I’ve been developing an End-Of-Day (EOD) quote updater for my charting program Trader’s Workbench. I have the basic update functionality available from within the workbench, but as I felt that this might be something that other people could use, I would like to hear from YOU. What do you think about it?

Are people using this kind of tool (end-of-day quote updating tool) anymore or does every charting application out there now, come with a more or less obligatory quote update service?  Is there anyone left doing their analysis on End-Of-Day data?

I do, and I need a reliable quote source so I developed Quotes Library.

I went with the development paradigm of less-is-more. I wanted a software that did one thing really good, and that had an interface that consisted of as few buttons as possible.  I’m pretty happy with the result. Let me tell you about the characteristics.

Quotes Library does the following:

• Update your MetaStock Formatted Quotes from any source
• Recalculates stock quote when split occurs
• Export/Import from Excel
• Ability to create new files from scratch, filling them with data from any source

That’s all. I think that the most important part is in the first bullet above. Ability to update from any source. This means that if you live in India and are interested in your local markets, you can use this tool just as well as someone in the States interested in Nasdaq quotes or in Sweden.

How’s that possible?

I’ve developed this tool with a plug-in architecture where the structure of any webpage can be described in order to get the tool to work with the web source YOU prefer. So for any new source I need, I just add the rules to read the quotes from that webpage, and apply it to the already existing application, without recompiling the main application. Just releasing a new .DLL for the source in question. Pretty neat I think.

For instance, I use Yahoo when I add a new stock to follow. But the daily update of Yahoo is usually a little slower than my local source that only keeps today’s quotes. Then I can use etrade, Avanza, Nordnet or whatever source keeps today’s quotes, to get fresh quotes right at the close of the market, instead of having to wait for Yahoo to get today’s quotes.

So, the brilliance here is that without having to re-distribute the whole application, it could be used for any market, anywhere using any provider. You don’t even have to have an account with that provider which means the cost of using the Quotes Library tool is zero.

I don’t think it’s an immoral thing to do either, since Yahoo is distributing their quotes for personal use for free, and the other sources out there does the same but for today’s quotes. Not historical. All this tool is doing, is to make the collection of the already free quote data more efficient and automatic, instead of manually having to collect it.

That’s it. I’d really like your impressions of such a tool, and if you think it could be of interest to you. I appreciate it. Thanks.

I got a couple of questions via mail about if and how I implemented the meta stock file format for Trader’s Workbench. The answer is yes, and with a lot of work.

The real problem is the conversion of dates, which is stored in pre-IEEE (MS HomeBrew) format. This creates a need for a convert/revert from IEEE Float to MS Float. For a long time now, all plattforms uses the same definitions for Float but back when it started for MetaStock the Windows plattform obviously had its own format.

Anyway, long story short, I managed to create a C# version of a MetaStock format converter (basically to/from metastock/txt files). It’s slow, and it really eats resources if you have > 100 securities per MASTER-file but it works!

The format is esentially a Database without a database. It has an index-file (3 now adays, but only 1 needed if you run end-of-day) called the MASTER file, and it holds the definition for the .DAT-files that are represnetation for each security. A .DAT file is useless without the MASTER, since the .DAT-file is not aware of what security it represents. I see the use of a MASTER file, but I definetly would see the benefit of redundant storage of that information in the header of each .DAT file but that’s not the case.

There are about 10-20 trialware “MS2TXT”-apps out there and I don’t need them. I wrote my own!  *Smile*

With not more than 30 minutes after publishing, the article “A day for comeback in the markets”, it did a 180 and became “…turns down on the worries of global growth” in one of Sweden’s largest financial publications (the on-line edition).

Global Growth?? Really? Is that what we’re calling it today?

It’s never more obvious than in these kind of turbulent market days, that we all really need a way to rationalize what is happening to feel comfortable and safe. But “Worries over global growth”? That’s clutching at straws isn’t it? I think I could’ve found at least 10 better explanations than that one, but I’m guessing it’s a hectic day at the paper…

US Markets opens in 1 hour. OMX now at -1,2% from +1,7% earlier today.

UPDATE: Stockholm now at -2% and DJ and NSDQ open sharply down on the bell. Interesting times indeed. Find a bear fund sold OTC or stay in cash.

I’m a man of many interests. One of which happens to be trading in the markets, and lately mostly following the markets since I’ve been occupied elsewhere.

However, an interesting voice in the market buzz is Bob Prechter. Not to worry, I’m a non-believer. Prechter is known for his utopia-like outlook of the future where the Dow will hit 500 - yes 500 - in some 10 years or so. 

This week he’s presenting us with that very scenario in his bi-monthly newsletter, backing it up with figures and the regular Elliot Wave theories all laid out. What makes it interesting is not the figures themselves but with the tenacity and sincerity this guy writes his analysis.

I’ve read a good number of analysis papers in my days, and most of them are filled with ambiguous statements and conclusions left open to interpretation. With Prechter there’s none of that.

With Nasdaq taking a 3% hit as I’m writing this, you start to think… What if that guy is right?