Our layout -- E signal

We often talk about the tools of the trade in our newsletters.  We've gone through a big change in the last week and wanted to update our readers.   We've been trading with QT/IQfeed for many years as Esignal did not have a simple column that we needed for our type of trading, the volume percent.  The volume percent shows what percentage of the average volume a stock is printing at any given time.  For example if by 10AM EST your stock volume percent panel is showing 40% this means your stock has very heavy volume as it has already printed 40% of its average volume (we usually use 30 day average).

A recent turn of events:  it was decided by its owners (AMTD) to let QT die a natural death.  It will not be maintained any longer and when IQ feed comes out with their new update, QT will most likely not be able to function properly.  We needed an alternative before this happened.  Last week we downloaded and played around with multiple different software platforms (Investor RT, Sierra, Ninja, TradeStation, ToS and E-Signal) and found E-signal to come closest to what we were looking for (plus we had been with E-Signal many years ago so it was still familiar).   Fortunately at this time E-Signal was also rolling out their new updated platform, E-Signal 11.   Guess what -- E-Signal 11 has the capability of adding volume percent as a study, which then can be added as a column indicator.   We added this function today and have everything we want.

E-Signal is faster than QT, has a cleaner more intuitive feel, the charts look nicer, it's not as buggy, and now has the volume percent!

Note the 6th tab is the one we custom added (we sent out the code to our subscribers in today's newsletter to cut and paste into their platforms). 

Our conversion is complete.

On one monitor we have different watch lists split into sectors:

Momentum (think LULU BIDU CMG OPEN), Tech, Ags, Coals, Financials, Oil and Gas, metals, ETFs, etc
On another monitor we have linked 3 min, 5 min, 15 min, 60 min and Daily charts to all our watch lists. 

Typically, the Esignal policy is a "30 day money back guarantee" in which you pay on day 1 but if you cancel within the first 30 days, your credit card will be refunded.  However they offered to waive the fee completely in the first 30-days ($129) as long as you are a new customer (or someone who has not used eSignal within the past 12 months).  Exchange fees will apply however (you will need NYSE Nasdaq at the minimum for $10 a month) and mention HCPG to our contact rep.  

If you would like to try eSignal, please contact Andrew Mui at 1-800-322-1510 or andrew.mui@interactivedata.com and mention you were referred from "Highchartpatterns.com" or "HCPG".  Through a special arrangement with eSignal and HCPG, he will give you a FREE month of eSignal (Exchange fees will apply. Other restrictions may apply) without any payment upfront.  This offer is NOT available through the website nor from any of the other representatives at eSignal.  


Many thanks to Ken who wrote the code : (EFS script for volume percent ).  Here's the exact instructions on how to get it set up on Esignal 11

Oil and the Market

We're coming up to a point of inflection in the market as the USD is getting hammered on a daily basis, crude is over 105 and Brent over 116.   Something has to give soon.  The only way, we believe, the market can regain its upside momentum is if oil lets up.  With oil above three digits expect what we have been experiencing in the last 2 weeks, as illustrated very well by the following chart, nervous chop.  Nevertheless considering how much the market has run from the March 2009 bottom,  it's a testimony to its strength and the stickiness of its trend that it hasn't given back more with the significant sudden rise in crude.    A fragile economy just starting to recouperate and $100+ oil is not a good combination.   The economy can handle a crisis induced temporary rise but can it handle these prices (and the coming food price hikes) on a longer term basis? 

When we trade the ES these days we do it alongside CL_F.  The inverse correlation has been very strong the last few weeks and until this subsides, active traders need to have crude front and center of their screens.