###  | Quick Start |

#### Setting up a Chart Select { File | New } from the menu or select the New icon from the toolbar. This will open a new chart with no symbol assigned. The default chart type is "daily" , but this can be modified with { Chart | Properties... }. Any time you enter a new symbol in a chart, either in the chart properties dialog, or using the shortcut of just typing a symbol in a selected chart, the program will attempt to retrieve the data requested. This may cause it to connect to the internet site currently configured for retrieving historic data for the selected time unit (days, weeks, etc.). Depending upon your networking configuration this may initiate dialing, if you are configured for dial-up networking and have no current connection. If the connection can not be made, it may take up to two minutes for the program to "time-out" and give up trying. With your internet connection established, type any stock symbol in the chart and hit <enter>. At this point data will be downloaded and displayed. #### Retrieving Data There are two types of data retrieved by SSChart. The first is historic data used for displaying daily, weekly, and monthly charts. The second is quote data (either realtime or delayed) that is recorded to build intraday charts, (time frames less than 1 day). There is no historic retrieval of intraday data from free data sources. Some subscription sources provide this feature. Historical daily, weekly, and monthly charts: Each time a new symbol is typed in a chart, the program first checks for data previously downloaded and saved in the .\Data directory. If there is any data for this symbol it is loaded. If the { Data | Auto Update On } menu item is selected (checked) it will attempt to bring the data up to date with the latest available. You can also manually initiate the update with { Data | Update }, or with the cursor in the chart window { <right click> | Update }. The "update" operation attempts to retrieve data from the last day you already have, forward to today or whatever date is set in the date fields in {Chart | Properties... }. The { Chart | Reload } operation discards previously retrieved data and attempts to refetch the full range requested by the date fields in { Chart | Properties... }. Intraday Charts In order to get data for intraday charts, the program must be running and gathering quotes continuously during market hours (free quote sources). The program saves the data as one minute data. Other intervals are generated by combining 1-minute data to produce the desired interval. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, 30, and 60 minute intervals are currently supported). To get a full day's intraday data, the program must be run continually, with data collection on, the whole time the market is open, otherwise there will be gaps in the data when you stop collecting. If using the Yahoo US, source which combines realtime ECN with delayed quotes, the price is available realtime, but the volume is only in the delayed quote so the most recent 15 or 20 minutes of the chart will not have the volume information. SSChart will save several days of intraday data for each active symbol. By default, data is collected for all symbols in open charts as well as all symbols in any open SLFMap when data collection is on. The actual number of days can be set in the Data Preferences dialog. (You actually have to run the program during market hours for each day you want to accumulate data for.) There is also a preference setting to accumulate data only for symbols in open charts and not symbols listed only in an SLFMap. Note: Selecting an SLF file in the toolbar selection box does not cause quote data to be collected for the symbols listed in that file, unless you actually create an SLFMap by clicking on the SLFMap button in the toolbar. For each symbol listed in an open SLFMap, SSChart collects and saves 1-minute data. From this saved 1-minute data it can construct intraday charts for longer periods. The Medved QuoteTracker program can be configured to pass data through to SSChart, if you have this program. Whatever data limitations are applicable to the data source set in QuoteTracker pass through to SSChart. #### About Retrieved Data All data suppliers disclaim any responsibility for the accuracy of the data. This includes the live data streams you pay for, and even data feeds direct from the exchange. You should double check any data with multiple sources before relying upon it to make trading decisions. We do not offer trading advice, any decisions you make in this regard are yours alone. #### About Intraday Data Since the intraday charts are constructed using quote data, they do not "see" every trade. There may be some trades in between quotes that are beyond the range of the current "candle" being constructed. This means in reality in some cases a candle may be graphed shorter than it actually should be. When using the "Yahoo delayed+ECN" source, the ECN data is realtime, but only for trades on the ECNs reported. There may be other trades on another market that would affect the range of the current candle. SSChart puts a gray "halo" around the candle when the data collected is incomplete. The data is marked this way in two cases, (1) when the data is constructed from ECN data only, and (2) when the data collection was interrupted for more than a minute, in which case it plots data in a straight sloping progression between the last time it had, and the latest quote. You will notice when it has been able to fill this data with delayed quote data, the halo goes away. We have noted with the ECN data that for some symbols during the day the server may stop updating the quote for several minutes at a time. You can tell when this is happening if you notice the time of the last quote displayed near the top left of a chart and compare this with current time at the exchange when the last quote was requested that shown in the right side of the status bar at the bottom of the main window. (The actual quote time returned by the "Yahoo" sources, does not contain the seconds, so the seconds will always show as zero in the chart window when you are collecting quotes from this source). Special note for delayed data sources: Keep collecting data with the delayed sources until the market close time plus the delay time (usually 15 or 20 minutes past the official close time). Even with these problems, the charts are generally accurate for most actively traded securities, but you need to be alert to possible data errors. In a future version of SSChart we will add the use of a subscription data source with more reliable data. (Unfortunately this will not be free.) #### Setting up Studies There are three available display panes to each chart. By default, only the top pane is visible. The volume information will display in the bottom pane by default, but to make this visible select { View | Bottom Pane }. Other Studies are selected from the { Studies | Setup... } menu. Each study has a default group it belongs to for purposes of routing it to the desired pane for display. Experiment with the pane selections under { Chart | Properties... } to get what you want. This area is still undergoing further development so some changes may occur between releases. #### Selecting Data Sources The { Data | Internet Sources... } menu item can be used to select from available data sources. Different sources can be specified for quotes, daily, weekly, and monthly data. (The quote source is used for intraday data). Note different sources may update their data at different times, and at any given time there may be errors. We have noted missing days on some sources, that get filled in after a few days, etc. If you do not seem to be getting good results from one source, try one of the others available. If you find additional web sites offering historic stock price data in either HTML or download format (usually denoted as spreadsheet download format), let us know the URL and we will attempt to add configurations for these sites to the program. #### Using the quote routers to get data from myTrack or IB The quote routers are programs included with SSChart that interface realtime data sources to SSChart. They also allow you to connect up to four computers on a LAN each running a copy of SSChart which will get their data from the one machine running the quote router. This is done so you can have a cluster of machines to get more screen space. They will function for free during the trial period (but you still need an account with the data provider). After the trial period they are available for a ($10 - $15 a month lease (in addition to the fees you pay the data provider and exchanges). Note: In order to use the quote routers, both the router and SSChart must be running on either Windows NT, 2000, or XP. We recommend you have a broadband internet connection and enought RAM in your system to avoid swapping programs to disk. You can check this by running the task manager program and checking that the current memory usage does not exceed the physical memory. If swapping occurs, system response time slows down drastically, close down applications you don't need. You can tell from the task manager window which programs are the real memory hogs. There are currently two quote routers available: ##### SSQRouterMT This interfaces to the Track Data "myTrack" data source. You must add the "SDK" entitlement to your myTrack account to enable the quote router. Additional SSChart features available with myTrack account include: live intraday charting, historic update of intraday charts, time&sales display, and (ECN) orderbook and level II if you have these features enabled in your account. ##### SSQRouterIB Interfaces to the TWS (Trader Work Station) of your Interactive Brokers account. No historic update is available with this source, but intraday charts can be generated and saved as long as you are running and collecting quotes during market hours. You also get a time and sales display. There is currently a limitation of 40 symbols at one time that you can monitor. This is a TWS interface limitation not an SSChart limitation. #### Usage Instructions: The router programs SSQRouterIB.exe and SSQRouterMT.exe are installed in the same directory where you installed SSChart. We suggest you first create a desktop icon for either of these you intend to use. You can do this by doing a <right click> on a blank area of your desktop, selecting {New | Shortcut}, then click on the {Browse} button to locate the correct file. ##### All routers: When you start one of the quote router programs it opens a command console window, (which looks like a dos window). If you select this window and hit <enter> you will get a status display and a list of commands. The commands are mainly for debugging purposes. You can minimize this window. If you close this window, it will exit the router program. Start the router program before starting SSChart Start SSChart Under the SSChart {File | Preferences} dialog enter the name of the computer on which the quote router is running in the box labeled "Quote Router hostname". (Do this for all systems on which SSChart is going to be run to access the quote router). Under the SSChart {Data | Internet sources} dialog, select the appropriate router under "Quote Data". (For myTrack, you may also select it as the daily, weekly, and monthly data source, but this will only work if it is also the quote data source). Exit SSChart on all machines (or shut of quotes) before stopping the router. Exit the router by clicking on the X button in the upper right hand corner the the router console task bar, or type exit<enter> on the router console. ##### Quirks: If SSChart crashes while connected to the quote router, it may be unable to reconnect when you restart it unless you shut down and restart the router. Hitting <enter> on the router console will show what connections are on each of the four channels. If SSQRouterMT loses connection with the myTrack server while SSChart is doing a request for some types of data, it may cause SSChart to hang for approx. 30 seconds. If SSChart hangs when you attempt to close it, closing the quote router will let it exit. ##### SSQrouterIB details: You must enable the socket client interface under the TWS settings menu. As soon as you switch on continuous quotes in SSChart, SSQRouterIB will attempt to connect to TWS. (TWS must be running first, with the socket client interface enabled). At this point TWS pops of a dialog asking if you want to accept the connection. Click yes. The pop-up dialog is sometimes hidden under another window, you can bring it to the top by selecting TWS from the windows desktop taskbar. Shut off your screen saver on the system running SSQRouterIB, we have found that TWS stops delivering quotes when the screensaver kicks on. The TWS interface does not deliver the time of each sale, so we syncronize your system clock the the USNO (atomic clock) from there web site when you start collecting quotes, and use the current time when each sale comes through (adjusted for eastern time) as the time. ##### SSQrouterMT details: The first time you run SSQRouterMT, it will prompt for you username and password to login to your myTrack account. It will save this in the registry (encrypted) so you only need enter it once. If you need to change this for some reason, you can do so with "LOGIN" command on the router console windows. We suggest you leave the "use tunnel" parameter set to 0 (off) unless you really need it. We have experience connectivity problems with this on. In order for the Orderbook and Level II features to work, you must have these enabled on your myTrack account. You must have the SDK entitlement enabled on your myTrack account. ##### Operation differences when using SSQRouterMT: Since the myTrack connection gives you access to historic intraday data for backfill, the update and reload functions of the chart pop-up on intraday charts are active when using this data source. The { Update } selection will fetch data to bring and intraday chart upto data. The { Reload } selection will reload entirely the number of days of data specified under the { File | Preferences } menu from the mytrack server. Usually after the market closes, we use the batch update button to update our daily charts, then set { Data | Auto update } and run a slide show on an intraday chart to make sure all the intraday data is up to date. Note the myTrack historic daily data is actually retrived slower than when you get it from Yahoo, or Dreyfus. The difference is it is ready as soon as the market closes, where as there is an hour or more delay with the other sources before the data is ready. Getting quote data from the Medved QuoteTracker program SSChart can use the built in HTTP server in QuoteTracker to supply quote data (if you have the QuoteTracker program). To do this first follow the directions for enabling the built-in HTTP web server in the QuoteTracker program as described in the QuoteTracker program help. You must configure it for the default port number of 16239. Next create a portfolio in QuoteTracker named "SSChart" and add one valid symbol to it. This portfolio must have at least one symbol in it for the communication with SSChart to function properly. Lastly select the "QuoteTracker" data source for quotes under { Data | Internet Sources... } in SSChart, and be sure to have the QuoteTracker program running before you enable the { Data | Get Continuous Quotes } or create an SLFMap in SSChart. Note: If you have not paid to register QuoteTracker then that program will only activate its HTTP web server if you have a minimum "ad click" percentage of .8 percent as of the time of this writing. #### Setting Colors The study colors are applied when the studies are created. Other color selections are made under the { Chart | Color... } menu. To change the background color select { Chart | Color... }, highlight the Item BackGround in the list box, and either click the [Color...] button or double click the item name. All other items shown may have their colors specified in a similar manner. Once you have a chart setup to you liking, exit the SSChart program so the setting will be saved. When you restart, the entire layout with custom settings should be restored. This is the easiest way to maintain your chart setup. Type a new symbol in the chart to view a different stock. Another mechanism for saving your settings and applying them to new charts is Chart Favorites. #### Chart Favorites You can now save your favorite chart layouts and save them to a file. Once you have created a couple of favorite charts it is easy to create as many charts with the saved characteristics as you want. Create a chart to your liking and use the { Chart | Add to Favorites... } menu item to save the chart settings to a file. The filename you chose will appear as a submenu item under the { Chart } menu the next time you look there. You can now create as many charts of that type as you want by selecting the favorite name from the { Chart } menu. #### Printing Chart windows can be printed and will be centered on the page. You need to experiment with the chart window dimensions and page orientation until you get something to your liking You can view the chart window before you print it with { File | Print Preview }. If it looks OK on the screen it should also look OK on the printer. Note that the chart window is colored in the Print Preview window. If you have a black and white printer and use candlesticks in your charts, then the up candles will print with a black outline and the down candles will print solid black. If the background is any other color than white the colors of the items will be changed so that the background can appear white. #### Hints & Shortcuts ##### <Right-click> Right clicking in the various windows brings up a menu specific to that window type. Some of the selections are only available in this pop-up menu and not in the main menu. ##### Use the favorites feature First and most important, after you configure a chart to look the way you like it, save it as a named favorite by selection { Chart | Add to Favorites... }. It will be saved as a named file with the .fav extension in the FAVORITE subdirectory and also its name will appear under the { Chart } menu. You will then save yourself the tedium of setting everything up again for a new chart of this type. You can set a favorite as the default chart that gets created when you press the { File | New } or { Chart | New } button or the [New] icon from the toolbar. To do this, select { Edit | Favorites... }, select the chart from the list you want to be the default, check the Set as default box and press [OK]. ##### Load new symbols into the same chart Whenever any chart window is the current window, you can just start typing a new stock symbol on the keyboard. The symbol appears in the upper left corner of the window while you type. When you hit the <enter> key, the program attempts to load data for the new symbol. You can open as many windows as you like, but each one takes up memory resources. Rather than opening 100 different charts for 100 different stocks, I tend to open 3 or 4 with different time frames, then type in new symbols in these or drop them in from an SLFMap. (Using drag-and-drop avoids typing errors). ##### Mouse shortcuts Double clicking in any chart expands that chart to full screen. Double clicking again restores its original size. ##### Drag-and-Drop All windows except the chart window support drap-and-drop in the conventional way by pressing the left mouse button down, dragging the mouse over another window and releasing the left mouse button. When dragging from the chart window or the horserace window the <shift> key must be pressed in addition to the left mouse button. You can drag-and-drop a symbol from the SLFMap into a chart or another SLFMap for example. See the following table for possible drag-and-drop operations.
Supported Drag-and-Drop Operations
Window Type | Drag Source | Drop Destination
Chart | <shift key> | yes
SLFMap | yes | yes
HorseRace | <shift key> | yes
Quotes | no | yes
Time&Sales | no | yes
OrderBook | no | yes
Level2 | no | yes
MarketPulse | no | no
#### Symbol List Files An even better shortcut for scrolling through all the stocks you are interested in, is to use a symbol list file (SLF). A symbol list file is a simple text file containing ticker symbols, and optionally the company name one per line. ##### To create a symbol list file: Use Notepad to create the file (or another text editor). The file format needs to be plain text, do not use Word doc format, as this contains binary information. (You can use Word however if you save the file as text with line breaks). Enter your symbols, one on each line. The ticker symbol is the first entry on the line and anything following it is used as the company name. (If the ticker symbol happens to contain spaces then it needs to be surrounded by "double quotes"). The company name is optional, if it does not appear in the .slf file, SSChart will attempt to get it from the data stream (if present) and if not it will check its symbol database for a match. If the program cannot find a name for the symbol, the name field of the chart will be left blank. The example below shows the contents of the file index_yahoo.slf which contains the special ticker symbols used to retrieve indices from the Yahoo finance website. (Note comment lines may be inserted by beginning the line with the "#" character. # index symbol names for yahoo ^DJI Dow Jones 30 ^SPC S & P 500 ^IXIC Nasdaq composite ^RUT Russell 2000 ^TYX 30 yr bond Save all symbol list files which you create with the extension .slf (symbol list file) in the SLF subdirectory. ##### To use a symbol file Select the SLF file you want to view from the selection box in the SLF Toolbar. Once you have selected a SLF file you can then choose to view it in a chart or SLFMap window by pressing the appropriate button next the the selection box. The main window status line at the bottom of the main window should display a message indicating the file was loaded. (You can also see this message in the status message window, which will magically appear if you hit F4). ##### What it does for you in a chart window Now for the neat part. Make any chart window your currently selected chart (i.e. click on one of your charts so it becomes the active chart). You can now scroll through your list of stock symbols you loaded by using the <Page up>, <Page Down>, < Home>, and <End> keys on the keyboard.
Page Down | loads the next symbol from the list into the chart
Page Up | loads the previous
Home | loads the first
End | loads the last
When you first open the symbol list file, it does not affect the current chart. Start by hitting the <Home> key to load the first symbol from the list, then scroll through the rest with <Page Down>. You can also select { Chart | Slide Show } to automatically scroll through the slf list in a chart once, loading a new symbol every few seconds. This is especially useful for updating your daily charts at the end of the day. You should first select { Data | Auto Update On }. Once you've completed the update, switch Auto Update off again so you can scroll back through the charts without the delay of it trying to update them again. ##### What it does for you in an SLFMap window An SLFMap window lays out all the symbols in the SLF file in a rectangular grid where each symbol occupies a cell. All the cells are colored from the green to the red color spectrum. The color coding shows you the relative change of a group of stocks during the day (updated by quote data). If you have an SLFMap open, you can drag-and-drop a symbol from the SLFMap to an open chart. (You do this by positioning the mouse cursor over the symbol in the SLFMap, press and hold down the left mouse button, then move the cursor into an open chart and release the mouse button. This will load that symbol into the chart. #### Keyboard shortcuts There are a number of hotkeys assigned to speed common operations like, changing the time-frame of a chart, changing candles sizes, and selecting zoom settings. You can find these listed in the menus next to the specific items they apply to.

###

[Back To Contents] SSChart is a trademark of Simian Savants LLC Copyright (c) 1999-2002 Simian Savants LLC. All rights reserved.