External symbol as an indicator

Ruschem

#1

1/2/2012 6:22 PM

I thought an ability to plot external symbol as an indicator would be helpful.

First, it would speed up the use of Indexes created in the Index Manager. For example, opening a breadth indicator for SP500 from IndexLab and being able to drag and drop SPY as an indicator, instead of writing a script every time, would be very nice.

Second, for those who rely on the Strategy Wizard, the choices to manipulate the external symbol are very limited, while the choices to manipulate the "general indicator" are simply great. Therefore, having an "external symbol" indicator would provide some great opportunities for those of us who are "programming-wise challenged".

I will appreciate it very much if such indicator is added to either standard WLPro or Community indicators library. Thanks.

Eugene

#2

1/3/2012 1:04 AM

QUOTE:
I thought an ability to plot external symbol as an indicator would be helpful.

If it was that easy, you probably would see it implemented long ago. As already said, it was overlooked when creating the Indicator API so developers have to invent workarounds. But I'll give it a thought: marking it for investigation.

QUOTE:
Second, for those who rely on the Strategy Wizard, the choices to manipulate the external symbol are very limited,

Have you seen this?

Community.Rules

Eugene

#3

1/3/2012 7:14 AM

I looked into creating a new custom Indicator based on external symbol. Although it's possible to load an external symbol's data in a formal Indicator with a little bit of Reflection magic, I have to turn this promising request down. Unfortunately, we're unable to reliably perform secondary series synchronization this way -- that's a show-stopper.

I'd suggest contacting your Fidelity rep and requesting this feature in WLP.

Ruschem

#4

1/3/2012 12:19 PM

Thank you very much for the explanation and the link. I tried to talk with the Fidelity rep before but I was never able to get in touch with the right people who understand the problem/question and make decisions. If you know how to reach the right person - name, phone, email, I will appreciate it very much. In the community rules one of the important functions that I would like to see is external symbol makes new high or low for the period and also external symbol moving average is above/below the number/level. Is it possible to add these function?? Thanks again.

Eugene

#5

1/3/2012 2:10 PM

QUOTE:
In the community rules one of the important functions that I would like to see is external symbol makes new high or low for the period and also external symbol moving average is above/below the number/level.

If our Rule master Cone agrees, then I'd say it would be a good addition.

Cone

#6

1/3/2012 5:36 PM

You can create requests for Rules in Support.

But before asking for the number/level rule, tell me how you would use it. While a rule like that might have a purpose to help with discretionary trading, I find rules like that absolutely worthless for backtesting.

Cone

#7

1/6/2012 5:30 PM

Ruschem's rules have just been added to Community.Rules. To answer my last question, he suggested using the rule with an index oscillator as an external symbol, which makes good sense!

Ben_Zurich

#8

4/26/2012 10:40 AM

"External Symbol as an Indicator"
would be great to just be able at least to to drag and drop it on a chart (1st step - display only... )

I'm currently investigating this concept as well - any progress or ideas on how to do it on that front ?

Eugene

#9

4/26/2012 10:52 AM

See my reply above: 1/3/2012 1:04 AM.

Ben_Zurich

#10

4/30/2012 4:10 AM

I have tried this (Visual Studio):

CODE:
Please log in to see this code.

This compiles without errors, and when I open a new chart window and slide the ExternalSymbol indicator onto the chart, the correct dialog appears

However upon entry of the ticker name and clicking OK nothing happens. Do you have any hint how to do this correctly?

Size:

Color:

I have tried this (Visual Studio):

[CODE]using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Drawing;
using WealthLab;

/* 
    External Symbol indicator 
*/

namespace WealthLab.Indicators
{
    //ExternalSymbol Indicator class 
    public class ExternalSymbol : DataSeries
    {                           //---*** Public interface ***---

//Static Series method returns an instance of the indicator 
        public static ExternalSymbol Series(DataSeries ds, string ticker, WealthScript obj)
        {
            obj.PrintDebug("Series");
            //Build description 
            string description = "ExternalSymbol(" + ds.Description + ", " + ticker + ")";

//See if it exists in the cache 
            if (ds.Cache.ContainsKey(description))
                return (ExternalSymbol)ds.Cache[description];

//Create ExternalSymbol, cache it, return it 
            ExternalSymbol externalSymbol = new ExternalSymbol(ds, ticker, description, obj);
            ds.Cache[description] = externalSymbol;
            return externalSymbol;
        }

//This static method allows ad-hoc calculation of SMAs (single calc mode) 
        public static double Value(int bar, DataSeries ds, string ticker, WealthScript obj)
        {
            DataSeries externalSeries = obj.GetExternalSymbol(ticker, true).Close;
            return externalSeries[bar];
        }

//Constructor 
        public ExternalSymbol(DataSeries ds, string ticker, string description, WealthScript obj)
            : base(ds, description)
        {
            obj.PrintDebug("Constructor");
            //Remember parameters 
            _sourceSeries = ds;
            _ticker = ticker;

//no offset for uniform Indicators (A.Borg)
            FirstValidValue = ds.FirstValidValue;

DataSeries externalSeries = obj.GetExternalSymbol(ticker, true).Close;

for (int bar = 1; bar < ds.Count; bar++)
            {
                this[bar] = externalSeries[bar];
            }
        }

//---*** Private members ***--- 
        DataSeries _sourceSeries;
        string _ticker;
    }

//Helper class that allows SMA to work well in WL Pro 
    public class ExternalSymbolHelper : IndicatorHelper
    {
        //Return suggested default values 
        public override IList<object> ParameterDefaultValues
        {
            get
            {
                return _paramDefaults;
            }
        }

//Return parameter descriptions 
        public override IList<string> ParameterDescriptions
        {
            get
            {
                return _paramNames;
            }
        }

//Return default color 
        public override Color DefaultColor
        {
            get
            {
                return Color.Red;
            }
        }

//Return a reference to supported indicator type 
        public override Type IndicatorType
        {
            get
            {
                return typeof(ExternalSymbol);
            }
        }

//Return a description of the indicator 
        public override string Description
        {
            get
            {
                return @"The External Symbol indicator simply displays the External Symbol entered as Parameter.";
            }
        }

//Return a URL for more info 
        public override string URL
        {
            get
            {
                return @"http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sma.asp";
            }
        }

//Private members 
        private static object[] _paramDefaults = { CoreDataSeries.Close, "" };
        private static string[] _paramNames = { "Source", "Ticker" };
    }
}
[/CODE]

This compiles without errors, and when I open a new chart window and slide the ExternalSymbol indicator onto the chart, the correct dialog appears

[IMG]C:\Users\Alexander\ExternalSymbolDialog.png[/IMG]

However upon entry of the ticker name and clicking OK nothing happens. Do you have any hint how to do this correctly?

Eugene

#11

4/30/2012 4:29 AM

If only it was that simple, we'd have a solution years ago. This is not going to work (i.e. passing a WealthScript instance to an indicator), so don't waste your time on it.

What might work is a hackish approach of obtaining the data from Wealth-Lab with System.Reflection. I experimented with plotting external symbols using some Reflection tricks but unfortunately, it failed to reliably synchronize external series so it was rejected.

Ben_Zurich

#12

4/30/2012 8:23 AM

Can you give me an example how you did it with System.Reflection, even though this did not convey the reliability that you wanted?

Eugene

#13

4/30/2012 8:37 AM

If it works out some day, it will be a part of Community.Indicators open source but for now I prefer not to share this lengthy, work-in-progress code. Sorry.

Eugene

#14

2/21/2013 5:15 AM

Better late than never.

As all issues were solved, ability to plot external symbol's OHLC data as an indicator will be added to next build of Community Indicators.