Product Enhancements for version 2.9:
Release Date: March 31, 1998

• DTN Symbol Lookup command added.
• Split Adjustments automatically recorded as trading notes
• Portfolio transactions automatically recorded as trading notes
• Portfolios and Quote Page may be displayed in any font, size, and style.
• System Status window shows user profile information to be submitted with support requests
• Quote Sifter enhancement
• Scan Setup windows may now be resized or minimized.
• Fourteen new scan elements added to the scan language.
• Four new quote page data columns were added for options traders.
• Format Definition window (Setup:Preferences) may be resized.
• Intra-day charting improvement
• InterQuote automatic reconnect feature added
• Four new quote page sort columns: Session, Strike, Intrinsic Value, Time Value
• DTN bad tick fixed
• List selection window colors are now user defined.
• Support for multi-day trading sessions added.
• Three new technical indicators added.
• Futures perpetuals bug fixed.
• Quote Page sorting, fundamental data downloading improvements.
• Chart object "save as text" added.
• Macintosh users can option+click to close all windows
  

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• New feature for DTN users. Symbol Lookup command in the DTN menu. This new feature give the DTN user a handy tool for looking up any ticker symbol by exchange or security type. A pattern matching feature is provided for looking up lists of tickers that begin with the same few letters. The user can easily add individual issues, all issues, for all selected issues to Investor/RT. This feature was first introduced in 2.8.2.
  
  
• Split adjustments for instruments are now recorded as trading notes for the instrument automatically. The date of the note is the user specified split effective date. The split adjust function now also adjusts all open positions in all portfolios for the specified instrument. For example, if you own 100 shares of IBM, purchased at 90 and IBM splits 2 for 1, the position will be adjusted automatically in the portfolio to show a new quantify on hand of 200 and an new "opening price" of 45. The cost basis of the position will, of course, remain unchanged. These changes will be noticed the next time you open the portfolio. If a portfolio window is open at the time of a split adjustment, it will be necessary to close and reopen the portfolio to see the revised numbers for the position.
  
  
• Open and closing of portfolio positions for each instrument are now recorded as trading notes for that instrument automatically. The note is assigned the date specified by the user as the trade date.
  
  
• Quote Pages and Portfolios may now be displayed in any font, size, and style. Formerly, only font and size could be specified. Now, bold, italics, bold italics, and other styles are available. Quotepage may have their font style set individually using the preference button on the quote page toolbar. When the preference window appears, click on the button containing the name of a font and a standard font selection window will appear. Portfolio windows may NOT be individually specified. All portfolios are displayed in the default quote page font. The default quote page font/size/style may be modified using Setup:Preferences:QuotePage Preferences.
  
  
• User profile. To provide timely technical support by email it is usually necessary for LinnsSoft to know which platform you are using (WIN or MAC), which data feed, which version of Investor/RT, registration status and other key items of information. To enable our users to conveniently supply the required information, a "user profile" has been added to the System Status window. Choose System Status from the Control menu or click the System Status icon on the main toolbar. Copy the user profile text and paste it into each email message you send to support. In general, you will receive a more timely response if you include this information. Thank you for helping us serve you better.
  
  
• The quote sifter can be used to sift the raw feed for certain types of ticker symbols and add them to Investor/RT. When the instruments are added to Investor/RT, the assigned security type, session, and requested exchange for the instrument are taken from the default Instrument specification (Setup:Preferences:Instruments). When you open the quote sifter, a dialog box will appear to remind you of the current settings, giving you an opportunity to adjust them depending on your intended usage of the quote sifter.
  
  
• The Scan setup windows may now be resized. Under Windows 95/NT the minimize button is also available. Thus while running the scan in "auto run" mode the scan window can be sized very small or minimized. When the Scan setup window is sized taller than normal, the scan element list boxes are resized to show more elements. This makes it more convenient to locate the scan elements you wish to use without scrolling.
  
  
• Fourteen new primitive scan elements have been added to the scan request language. A primitive scan element is a property or calculated value of an instrument. A primitive cannot be referred to at any time in the past, only the present value. The new scan elements are:
  
  SESSION: the session number SECTYPE: the security type TICK: the number of ticks TICKU: the number of up ticks TICKD: the number of down ticks STRIKE: the strike price ULPRICE: the price of the option's underlying instrument IV: the intrinsic value of the optin TV: the time value of the option DAYS: the number of days until option expiration GAP: the gap between yesterday's close and today's open PCHY: the percent change since yesterday's close PCHO: the percent change since today's open XAVGVOL: today's volume divided by 20-day average volume
  
  SESSION: the session number of the instrument. SECTYPE: the security type. This property is a number which indicates the type of instrument. For example the scan request "SECTYPE = 1 AND SESSION = 0" would list all instruments of type stock (1) that are assigned to trading session 0. Here is table of code numbers for all Investor/RT security types:
  
  Stock 1
  Stock Option 2
  Future 3
  Spread 4
  Future Option 5
  Spot 6
  Corp Bond 7
  Govt Bond 8
  Muni Bond 9
  Fund 10
  Statistics 11
  Index 12
  Forex 13
  Cash 14
  GarvinBond 15
  UserDefined 16
  
  TICKS, TICKU, and TICKD: the number of trades (ticks), the number of up ticks, and the number of down ticks for the instrument since the beginning of the trading session. For example, the scan request "TICKS > 100 and TICKU/TICKD > 1.5" would find the instruments that have traded more than 100 times during the current trading session and whose ratio of up ticks to down ticks is greater than 1.5.
  
  STRIKE: for option instruments (stock options, index options, futures options) this primative is the strike price. This value is transmitted by the DTN data feed. For other feeds, the strike price can be entered manually in a quote page. The scan request "SECTYPE = 2 and (CL + STRIKE) > 0" would show a list of all stock options along with the sum of the option's price and the strike price.
  
  ULPRICE: for option instruments, this property is the current trading price of the underlying instrument for the option. For example for an Apple Computer option instrument (ticker: AAQ??), ULPRICE would be the current price of Apple Computer (ticker: AAPL). In order for Investor/RT to make the association between an option and it's corresponding underlying stock, index or future, the option's name must begin with the ticker symbol of the underlying instrument,otherwise, ULPRICE will return zero. Please note that if an option instrument is improperly named, Investor/RT may even return the underlying price for some unrelated instrument if the name of the option begins with a valid (but inappropriate) ticker symbol. The ULPRICE is a useful scan element, as in "SECTYPE = 2 and ULPRICE > STRIKE" which lists all stock or index options for which the underlying stock or index is trading higher than the strike.
  
  IV: for option instruments, this property is the "intrinsic" value of the option. A call option has intrinsic value when the underlying issue is trading above the option's strike price. A put option has intrinsic value when the underlying issue is trading below the put option's strike price. The IV property is useful in scan requests as a way of identifying "in the money" options, i.e. those options with an intrinsic value. The scan request "SECTYPE = 2 and IV > 0" would identify all in-the-money equity and index options.
  
  TV: for option instruments, TV is the "time value" component of the option's price that exceeds its intrinsic value. Of course, if the option is "out of the money", there is no intrinsic value, thus the entire price of the option (the premium) is "time value".. The scan request "SECTYPE = 2 and (TV > 2" would list all equity and index options with a premium exceeding $2. Sorting the resulting quote page by the TV column effective ranks all options by premium. Similarly, a scan request that included the calculation "TV/ULPRICE" would result in a quote page that could be sorted to reveal those options with the highest or lowest premiums when expressed as a percentage of the underlying instrument's price.
  
  NOTE: in order to calculate the intrinsic value of an option instrument, Investor/RT must determine whether the instrument is a put or a call option. It does this by examining the name of the option for the word "Put". The word Put or Call is automatically placed in the name field of each option by the Setup:Equity and Index Options feature of Investor/RT. If you create your option instruments manually, you must be sure to properly title the option as a "Put", otherwise the instrument will be treated as a call. DAYS: for options and futures instruments, DAYS is the number of days until the instrument expires. The number of days is calculated based on the value of "Expiration Date" for each instrument. The Expiration Date data column may be displayed in a quote page. The Expiration Date is transmitted by the DTN data feed for futures and options. Investor/RT's Equity and Index Option setup window (see Setup menu) also calculates the expiration date of stock and index options and sets the expiration date for each generated option instrument.
  
  GAP: the "gap" is defined as the difference between the open price and the previous close. The scan request "GAP > 2" would list all instruments that opened 2 points higher than the previous day's close.
  
  PCHO and PCHY: these are percent change values. PCHO is the %change in price since the open, and PCHY being the % change in price since yesterday's close.
  
  XAVGVOL: for stocks and options, this is the ratio of current trading volume to the 20-day average trading volume. Investor/RT calculates and maintains 20-day average volume for all stocks and options. The scan request "AVGVOL >= 100k and XAVGVOL > 2.5" would identify all issues with a 20-day average volume of 100,000 or more with current volume more than two and a half times the average.
  
  
• Four new data columns are now available for display in quote pages: Intrinsic Value, Underlying Price, Days to Expiration, and Time Value. These data columns only pertain to stock options, index options, or futures options; they will be blank for other security types. See the discussion above of the IV, ULPRICE, DAYS, and TV scan elements for additional information on these new data columns.
  
  
• The Setup Formats window (under Setup:Preferences) may now be resized. Making the window taller enables more data column names to be seen without scrolling.
  
  
• Intra-day charts, ticks charts especially, now update more smoothly as trades occur. Very active issues would sometimes draw hashed lines instead of smooth continuous lines prior to version 2.9.
  
  
• InterQuote now have a new checkbox in the Data Feed Setup window. Check the box titled "Automatically restart data feed when no data" to request that Investor/RT automatically reconnect to InterQuote whenever it detects a "no data" condition. NOTE to users with dialup connections to the internet under Windows 95/NT: Investor/RT will reconnect automatically only if your Internet connection is still active. If the connection to InterQuote is dropped because the dialup connection terminated, Investor/RT will be unable to reconnect (although it will try). In this case, you must reestablish the dialup connection before I/RT will be able to reconnect to InterQuote.
  
  
• Quote Pages may now be sorted by Session, Strike Price, Intrinsic Value, Time Value. Note that the Intrinsic value of all "non-options" instruments is simply the last price of the instrument and the Time Value of all "non-options" instruments is always zero. Sorting by Intrinsic Value will be most useful when sorting a quote page containing only option instruments (equity options, index options, or futures options).
  
  
• A bug was corrected in the DTN version that was causing spurious "bad ticks" to occur once or twice a day on some instrument.
  
  
• The standard "list selection" popup window for choosing or applying one or more elements from a list is now displayed in the user specified text backgound and text color as set in Setup:Preferences:General Preferences. A bug was fixed which caused the list to be partially displayed when selecting preferences windows in particular.
  
  
• Investor/RT has been enhanced to allow sessions that begin one day and send the next day. Such sessions are defined by setting the start time later than the stop time in Setup:Preferences (Sessions).
  
  
• Technical indicator additions: The moving average indicator has been enhanced to enable the specified moving average line to be shifted left or right by a user specified number of periods. Formerly only left shifting was available. A new indicator called Detrended Oscillator was added. This indicator calculates and smoothes the spread between price and some user specified moving average of price. The resulting oscillator indicates when the issue is at extremes with regard to the historical spread between price and the moving average of price. A triple smoothing indicator was added. The indicator allows either a double or triple smoothing of some price (open, high, low close, etc.). Each smoothing moving average may have the same or a different period and type (simple, exponential, etc.).
  
  
• A problem was corrected having to do with Investor/RT's maintenance of the association between perpetual futures instruments (e.g. S*) and the related contract with the greatest open interest. For example, if soybean futures were listed in the ".All Symbols" quote page immediately followed by S&P futures (SP), Investor/RT, prior to 2.9, was improperly linking an unrelated S&P contract to the soybean perpetual due to the fact that S&P futures happen to begin with "S" just like soybean futures. The software now correctly distinguishes single and double letter futures in this regard.
  
  
• The fundamental data items EPS (Earnings per Share) and PERatio (Price/Earnings Ratio) were defined twice in the list of available data columns depending on the source of the data (Dial/Data fundamental download, or continuous data feed). This was confusing, so the redundancy has been eliminated. There are now unique data columns for EPS and P/E Ratio. The EPS and P/E Ratio data items are considered "fundamental" data and are now listed in the Scan Elements as fundamental elements (formerly they were listed as both fundamental and primitive elements). A by product of this change is that any quote page formats setup prior to version 2.9 which include the P/E Ratio or EPS data columns will have to be revised using Setup:Preferences (Format Definition). The old (redundant) columns will be listed as "Unused" and should be eliminated from all formats where they appear. Then add the "P/E Ratio" or "EPS" data column to the format(s) as you like. In a related improvement, the data columns P/E Ratio, EPS, EPS estimate, Shrs Outstanding, and Beta now appear in the "Sort By..." list when you use the quote page toolbar to sort the quote page. All five of these data items are available either via the DTN data feed or via Dial/Data fundamental download. The InterQuote feed transmits P/E Ratio, and the BMI feed transmits P/E and EPS.
  
  These 5 key fundamental indicators plus 65 others are available for downloading via Dial/Data. The Dial/Data fundamental download feature has been simplified in version 2.9 as well. Simply use the Format Definition window (under Setup:Preferences) to modify the definition of the special format named "Fundamentals Format" to include up to 30 fundamental items you wish to download. Investor/RT has been improved to arrange the columns automatically in the order required by Dial/Data (formerly the items had to be arranged manually into a prescribed order). Then use the Download Data window to request a fundamental download of the ".Stocks" quote page. This will update the selected fundamental data items so you may rank or scan for stocks meeting any combination of fundamental criteria. All 70 fundamental data items may be used in scan requests.
  
  
• Chart windows may now be saved as text, similar to scan objects. The resultant text file contains all of the specifications of the chart object. The resulting text file may be useful in communicating with our support department with questions relating to charting with Investor/RT.
  
  
• Macintosh users may hold the option down when closing any Investor/RT window to close ALL windows. This is an shortcut alternative to using the Close All command in the Windows menu. Windows 95/NT users can hold the Ctrl key down while choosing "Close" from the File menu to close all windows.