timtrader

The intraday build as specified in your email fixed the problem. Thanks much! Tim

Every other day or so I notice a low-priced stock that isn't showing all of the data on the Level II window with the TD Ameritrade feed. For example look at symbol PVCT today and you'll see. Below is screen shot of PVCT's Level II taken at the same time with an MT window on the left and QT window on the right (Quite a few price levels are missing on both sides): Thanks, Tim

I agree. I'd say to let changes to the QAT impact all windows of that type.

I currently use IQFeed data feed for stock quotes and stock charts. I also use the TD Ameritrade data feed for Indexes ($DJI) and 1 intraday chart of the same. (I also use the TD Ameritrade data feed for Level II quotes, but there is never a problem with that.) The problem I'm about to describe for the portfolio and chart of the indexes using TD Ameritrade data occurs whether the two are pinned to each other or not. I can open a saved portfolio with symbol $DJI (using TD Ameritrade data feed) and it works fine. About 10-15 seconds after I open this portfolio, I get an error popup message which states "The quotes on one or more of your portfolios are stopped. If you want to start them, please click on the "START" button on the left side of the portfolio Main ribbon tab." However, none of quotes have stopped and everything continues to update. But, as soon as I click a symbol in another portfolio (which uses IQFeed data feed), the quotes stop in the TD Ameritrade portfolio which contains symbol $DJI. At this same time, the Intraday chart for $DJI also stops populating (It makes no difference whether the TD Ameritrade portfolio and chart are pinned to each other or not, they both stop populating as soon as I click a symbol in the portfolio that used IQFeed as the data source. (The TD Ameritrade level II quotes never stop, they continue to work fine no matter what I do.) Also, I have the red triangle showing in the lower left corner of all of the portfolios and the dashboard, so I'll email the log file to you separately in case that is related. Please let me know if you need any other information from me. Thanks, Tim

Yes, the problem started after viewing a Yahoo article. The export file has been emailed to support. Thanks, Tim

I currently have news turned on for both IQFeed and Yahoo. Today there was a light bulb next to symbol GTIV in my portfolio. I clicked it, read the story, no problem and closed the news window. Later I clicked the light bulb for symbol DTV and the news window hung (Little blue circle spinning). Rather than stopping and starting MT, I killed the news window from Task Manager. Now when I do a CNTL+N on either symbol GTIV or DTV it doesn't show any news for either symbol. I don't have the NEWS window pinned to a portfolio, I either click the light bulb or use CNTL+N on a symbol to open the news portfolio. I tried starting and stopping MT several times, but that doesn't make any difference. By mid-morning another news article popped up for DTV (new light bulb) and I could see ALL of the news for DTV. However after reading that article, and closing the news window, using CNTL+N on the symbol shows that there is again no news for the symbol. If I add a new symbol and there is news (light bulb), it works fine. It seems to be a problem with symbols that I have previously had or currently have in a portfolio. I only have about 12 symbols in one portfolio, but when I open the news window there are over 800 symbols showing on the left side column. Perhaps there is a way to clear that out? Thanks, Tim

Thanks Much! - Tim

The log file has been emailed. I do not have the News window pinned. The error occurred when trying to open a Yahoo news item. Thanks, Tim

One more note. I just added a new symbol that wasn't currently showing in the News panel. Everything works fine for that symbol....display of news and opening external browser works fine. So, the problem seems to be caused from earlier data.....I just don't know how to clear it out. Thanks, Tim

I'm having issues with the News window today. This may be due to my loading MT onto a new PC a couple of weeks ago, and using the export/import feature to save my settings. Also, I was using MT for a lot of research yesterday (viewing a lot of historical charts) and the News window now shows a lot of symbols on the left-hand side (over 600). Yesterday when I selected a symbol in the news panel, or by clicking on a light bulb it was showing news for the wrong symbol....for example it was showing news for symbol RJET, though the symbol selected was for DXM.....I don't see this issue today. (I have news turned on for both Yahoo and IQFeed.) Today, it shows that there is no news for symbol DXM, though I see news from YAHOO from as recently as 5/7 and 5/10. When I click the "Restart News Sources" button, I see a re-connection for IQFeed on the dashboard, but not for Yahoo....perhaps that's not applicable since there is no difference when restarting MT either. Also, when I right-click a news story and select "Open in a Separate Browser", I get the following error: Please let me know if there is any other information you need from me or if there is someway to clear out all of the news and try to reset it. Thanks, Tim

I think #2 is a misunderstanding on my part....I'm not used to the settings differences between QT and MT yet. On MT if I select TD Ameritrade as the backfill source, it works fine. In the settings on the dashboard, I have both the backfill and historical backfill sources set to IQFeed (I don't have Index feed from them). In QT there's a separate Index source where I've always used TD Ameritrade since its free that way and I don't care if indexes are up the the second. Sorry for the confusion. I'll just create a separate index chart with TD Ameritrade as the source and keep in minimized until I want to see it. Thanks, Tim

The portfolio is linked a Historical OHLC chart, a 3-minute OHLC, a 1-minute OHLC, and a 15-second OHLC staircase chart. All of them display the message "There is no data to chart". Clearing all of the chart data and forcing a backfill doesn't make any difference either. Thanks, Tim

1.) This issue occurs if the "Show Trace" option is selected and you have the "Volume" indicator selected on a chart. If you hover the mouse into the volume area on the chart, it will show the volume scale amount in a box on the far right as you hover the mouse up and down. This issue is that it is showing the volume amount with 3 or 4 decimal places which is a bit confusing. See example below where the box shows the volume as 120,053.2215 where is should only show 120,053: 2.) I have a separate portfolio for Indexes and have the data source set to TD Ameritrade. The data shows correctly in the portfolio, but when I click the Index symbol to show the data on the linked charts, the charts only show a message stating "There is No Data to Chart". ($DJI for example). My other portfolios use IQFeed and the linked charts are fine. Stock symbols in my Index portfolio work fine as well....just not the index symbols. Thanks, Tim

For issue 1, a huge volume spike sometimes presents trading opportunities for days to come and such historical spikes indicate that similar future extreme volume spikes can occur. Perhaps an option to show it with the current methodology or with "true volume" would work? The problem locking it into a formula is that you can't see how extreme the volume move is such as the QT chart shows below: (User preferences will probably vary) For Issue 2, whatever you can do would be great.....just trying to avoid extra mouse clicks and trading errors. Thanks, Tim

1.) If a historical chart has exceptionally high volume compared to recent volume, the volume grid on the bottom portion of the chart isn't adjusting to show the true volume. See attached chart for symbol ISR. Volume on 3/19/2014 is over 87 Million, and on 3/20/2014 is over 112 Million.....however the chart is only displaying about 35 Million for both days. If you scroll the chart back to 7/12/2011, it also doesn't show the higher volume of over 2 Million. Scrolling back to 1/21/2010 the volume is over 10 Million, but the chart only displays a bit over 3 million. 2.) If you have charts linked to a portfolio (using the Symbol Link Group colors), and delete a symbol from that portfolio, the row on the portfolio below the symbol that was just deleted is now highlighted (as expected), however the symbol that was just deleted is still showing on the charts, not the one that is now highlighted on the portfolio. It's a bit confusing and might cause a user to make a trade on the wrong stock. I know that you can click on that highlighted row in the portfolio and the linked charts will get updated, but it would be nice if it just displayed the chart data as soon as the old symbol is deleted (like it does in QT). Thanks, Tim

I spent some more time with MT and found the following "possible" issues: 1.) The "Previous Volume" data is not showing on portfolios with IQFeed as the data vendor. It appears to be available per their API list of "Data Fields Available" (http://www.iqfeed.net/dev/). It does work on their DDE spreadsheets. 2.) This one is more of an annoyance....on portfolios when you enter symbols on the window that pops up, you have to immediately press the enter key for those new symbols to be added to the portfolio. If you enter some symbols and then click anywhere outside of that popup window, the symbols are lost and you have to re-enter them. So, if I do something that I normally do (enter some symbols, click a Trade-Ideas window to scroll through some alerts to see if there are more symbols that I want to add, I've lost what I initially entered in because I didn't press the enter key.) I like that it adds the new symbols as soon as I press the enter key, but it would be nice if the window would stay there until I'm done entering in symbols when I click outside of that popup window....or somehow not lose what I've already typed in.) 3.) This has to do with switching between applications, like going back and forth between MT and a browser. In the "Application/General" settings, I do not have either the "Separate Task Bar Icon for Portfolios" or the "Separate Task Bar Icon for Child Windows" options turned on. (So, I only have one MT Icon showing in the task bar.) Normally, if I click a browser icon in the task bar and then click the MT icon, it goes back to MT immediately, no problems. However, If I minimize one of the MT windows (usually a chart in my case), click a browser icon, and then click the MT icon, MT does not come back right away....in fact it hangs and I have the click the MT icon several times before it will come back. (After this initial hang, I can go back and forth between a browser and MT without issue, unless I again minimize one of the MT windows.) 4.) This might be related to #3 above. If you minimize the dashboard, click another MT window (like a portfolio), now click a browser icon, then click the MT icon, MT comes back immediately, but the last MT window you had clicked (the portfolio in this example) is missing. (After about 1 second the dashboard that I had minimized comes back up. I click the MT icon again and the dashboard minimizes itself. I click the MT icon once more and the portfolio window that had disappeared, now reappears. Please let me know if you need further clarification on any of this. Thanks, Tim

Photobucket.com worked for me and is free.

I saw this same issue today with the NOTE field and found this thread. My concern is one of speed since the NOTE field is critical to me. If I need to quickly add a note about a stock (usually why it is overly active on the current day), I won't be able to do that as easily as you currently can in QuoteTracker. QuoteTracker has an icon at the top of the portfolio window (Edit Portfolio/Alerts) which quickly(one click) brings up the portfolio and allows you to edit the NOTE field. Currently in MT, it appears that this may take up to several clicks to get to the same point (First click the "show hide ribbon", Second click the "Main" drop-down list, and Third click the "Manage Portfolios and Symbols" icon. It looks like the fastest way currently would be to leave the dashboard up (taking screen space), click the portfolio window to select it, and then click the edit icon in the portfolio section of the dashboard....a bit faster. Anyway, a faster way to get to the portfolio list so the NOTE field can be edited would be extremely helpful...perhaps a separate icon, or right-click selection??? I filter out a lot of stocks that are moving each morning and use the NOTE field to point out what is going on so I'll know whether to consider or avoid trading that stock, thus my concern for being able to quickly edit the corresponding NOTE field. Thanks, Tim

Actually I have 2 requests in priority order: 1.) Please don't ever sell this fine new Medved Trader product to TDA Ameritrade. 2.) It would be especially nice to have an optional pop-up alert (with sound) when a trade is executed (multiple alerts on partial fills would be fine.) Thanks, Tim

I don't use wiki editing either, but realize help documentation takes a horrendous amount of time to produce (I was in IT for 29 years). Perhaps video documentation would help cut down on the amount of documentation needed, like Trade-Ideas does. They have a bunch of short video links where they quickly walk users through the usage of a feature. Or, you could do some longer video tutorials in order to cut down on the written documentation needed. Their forum section also has a Youtube section with a lot of information. I'm certainly flexible regarding help documentation.

Thanks for all of the data details. Actually, the Staircase option looks fine, so I'm good using that for 15-second charts instead. (I loaded a bunch of new 15-second chart data with the Staircase option and compared it to OHLC 15-second TICK chart data (after clearing the data first.) The initial OHLC data looks fine with the Staircase option....the moving average lines are awfully close either way. Another minor thing: In the Application/General settings, I have both of the "Separate Task Bar Icon" options NOT selected, and sure enough, when I hover over the MT Icon on the Task Bar, it only shows the dashboard and I can click it and it brings up the entire layout of all MT windows....as expected. However, when I use Alt+Tab to switch between applications, it shows a separate entry for each MT window. (So, I can't use it to quickly switch between MT and another application, like a browser as I can do in QT.) I know the Windows Key+Tab works, but it just doesn't have the same look as Alt+Tab. Regarding CPU, I'm surprised my older PC does as well as it has. Nevertheless, I see plenty of PCs for sale with the newer 4th gen i7 Intel processors (4 cores/8 threads). However, how much memory in a newer machine like this would be usefull when using MT? I see many PCs available out there with 8, 12, 16, even 32GB of memory. How much memory would MT actually use with about 50 symbols in portfolios and perhaps 7 historical charts and say 15 intraday OHLC charts that pull a total of 5 days of intraday OHLC backfill data, and 2 days OHLC TICK backfill data? Thanks again, Tim

OK, I see what you mean now, but when a brand new 15-second chart (for a new symbol with no previous backfilled data) is entered in both QT and MT the results are always different. In MT, you always ONLY get the dashes, but with QT, you get a mix that is about half dashes/half bars (the bars look like they are perhaps the high/low for the period). From that point forward on both MT and QT, the full OHLC bars are generated (during market hours). I had never noticed this mix of dashes/bars in QT when data for a new symbol is requested. This mix of dashes and bars in QT is actually good enough to get a decent look at the current chart pattern without having to clear the data and request a backfill with TICK data. (As I said, I hadn't even noticed this mix of dashes and bars until today.) However, in MT, since only dashes appear, you can't get a decent view of the chart pattern without first clearing the data and then refreshing it with TICK data....this would be time consuming every time you add a new symbol during the day. For sake of clarity, below is an MT example of a 15-second chart (AMRN) which I looked at beginning at about 12:20 PM during market hours today. You can see that it backfilled with dashes and then began generating full OHLC bars after that. The chart pattern prior to 12:20 is a bit difficult to see since it is only dashes: Below is a QT example of a 15-second chart (BAC) which I looked at beginning at about 14:03 (2:03 PM) during market hours today. You can see that is it backfilled with a mix of both dashes and bars, but in this case it is a bit easier to decipher the chart pattern. (I guess the data isn't perfect, but its certainly more clear than only displaying dashes.) As with MT, it generates full OHLC bars going forward: Hopefully this clarifies what I've been seeing all along. If MT is only going to show dashes on the initial load of a sub-1-minute chart, will there eventually be a quick way to clear the existing data and then backfill it with TICK data? I was wondering if eventually, we'd be able to select commands from the Quick Access Toolbar (Like the MS Office products allow). That would be a workable solution if I could just click a couple of icons when displaying 15-second chart data for a new symbol. (Perhaps an Icon to clear the data, and another to backfill it with TICK data) Regarding CPU usage: Today, during market hours I had a bit of time to use MT. I set the MAX # of Days of Intraday Data to 5 in the general chart settings, the IQFeed Intraday OHLC Backfill to 5 days, and Intraday TICK backfill to 2 days. (This matches my QT settings.) I would say that MT is perfectly usable with these settings and it kept up without issue. The CPU usage overall is higher, normally ranging from about 30-60% during market hours vs. only about 10-20% with QT, though both spike higher for a second when chart data for a new symbol is requested. That's pretty good considering the MT footprint is about 10 times larger than QT (Based on memory usage as shown in the Task Manager processes). Startup time is a bit longer....about 55-60 seconds, vs about 40-45 seconds for QT. This is for a setup with 3 worklists and 1 portfolio for a total of about 24 symbols (varying daily volume from about 500K to 50 Million daily shares), seven historical charts, seven 3-minute charts, seven 1-minute charts, and one 15-second charts (22 charts in total)....spread out on multiple monitors. I think this is pretty good considering I'm running on an older Pentium D CPU (2.8 GHz), 4 GB memory, with 64-bit Windows 7. It will be interesting to see what you recommend for PC requirements once you're ready to go live with the product. Thanks for all of your feedback. Its really appreciated! Thanks, Tim

Sorry, the images (Copied from Word) didn't come through. I'll re-send this info in an email. Thanks, Tim

Jerry, I spent quite a bit of time going back and forth between QT and MT to see what is acting differently with similar settings. To make sure my testing is accurate, I always cleared out all of the chart data before requesting new data (whether with manual backfill, or having the Auto Backfill setting turned on). In my QuoteTracker setup, I can enter a new symbol (no data already backfilled, and the symbol not already in the portfolio) and ALL 5 days of intraday 15-second chart data, including the most recent (current day) come back showing the OHLC bars on the 15-second chart (Whether I add a new symbol during and after market hours) I assume this works because of the Charts/Multi-day Timeframes setting, which “I think” states to get 2 days of tick data and consolidate the data after 2 days (this is where I have my intraday charts set to pull back 5 days of data). Perhaps this overrides the chart settings themselves which show that the chart type is OHLC, not TICK OHLC…..see below: Below is an example from QuoteTracker for symbol BAC which I never trade. Just in case, I cleared all of its data after entering the symbol in my worklist. Then I clicked the symbol to load the linked 15-second data in the chart. This filled 5 days of data in a second or two. The CPU only jumped from about 5 to 30% for a second or so. I also right-clicked the chart afterward to show that it is chart type OHLC, not TICK OHLC (though perhaps it uses tick data anyway in this case?) You can see that the OHLC bars are showing on the chart. (I scrolled back and saw that they were there for ALL 5 days, not just the most recent 2 days.) Below, I’m showing my QuoteTracker Backfill settings which show IQFeed and that the “Get TICK Backfill Data” box is not checked. (Again, I assume this is overridden in the Multi-Timeframes setting (5 consolidated OHLC days after 2 days) FYI, my CPU usage for QuoteTracker normally stays well below 50% throughout the vast majority of the day, even though there are 22 charts open at all times (most on a second monitor, seven historical, seven 3-minute, seven 1-minute, and one 15-second chart). Anyway, based on these QuoteTracker settings, is there an equivalent in MT to get the same results and not have to do anything special in order to get the OHLC bars to show on 15-second charts when a new symbol is added? I’d like to not use any more TICK data than QuoteTracker currently uses in order to keep the CPU usage in check. Thanks, Tim

Jerry, I made the settings you suggested and it does work. However, keep in mind that I don't really want tick data and am just trying to match my current QuoteTracker setup (7 historical charts, and 15 intraday charts - 7 are 3-minute, 7 are 1-minute, and 1 is 15-seconds.) I pull in 5 days of intraday data. In QuoteTracker I do not have the "Get TICK Backfill data" box checked, and the OHLC bars work on all charts, including the 15-second chart, even when a new symbol is added on the fly. (This is my goal to all of this.) My concern is that with the settings you suggested, my PC was often pegged at 100% CPU usage when the market was open (QuoteTracker has a very small footprint with the same charts mentioned above). I suspect this is because TICK data was streaming in for all of the charts in MT. If I use your method above, and follow it up with a 4th step to select "BACKFILL ALL Using OHLC data" on the portfolio.....am I correct in assuming that the feed going forward wouldn't be using tick data, but OHLC data instead, and return processing requirements to normal? (I'm sorry, its after hours so I can't try right now.) I'm wondering though, from that point forward, if I'd have to do the backfill option using TICK data for any new symbols that I add, and then do it again using OHLC data so the PC resources aren't pegged.....so its a bit of a dilemma. Thanks, Tim