&F charts is the new P&F pattern indicator that identifies several price patterns. In addition to multi tops and bottoms also called traps and catapult patterns are automatically detected and highlighted in the chart.

A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF ALL PATTERNS CAN BE FOUND IN OUR HOW TO ISSUE 01.

Figure 3 shows the DAX (60-minute chart with 0.2% box size) with all multi tops. The green line represents continuation patterns, while the red line marks reversal patterns. A pattern that is still in its development stage, the corresponding line is shown in gray.

FIGURE 3: DAX INDEX WITH P&F PATTERN INDICATOR (PFPAT).

The detection of different Point & Figure price patterns can be done automatically with the P&F pattern indicator

NEW POLE REVERSAL INDICATOR GIVES WARNING AGAINST FALSE BREAKOUTS (PFLP).

Another addition in the indicator camp is the P&F long pole indicator. If a breakout is followed by a price movement of significant size in the opposite direction this indicator plots a visual marking in the chart and can thus be used as an early warning sign of a potential false breakout. The new indicator offers two parameters:

• Minimum size of breakouts in number of boxes (MinBreakout).
  For example, the trader could define that only breakouts with more than 10 boxes are eligible.
• Percentage threshold for activation of the pole reversal signal (WarningPct).
  By default, in this case the 50-percent threshold is used, i. e. the counter-movement must be more than half the previous breakouts. If the original Breakout 10 boxes, a Pole Reversal is only activated if the price of 6 boxes runs in the opposite direction.

Similar to Fibonacci retracements traders can define specific counter-movements and adapt or close a position when they are met. To ensure that no pole signal is ignored, the activation of the Alarm function is recommended. Figure 4 shows that the DAX generated several poles reversals, which proved to be a good early warning signal.

FIGURE 4: S&P 500 INDEX WITH P&F LONG POLE INDICATOR (PFLP).

The new “P&F Long Pole” indicator shows potential false breakouts and thus provides valuable information for traders and asset managers.

SQUARE ZOOMING AND NEW COLOR CHANGE OPTION FOR P&F CHARTS.

There are two more features for all P&F chart users. Firstly, zooming and scrolling using the panoramic scrollbar or Zoom tool will now ensure that boxes in a P&F chart remain square (you can disable this function: go to the toolbox on the right, choose “chart” and then select “disabled” in the squaring section). Zooming using the value scale (by right-clicking and dragging) will no longer function by default (hold Ctrl to use the old-style zoom). This behaviour will be disabled if another instrument, that is no compatible with fixed boxes, is dragged into the same sub-chart and onto the same price axis. If there are not enough P&F columns to show the full data range when in full-data view, the chart will pad the view port with empty future date/time values.

BY THE WAY:
No matter what chart form you may use – with the right mouse button charts can be freely moved and positioned freely into all directions.

An additional feature that also makes for a better view, is the Color change function, which can be found in the toolbox. This is used to determine when the coloring of the chart changes from color 1 to color 2. By default, the color will change when the month of a box changes. It is possible to change this value to allow the color to change on a weekly, daily or hourly basis, or indeed whenever a new column is created.

FIGURE 5: COLOR CHANGE OPTION.

The color change at P&F charts can be set in five different ways from now on.

For all point & figure fans who want to get a feeling for the time factor despite the non-linear time axis of the charts, this option can be used to determine when a color change should occur in the chart.

The following diagram (Figure 6) shows the DAX index with the default (monthly) color change compared to weekly (center) and daily (right) color change.

FIGURE. 6: COLOR CHANGE OPTION.

The new option allows a flexible definition of the box colors depending on the period and thus contributes to a better overview of P&F charts.

NEW DRAWING TOOLS PROVIDE PRECISION.

Let us now leave the Point & Figure chart section and devote ourselves to the other tools that are shipped with the Tradesignal 7.3. A useful tool is the new tape Measure function, which is available on the toolbar under “chart tools”.

FIGURE. 7: MEASUREMENT TOOL.

The new measurement function is the optimal tool for measuring and comparing certain price movements.

With this tool, the length and slope of the price movement is automatically displayed in any chart. The following chart shows the S&P 500 on a monthly basis. Using the measurement tool traders can compare and analyze price movements with a few clicks. The lengths of the bull market movements are not only expressed in bars as well as trading days, but also in terms of the price change (in points/currency units and percent) and the average change per bar.

A new enhancement in the drawing section is the Snap mode. It now only snaps to end points when the point approaches within a specific distance of a viable price. If a tool is moved while snap mode is active, the tool point closest to where the tool was grabbed will be used to determine how the tool gets snapped*. In the past, the exact point grabbed was used. With this tool, the length and slope of the price movement is automatically displayed in any chart.

This feature along with the rubber band snap mode makes moving tools precisely easier. When a tool end point is being positioned, a new temporary label will be shown, indicating the number of bars and price differences from another tool point the tool may have (this only applies to tools with more than one end point). This label will also show the actual time period spanned (in calendar units) in addition to the number of bars. All tools when drawn in a chart will only be snapped to prices that are one tenth of the highest precise price associated with the parent chart object. The price values shown in the inspector can still be set manually to any precision.

FIGURE 8: S&P 500 MONTHLY CHART WITH MEASUREMENT TOOL SINCE 2001.

With the new measurement tool comparing and analyzing the length and the change in price of a particular movements is an easy task.

ENHANCED USER INTERFACE MAKES TRADESIGNAL EVEN MORE EFFICIENT.

To further speed up the workflow in the daily work and make it more efficient, Tradesignal 7.3 offers some handy tricks when dealing with often used indicators and trading strategies. They can be linked immediately with different parameter settings in the upper toolbar, so that access is possible without detours.

The practical implementation is simple and convenient (figure 9):
Choose an indicator or strategy from the toolbox on the right and select “Create Custom Shortcut” after rightclicking your mouse.

FIGURE. 9: LINKING INDICATORS AND STRATEGIES IN THE TOOLBAR.

Trading strategies and indicators, which often are used, can be used linked directly in the toolbar.

The chosen indicator or strategy is then available in the “favorites” as a symbol for immediate application. The parameters can also be changed, without detours with the right mouse key.

FIGURE 10: PARAMETER SETTINGS IN THE TOOLBAR.

The parameters of any indicator and strategy can be changed and stored directly in the toolbar.

CREATE YOUR OWN QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR.

In addition to the custom shortcuts the majority of sub-menus on the ribbon toolbar (periods, time spans, chart types, etc.) now all have icons and can be added to the custom toolbar either by right-clicking on the button when the menu is shown and selecting the option “add to quick access toolbar”, or by using the toolbar configuration tool located at file > options > personalize > ribbon toolbar.

FIGURE 11: ADDING SUB-MENUS TO THE QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR.

The majority of sub-menus on the ribbon toolbar now can be added to the quick access toolbar by right-clicking on the button.

All selected items immediately appear as small icons in the quick access toolbar. Use the key combination Ctrl + F1 to minimize the ribbon and thus directly access the customized toolbar in order to save time and space on your screen.

FIGURE12: QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR.

All sub-menu items selected by the use now appear in the quick access toolbar using small icons.

TRADESIGNAL DATACONNECT 5.10 EXPANDS THE CIRCLE OF EXTERNAL DATA SOURCES.

All previously presented tools and functions can only be used if a quality data connection is available. With DataConnect, Tradesignal offers an optimal solution that enables the collection and distribution of real-time market data from different data sources – precisely the flexibility which traders, asset managers and analysts alike desire. DataConnect 5.10 allows you to connect to the new EIKON 4.x Time Series API that was introduced with the introduction of 4.0 Eikon by Thomson Reuters. The acquisition of real-time and historical data for the provider Global View is also supported now.

For Bloomberg users there are gratifying news too: Data Connect supports Bloomberg B-Pipe, so companies that need is a centralized data server for all Tradesignal users.

This is a major benefit in terms of user and data management, eventually eliminating the need for a separate Bloomberg software on the same computer on which the Tradesignal client is running. The use of the Bloomberg Server API (SAPI) is also possible by Data Connect.

DataConnect currently supports the following data sources:

• Bloomberg: DAPI, SAPI und B-PIPE
• Thomson Reuters: Eikon, Thomson Reuters Elektron Real Time, TREP-RT (OMM/RSSL), RMDS (SASS3)
• Trayport: Trading Gateway
• GlobalView: Energy Market Data Feed
• TeleTrader: TeleTrader professional
• Tradesignal OpenConnect (for acquisition of long data histories)
• Generic CSV-Dateien

An important note at this point: If you want to use the new Tradesignal version 7.3, we recommend the DataConnect 5.10 or higher.

PAY ATTENTION, PROGRAMMERS – NEW EQUILLA TOOLS.

Finally, we would like to show all the programmers some innovations in the field of the programming language Equilla. The following commands expand the existing range of different tools and thus offer even more possibilities for creating your own indicators and trading strategies.

ResultString = Replace(String, FindText, ReplaceText, IngnoreCase)
This function is used to search the input string for all instances of the FindText and replace them with the ReplaceText. Setting IgnoreCase to true will make the search and replace case-insensitive.

Split (ResultArray, String, Delimiters)
This function is used to split the input string into sub-strings separated by any of the characters in the Delimiters string (empty strings will be skipped). The results will be copied into the ResultArray. The array must either be dynamic or large enough to hold the resulting sub-strings.

Result = IsBarOne()
This function is returns true if CurrentBar = 1. This is just a shortcut. Please remember that CurrentBar = 1 is different from CurrentBar = FirstBar.

ResultSpan = DateDiff(Interval, Date1, Date2)
This function returns the difference in Interval units between two dates (a negative value is possible). Interval can be one of Interval_Day, Interval_Hour, Interval_Minute or Interval_Second.

TRADESIGNAL – THE PERFECT SOFTWARE FOR
TECHNICAL ANALYSIS AND ALGORITHMIC TRADING.

The new Tradesignal version offers numerous enhancements, thus ensuring even more user comfort and performance. Have you ever brought your workstation up to date? If not, we encourage you today to perform an update. Also download the latest version of DataConnect today and take advantage of the extended selection of external data providers.

For questions about Tradesignal we are always happy to help. If you are not yet a Tradesignal customer, we will gladly provide you with a trial version.

That’s it for today – take care, take profit and “auf Wiedersehen”.