Ensign: New Features 2009

read more »  What's New

IB Refresh for Daily Charts:
The IB feed can refresh tick, intra-day and daily data, and a change was made to fix some cases where the daily refresh would delete bars already in the file.   IB feed users are encouraged to upgrade to have the IB daily refresh fixed.

EDS Installation:
Several of the supported feeds are from brokerages, such as from TransAct Futures.   The interface of Ensign to the data vendor feed is through a small program called the Ensign Data Server (EDS).  Previously this program would need to be downloaded from the Downloads page of the Ensign web site.   Our support staff was being involved in helping users get this program because the vendor feed would not work without it being installed.   The change was to include the EDS in the Ensign Windows installation so there is no longer an extra step to download it from our web site.   Our web site Download page has been changed to remove the link to download the EDS file.  Another advantage will be that when users upgrade Ensign Windows, they also get the latest EDS version, which is something we want to have happen, so users stay current with both programs.

FXCM Daily Values:
The FXCM feed increased the number of root symbols they send data for from 38 symbols to 47 symbols.  The change caused a buffer overflow when Ensign connected and the server tried to output the daily Open, High, Low and Close.   Our server software for the FXCM feed has been redesigned to handle the new increased symbol count and is again outputing the daily Open, High, Low and Close values when Ensign connects to the FXCM feed.

BO and SM Options:
The strike interval and the decimal format for the SM and BO options on the IQFeed recently changed.  So Ensign Windows needed to be updated to handle these changes.    IQFeed uses who follow options are encouraged to upgrade.   Also, go to the Setup | Symbol Properties table and find the BO and the SM records and change the selection for the Option Price Format from the ##### selection to the ###.## selection as a decimal is now used with these option prices on IQFeed.

Grain Range Charts:
Another minor change was to fix the minimum tick size used for grain quotes to be 1/8th.  Previsously, Ensign was using a smaller minimum tick size, which would permit the range charts on the grains to show prices that fell on 1/16th instead of on 1/8th intervals as intended.

Quote Page Scrolling:
A user who uses a quote page list to scroll charts requested that as the Previous and Next buttons are used to scroll the chart symbol, that the quote page would highlight the symbol row on the quote page. This has been implemented and the highlight is the typical color change in the Last field on the quote page row.

Repaint at Bar Completion:
Some users have had the Setup | Charts property for Repaint at Bar Completion checked so that the chart graphics are repainted everytime a bar is completed. This action adds to the CPU burden and causes a bit of a blink, but might be necessary to keep their complex graphics displayed correctly.

The change was to make this option a private chart property instead of a global setting. This makes sense because it might be just a few charts that need to be repainted frequently. Something like a fast building tick chart would be a CPU burden to repaint with every bar completion.   The property has been removed from the Setup | Charts form, and added to the private chart property form which is displayed by pressing CTRL+P keys or by double clicking the chart background.   The property is named Redraw Chart and listed on the left side of the form.

This property will also be saved for each chart in your workspace.  So check the box if the chart needs to be redrawn with each bar completion (which should be a rare situation) and resave the workspace.

Horizontal Price Line:
The chart property form also has a new check box for Horz. Price Line, and when checked will show a horizontal line at the current price that spans to the left of the chart.   This horizontal line will move up and down as the price changes.  It can be a quick visual of where price is meeting previous support and resistance points seen on the chart.   I suspect that many of you will want to use this feature. Again, it is a private chart property so the horizontal line can be on selected charts instead of on all charts.

Show Net with Price:
A new option was added to the Setup | Charts form to display the daily Net with the current price in the chart's scale area.

On this chart, the Price is 1.38756 and the Net is down 0.00048.   Both values can be seen on the chart caption and now both values can be seen on the price scale in the inverse color block.

VWAP Reset Options:
The Volume Weighted Average Price study has been improved to give more flexibility over when the study resets its accumulated values.  On the right side of the property form are check box choices for Restart @ DSO, Skip Globex, and Restart @ Time.

The Restart @ Time replaces a check box which was labeled Restart at Midnight.   On the left side is a Time edit box where a restart time can be entered for use when the Restart @ Time option is checked.   If you want to restart at midnight, then have the Time field show a zero.   If you want to restart at 11 a.m., then enter 1100 in the Time edit field, and check the Restart @ Time box.

The Skip Globex when checked will skip the default daily reset at the globex session open.    If you want VWAP to never reset, that could be accomplished by having Restart @ DSO unchecked, Skip Globex checked, and Restart @ Time unchecked.   Or you could change the check state of these three choices to have the VWAP reset at both session open times and at a time of your choosing.

Fibonacci Levels Rounded:
The Fibonacci Levels and the Support and Resistance have a check box option to snap the calculated lines to the nearest tick price.

Consider this example where the 50% line shows a calculated value of 874.39 and the .618 level's price is 876.54.   When the option to snap the lines to the nearest price is checked, then the line placement is moved slightly to the nearest trade price, as shown in this chart.

This should be a popular option to use as it makes it mentally easier to know where the price action needs to go to make the 50% level or the .618 level, (or any level you choose).    The option on the Fibonacci property form is labeled Round Prices and that box controls whether to use the raw calculated price or the price rounded to the nearest trade tick.

Fibonacci Circle Arcs:
The Fibonacci Circles tool has a new Arcs option which is as a way to have less tool clutter on the chart.  The arcs are just a segment of the full circle, and make for a nice visual as in this example.

The circle tool was used to construct the image. The 1st construction point was on the swing high and the 2nd construction point was at the bottom of the chart on the solid blue arc.   The other arcs are at the Fibonacci percentages listed on the property form, such as 0.50, 0.618, 0.75, etc.  If the 2nd construction point has been high than the circle center, then the arcs would have drawn from the horizontal upward, instead of downward.   Uncheck the Arcs option to draw full circles as in this example of the same chart and tool.

Object Selection:
When using the chart object's panel, you might have several copies of the same draw tool, such as a half dozen draw lines.   Now as you click on a draw tool object on the objects list, the selected tool will shows its contruction boxes on the chart.  This helps verify that you have clicked on the intended tool prior to clicking on the Delete button or on the Properties button.

In this example with 3 draw lines, the 3rd object on the list was clicked, and it showed the construction boxes for the 3rd line on the chart.   If you clicked on the wrong object on the list, click on another and the construction boxes will move the selected object.

Object Undelete:
In the last picture, notice that the Chart Objects panel has a new Undelete button.    Prior to performing any object delete operation, the state of the chart is now saved as kind of an automatic template, so that you can click the Undelete button to restore the chart object list to the way it was prior to the last Delete action.    So using our last example with the 3 lines, if after clicking the 3rd object to select it, I were to click the Delete button and then realize I made a mistake, I can click the Undelete button to restore the chart to having the 3 lines.

The Undelete is working with just chart objects that you might delete.  It is not restoring chart bars that you might delete.  Restoring chart bars could be done with a Rebuild Visible or a Refresh.  

It is possible to delete several objects on the chart objects panel by having a group selected and click the Delete button, by by clicking the Delete All button.  The Undelete would restore them all because the image to restore to was saved prior to any deleting of chart.   The feature is not nested, meaning that if you perform 10 delete actions, you cannot use the button 10 times to restore incrementally the last 10 deletes.  It only works a single time to restore the list to the state it had prior to the most recent delete action.

Show Sub-Windows:
A user requested hot keys to quick hide or show the chart study sub-windows, so that was added as a chart pop-up menu as Show | Sub-Windows and the keyboard hot key for this action is CTRL+ALT+W.   The hot key is shown on the pop-up menu in case you forget which key combination is the hot key for hiding the sub-windows.    You can use the hot keys or you can right mouse click to show the chart pop-up menu and select Show | Sub-Windows to check or uncheck that menu item.

Day Session Only Default:
There has been some confusion over where a new chart got its default state for Day Session Only.     A change has been made so the default state for the DSO check box will come from the Setup | Symbol Properties table on on the Symbol tab which has a Day Session Only check box.   This is where most users expected the DSO default to come from, and is how it is implemented in the 07-08 version.

ESPL Color Bars:
ESPL can set the Color Bars color array.  A visit to the chart property form was resetting the color bar array values.    A fix was made to leave the color bar array alone, unless of course a change in the Color Bar selection is made on the chart property form.

Build Expired Charts:
The next improvement deals with building new charts for expired contracts.  Say the chart is to load 2000 bars, and the program estimates that 10 days of data would generate 2000 bars.   The previous Ensign would try to reference the database for the 10 days ahead of today, which probably would not exist for an expired contract.  The fix was to reference the 10 days ahead of the last file stored in the database directory.   Thus if the last database file is March 15th, the 10 extraction would try to start on March 5th.   Now users should be able to build new charts for expired contracts assuming you do have the needed database files on your computer.

Setup | Connection Form:
The next change was a minor one dealing with closing the Setup | Connection form, in that some users would change the data vendor selection and then close the form before Ensign has had a chance to close down the prior vendor feed and connect to the new vendor feed.   This premature close of the Setup | Connection form could generate an access violation.  The solution to the problem was to remove the form's X button so the form can only be close by clicking the OK button.  The OK button is disabled while the change to the vendor feeds is accomplished.  The button can be clicked which it is Enabled and the form closed without any access violations.   If for some reason, Ensign cannot accomplish the closing of the old feed and opening of the new feed, and the OK button never becomes enabled, you can still use the Windows hot keys of CTRL+F4 to close the selected form.

NYSE/LIFFE Exchange:
With the change a couple months ago to move YG and ZG to the NYSE/LIFFE exchange, the DTN satellite feed was posting these symbols to the World Futures market group quote page.  The misplacement has been fixed.    DTN satellite users are encouraged to upgrade.  On the quote page, select the World Futures quote group, and then select the menu Quotes | Clear Market Group and that will discard this market group and let it rebuild from the data feed.  The @YG and @ZG type of futures symbosl will reshow on the intended Futures market group quote page.

Price Action Study:
The next feature to show is probably the most ambitious of all the changes made to the program and it is to add a new study called Price Action.   Let me explain the vision of where I am headed with this, and where the implementation is currently at.   The study is similar to the current Color Band study, but permits up to 11 selections to be make on Lines A through K.

Each line can be an independent pattern it watches for, and marks the pattern with a marker on one of the typical locations.   The output of the selected pattern can be auto stored in a Global Variable as well.   There is an Alert Logic selection box that permits an individual line to sound an alert, or it can be used for some combination of lines with AND logic or OR logic.   When the conditions are met, the study can show an alert message, and/or play a sound.

The initial objective was to get the current couple dozen Color Bar studies implemented and listed on the Patterns drop down list.    Now you can have multiple color bar items all accomplished by this single Price Action study, instead of using multiple Color Band objects, or multiple Study Alerts, or multiple DYOs to do the same thing.   I am not saying that this new Price Action form will do all that the others did, by chances are that many of the others can be consolidated into a single Price Action form.

The vision of where I am headed with with is to add more patterns to the list so that the Ensign program can automatically watch for them, place markers when they are detected, store something in Global Variables for use elsewhere, and show an Alert Message or Sound when detected.   One that comes to mind is the B-Line room pattern called Money On Floor (MOF).   I invite them to share with me the logic they have already implemented in DYOs and Study Alerts for this pattern, and possibly I can hard code the logic and offer Money On Floor as a new pattern selection on this Price Action form's list, and on the Color Bar's list.

The form's Pattern drop down list can have the 38 color bar studies. The list will show just those that have been selected on the Setup | Studies list.   Some of you have narrowed the offering down to just the few color bar studies you like to use.  Thus the list box on this form will also be narrowed down to your favorites.   The form has a Level field that current does nothing, but is on the form in anticipation that some of the future studies may need to have a value entered or some other parameter to make the pattern selection work.

The Location drop down box is the typical one found on other studies, such as on the Study Alert form and on the DYO property form.  The Marker selection list is the standard list of markers available on most study forms.   The two color boxes are typically for the True condition and the False condition, with the True color being the left box and the False color being the right side box.   If the pattern uses 4 colors (such as 4x4 minute and Dunnigan) the 3rd and 4th colors needed will be the two color boxes at the bottom of the color column.

And I need to make a comment about a dual use of the edit box for the WAV file or Alert Message.   The edit box is where the WAV file path would be entered if the WAV bullet is selected.    Often playing a WAV file is not going to be done, in which case you can enter an alert message on this edit line.   If the line is used for the WAV file path, then a default alert message will be taken from the Alert Logic line that is selected, and might be something like "Line A".     A personal message would be better than "Line A" and the personal message will come from the edit box as discussed.   Alerts from this study will show on the Alerts form under the Study and under the Sound bullet selections on that form.

New Color Bar Studies:

Close Price Reversal and Pivot Point Reversal are only probable reversals and are hindsight, after the completion of closed period that introduce lag for any trade entries.   Both formations indicate a likely change in the near-term trend direction.   This change may only last for a single period or a few periods in the case where price action switches to or in a trading range mode.   When the preceding trend has been strongly up or down for a significant number of periods, it carries more weight.

The Double Bar Turn pattern for a top turn has two consecutive high (within 2 ticks) and the 2nd bar closes lower.   The bottom turn has two consecutive lows (within 2 ticks) and the 2nd bar closes higher.

The Tweezer pattern has 2 bars with the exact same high for a top turn, and exact same low for a bottom turn.

The 123 Reversal pattern for a top turn has two up candles followed by a down candle.   The middle bar high is higher than the 1st and 3rd bar.    The bottom turn pattern has 2 down candles followed by an up candle.  The middle bar low is lower than the 1st and 3rd bar.  See these examples.

The Candle: Doji pattern is when the Open equals the Close.

The Candle: Hammer/Grave pattern is when both the Open and the Close are both in the upper (Hammer) or the lower (Gravestone) third of the bar's range.

The Candle: Marubozu pattern is when both the Open and the Close are in the outer 15% of the bar's range at opposite ends.

The Candle: Spinner pattern is when neither the Open nor the Close are in the outer 30% of the bar's range.

Price Action and Color Band Labels:
The Price Action study and the Color Band study can use the LBL marker to place labels on the chart.    A suggested location for the labels is the 'High or Low' selection.  The following Pattern selections will show these labels.