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Strategies & Market Trends : TA-Quotes Plus -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Theodore Johnson who wrote (3234)	1/27/1998 11:32:00 AM
From: Sean W. Smith	Respond to of 11149

Theo, BTW: Data on MS's CD is upto 2K securitites per directory. QP and anyone else can't handle more than 255.... Long history here... Directories with that # of securitites in it are very slow. Metastock data format is very poor IMO. 1. Using the Equis Data CD with QP is futile. You can merge the data together but you have to do so one stock at a time and deal with symbol name translation. Its not worth the effort. QP2 will be out soon with 6 years of history built in. 2. On missing days you should ask the QP people directly. I have no problem getting all data except for market holidays. QP tech support should be able to help you solve this problem. 3. To export data from QP you use the metastock export utility. You feed it lists of securities that you generate via text editor or via QP scans and then can export that data into MS format. There is tons of information on this thread about all these subjects. Start reading this thread from the beginning and you will happen upon lots of tidbits. Highly recommend also reading TA - beginners in its long and glorious entirety. hope this helps. Write back... Sean

To: Theodore Johnson who wrote (3234)	1/27/1998 11:45:00 AM
From: Howard R. Hansen	Respond to of 11149

Have you checked the data that comes with the Quote Plus program for the data files that cover the period from 10-1-97 to 11-14-97? The Quotes Plus Program comes with historical data. You only need to download old data from the Quotes Plus Web site for the days that cover the period from when the files were copied to the Quotes Plus CD to the date when you installed Quotes Plus on your computer to avoid having any gaps in your data. When I installed Quotes Plus Version 1.0 I only needed to download two weeks of data to keep from having any gaps. However, if you wait more than 2 months from the time you received your CD with the Quotes Plus Program to when you install the Quotes Plus Program than you might have problems. The missing data may no longer be available at the Quotes Plus Web Site. Note! whether you do or not have a gap in your Quotes Plus data has nothing to do with data that comes with MetaStock for Windows. After you have confirmed you have no gaps in your Quotes Plus data then update your MetaStock for Windows data. I will leave it up to others to provide instructions on how to update your MetaStock for Windows data files.

To: Theodore Johnson who wrote (3234)	1/27/1998 2:13:00 PM
From: Liam Kingsmill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 11149

Sean's covered your questions well. I can only add the suggestion that you focus on working with the two years of QuotesPlus data you have on the CD they sent you and updating it with QP #1 data download each day. This way you can focus on learning MetaStock and you'll get stock splits updated also for your entire database. Start at QP's MetaStock Output module and output one symbol to one file. When you see how that works and can look at it from MetaStock ... Output a second symbol to that same file. Now, move on to making a list file. This is a process most of us do alot. A list is just a text file of symbols running down the left margin like: IBM MSFT DELL Learn to output that using the MetaStock option of outputing more than one symbol to one directory. Here's where that maximum 255 symbols comes in. Next step is to output more than 255 symbols to several directories using that option in the QP Output module. We build lists from many sources.... Brian K's IBD list for example ... is a good one to work with. Our scans build lists. Some of us merge lists using TextPad or simple batch files that do it. QuotesPlus builds lists from scans named for the scan that creates the list. This is an area we're always being creative. Create a directory like D:\USSTocks. But, note ... You don't need to set up the subdirectories as QuotesPlus will handle that, adding just enough subdirectories to contain your list of symbols, no matter how many. That's where the MetaStock Output module gets the name. (A side note ... You'll notice that to find a particular stock in that directory structure from MetaStock you'll have to look in the particular D:\USStocks subdirectory that contains it.) Now, an important decision for you to make here. Whether to build a directory structure containing every stock in the QuotesPlus database (10-thousand) or be more selective. Most of us, I think, are more selective. We use scans to ferret out much smaller lists of symbols, maybe only 20 for some folks. Here's how: SCANS .... A first scan runs through the entire QP database and builds a list file of symbols that fit a model. Maybe a thousand symbols result. Then that list file is the input for another scan which further refines that thousand into maybe 20 symbols and these 20 are in a second list file that QuotesPlus has created. Now, were ready to output the history of those 20 symbols into a directory ... let's call it, D:\bustouts ... which MetaStock can read. This will be the list file used in the MetaStock Output module. Only now do you start MetaStock and start reading charts. I mention delaying starting MetaStock due to a well-known habit of MetaStock locking a file so that it cannot be updated by QuotesPlus. so, we leave MetaStock exited until we need to look at the charts. Also, leave SmartCharts turned off in MetaStock. One less complicator. Approaching the learning of QP and MetaStock this way worked for me ... after going through some of the same flaming hoops as you have and catching my shirt on fire. One gets too caught up in putting out fires to get anything useful done. About the time you've got a few scans working to select stocks and build the lists, build a template in MetaStock that put your fave indicators automatically (the "Default" template file in MetaStock) on each symbol you put up .... QuotePlus #2 may be released. Then you'll discover Nirvana is much closer... even obtainable. Hang in, Theo. Liam