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Investor/RT
What's New in Version 4.0

The new features and miscellaneous enhancements outlined below were introduced in the 4.0 Version.

Product Enhancements for version 4.0:
Release Date: February 1, 2000

  1. Major New Feature: Trading System Development and BackTesting (tour screenshot)
    Investor/RT now makes it possible to define a trading system. A trading system is composed of one or more trading rules. Each trading rule is in turn composed of a trading signal and an associated action such as buy, sell, sell short, etc. Trading signals are logical expressions (true or false statements) written in the Investor/RT Language (RTL). RTL is the language used to compose scans, custom indicators, and trading signals in Investor/RT.

    Once a trading system has been defined in Investor/RT and given a name, the user can BackTest the trading system using historical data for one or more instruments. BackTesting refers to the actual execution of the trading system on a security, or set of securities over a given period of time. It simulates decision-making based on past data, and is effective in refining systems in order to optimize future performance. Upon completion of the BackTest, Investor/RT displays a summary and a detailed report of the performance of the trading system over the specified period. The user can make revisions to the trading rules, add or remove rules, or adjust the trading signals used in the rules, then BackTest again to see if the revisions improved the performance of the trading system.  For more information, click here.

  2. Major New Feature: Custom Technical Indicators (tour screenshot)
    Investor/RT 4.0 introduces Custom Indicators. A custom indicator is an arithmetic expression, written by the user, that can be graphed in an Investor/RT chart. The language used to specify custom indicators is essential the same language used to specify Scans, with a few powerful extensions. The Scan Language has been extended in Investor/RT 4.0 to enable any built-in technical indicator to operate on any arithmetic expression, including other technical indicators. For more information, and an example, click here. 

  3. Chart Wizard (tour screenshot)
    Chart Wizard The Chart Wizard is a chart setup window that can create multiple chart displays from the list of instruments present in any quote page. The Chart Wizard can be opened from the Setup Menu or by clicking the Chart icon in the Quote Page toolbar when no row in the quote page is selected. After running a scan, for example, you can click the chart icon on the scan results quote page toolbar to quickly view an array of charts on the issues identified by the scan.  For more information on the Chart Wizard, click here.

  4. Multi-chart slide shows are now supported|
     Version 4.0 supports multi-window slide shows. Slide shows are initiated in the usual way by clicking the slide show icon on the chart toolbar. As the slide show proceeds from instrument to instrument, the instrument is inserted into all chart windows. In prior releases, only the active chart window was updated. Chart windows can include traditional chart windows (line, bar, candlesticks), or any of the special chart window types: point & figure, three-line break, raw tick, day bar, market profile, and volume profile chart windows. Each chart window can have any periodicity, thus for example, you can do a slide show studying each issue in several time frames.
  5. Window tiling improved
     In concert with item #1 above, the Tile command in the Windows menu was enhanced to make it easier to quickly arrange (tile) an array of open chart windows for slide show use. The Tile menu item is now a submenu. You can choose to tile (1) all traditional chart windows (i.e. line, bar candlestick types), (2) All Chart Windows (i.e. all charts including the "special" chart window types, (3) Quote Pages, (4) Level II Windows, and (5) All Windows. The keyboard shortcut Alt-T (Command-T on Macintosh) issues the Tile: Charts command, tiling only the traditional chart windows. Holding down the shift key while typing Alt-T or Command-T invokes the Tile: All Windows command. The new submenu gives the user more control over which subset of the open windows are tiled. For now, the Tile Vertical and Cascade command still operate on all open windows.
  6. Dynamic Linear Regression indicator (tour screenshot)
     The regression indicators has been enhanced to provide a "Use Last ___ Periods" options. When selected, the regression line is dynamically calculated on the last number of periods specified. In other words, the linear regression is always performed on the most recent bars. During intra-day trading the regression line remains anchored to the right end of the intra-day chart.
  7. Intra-day three-line break charts (tour screenshot)
     If you choose for the Three-Line Break Chart to be "Live", Investor/RT will first compute the standard chart based on the viewing period and periodicity selected. Then, a vertical line is drawn just to the right of the last column that resulted from processing historical data. As ticks start coming in, they will be processed and appended to the chart. For example, if you have a 10 minute chart, everything to the left of the line will be based on processing the last price of the historical 10 minute bars. Everything to the right will be the result of live tick data from that point forward. The chart is labeled based on the periodicities just to the left and right of this line. To recalculate (compress) the chart, ctrl-click anywhere in the chart. If the "live chart" checkbox is unchecked, the chart will simply process a tick at the end of every period. For example, if you have a 1-minute period specified, the chart will only receive and process the closing price of each minute. Click here for more details on three line break charts.
  8. Chart cross hairs improvement
     Hold down the control key (option key on Macintosh) while moving the mouse pointer inside a chart window to temporarily turn on cross hairs. When the control key is released, the cross hairs disappear. This new feature provides for cross hairs when you need them without the necessity of turning on the cross hair tool in the charting toolbar.
  9. DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) Improvement
     On the Windows platform, improvements were made to the Dynamic Data Exchange support in Investor/RT. DDE linkage of Investor/RT market data to Microsoft Excel and other DDE client applications is now working properly. In Microsoft Excel, use the cell formula:

    =RT | ticker ! column 

    where ticker is a valid instrument ticker and column is the (abbreviated) name of any quote page column. Each time Investor/RT receives an update for the ticker, the resultant value of the specified column will be updated in the Excel spreadsheet. The column-designator can be the first few letters of a column, e.g. "la" for "last" or "quotedate" for "quotedatetime". Column-designators are not case sensitive so they may be typed in all lower case for convenience. The Feed Status window shows the number of DDE Links that are currently active and the number of times that DDE links have been updated by Investor/RT.
  10. Chart popup menu access changed
     Windows platform users must use the right-mouse-button to access the popup menu in chart windows. This behavior is more consistent with Windows conventions. Use the left-mouse-button to select an element in the chart window for editing or to "drag and drop" an element elsewhere, or simply to activate a chart window.
  11. Window: Close Menu has new menu items
     The Close menu item in the Windows menu now have a sub-menu. Menu items are provided to close all windows or to close windows of a certain type. The choices are similar to the new Tile command sub-menu mentioned in item #2 above.
  12. Multi-session market profile charts (tour screenshot)
    This option allows you to create a multiple session Market Profile Chart. You just specify here how many additional sessions you would like to display on the chart window. You may have to resize the window vertically or horizontally to get a proper picture once the multi-session chart is created. Tick data must be available for each session in order to create the Market Profile Chart for that session.
  13. Showing and Hiding Toolbars
     Prior to version 4.0, when a new window of some type was opened, the toolbar for that window type would always become visible. In version 4.0, toolbars that have been explicitly hidden will remain hidden when opening new windows (or layouts). Some window types such as charts, quote pages, and portfolios, have a toggle button (a plus sign) for recalling the associated toolbar. Toolbars can also be opened or closed using the Windows: Toolbar menu. Once the user hides (closes) a particular toolbar type (e.g. the quote page toolbar), that toolbar will remain hidden until the user specifically activates it again.
  14. Improved window maximization
     When maximizing windows, Investor/RT assures that the maximized windows does not obscure the main toolbar when the main toolbar is "anchored" at the top of the screen. If the main toolbar is hidden or "floating", maximized windows fill the entire screen. 
  15. Improved trading note entry
     Clicking the "New Note" button (or pressing the return key) in the Trading Notes window now presents a dialog box for entering the text of a new trading note. Enter the text and press return to add the new note. Prior to version 4.0, Investor/RT required an extra editing step to add the note text. The new dialog box makes it possible to quickly add a trading note to an instrument with minimal use of the mouse. For example, suppose you are viewing a chart of MSFT and decide to add a trading note for this stock. 

    1. Click the "Trading Notes" icon on the chart toolbar. This opens the trading notes window and selects MSFT automatically. 
    2. Press the return key to add a new trading note. A dialog box appears prompting for the text of the note. 
    3. Enter the text and press the return key to add the note. 
    4. Press the esc key to dismiss the trading note window and return to the chart.
  16. Alarm data columns in quote pages improved
     The quote page columns HiAlarm, LoAlarm, and VolAlarm are now displayed with exclamation points if the alarm has been triggered. If the high or low alarm level is on the bid or ask, the quote page display will show a B or A following the price to so indicate. Here are some samples for the HiAlarm value and the associated meaning:

    33 1/8 B -- alarm is set for bid price of 33 1/8 or higher 
    33 1/8 A -- alarm is set for ask price of 33 1/8 or higher 
    33 1/8 -- alarm is set for last trade of 33 1/8 or higher 
    33 1/8 B !! -- alarm was triggered. The bid reached 33 1/8 or higher
  17. Portfolio Reporting Improved (tour screenshot)
     With a portfolio window open, click the "Portfolio Reports" button on the portfolio toolbar. The Portfolio Reports window will appear. Select one or more reports and click the "Report" button to view the report(s). At present, there are four reports available: (1) Audit Trail (2) Closed Position Detail, (3) Closed Position Summary, and (4) Asset Allocation Report. The number keys 1 through 4 are shortcuts for selecting or deselecting the associated report. These are the same reports that have been available for some time in Investor/RT. The Close Position Detail report has been improved to show the entry and exit price per share for each closed position. Further, reports 1-3 can now be viewed for a variety of times spans. This limits the reports to all activity that has occurred within the current year, the current quarter, the current month, week, or day. Selections are also available for "Last Year" and "All Years". In future releases we will be adding additional report types for selection from this window. 

    The order desk window now "remembers" that last order type that was entered by the user and will always open up with that order type selected. Prior versions always opened up the order desk with "Market Order". Users who typically use journal entries to update their portfolios will no longer have the extra step of switch the order type from market order to journal entry. 

    A bug was fixed in the portfolio manager that was causing Investor/RT to deduct commission expenses from the portfolio cash balance even when the user performed a "journal entry".
  18. Scan/Custom Indicator Improvements
     When entering the formula for a custom indicator or a scan request, Investor/RT does NOT require that you first identify the tokens you wish to use. When you click the "Check" button to check the formula for correctness, Investor/RT will automatically identify the tokens you have used in the scan or custom indicator and list them in the box on the upper right side of the window. Further, tokens and functions may now been entered in lower or upper case. Data tokens such as (OP, HI, LO, CL, MA, etc.) will be converted to uppercase if typed in lower case. The arithmetic functions (ABS, MIN, MAX, SUM, LOG, etc.) may now be entered in all upper or all lower case, e.g. min and max mean the same as MIN and MAX, but note that Min or Max are both invalid. 

    The "Tokens" menu now inserts function templates into the scans request. For example, choose MAX and the template: 

    MAX ( exp, n) 

    appears in text entry area. You can then double-click on "exp" to highlight the placeholder and begin typing the expression to be used as input to the MAX function. Next double-click on "n" and replace it with a number of periods to use in the MAX function.
  19. Trend lines in Point & Figure Charts
    You can create trendlines on your Point and Figure Charts by click in the chart and dragging while holding down the Ctrl and Shift keys together. The trendline will anchor itself between the column and price position where you first clicked, and the column and price position where you last released the mouse. The price will round off to the nearest multiple of 1/2 the box size. The trendline will extend itself in both directions to the edge of the chart. You may add up to 10 trendlines to your chart, and you can remove all trendlines by double-clicking in the chart while holding down both the Ctrl and Shift keys.
  20. Portfolio formats added
     A new button has been added to the portfolio toolbar to enable changing the column format of the portfolio, similar to the "Change Format" feature of the quote page window. First, the user must create one or more portfolio formats using Setup: Preferences: Formats, Portfolio. Note there are now two format definition windows, one for quote page formats, the other for portfolio formats. Like quote pages, a portfolio format may have up to 30 columns. Choose the desired columns in left to right sequence. 

    When you click the "Change Format" button a list of format names appears. You can select a format and click "Apply" to see the effect while leaving the format selector window open. 

    If you hold down the shift key while clicking the "Change Format" button Investor/RT will take the format of the current portfolio window and insert it into the "Setup: Preferences: Formats, Portfolio" setup window.
  21. Quote page format setup improved
     The "Change Format" button on the quote page toolbar has been similarly improved (see item #18 above) to make it easier to setup a user defined quote page format. Open a quote page and add columns and/or adjust the positioning of columns using the mouse. Then shift + click on the "Change Format" button on the quote page toolbar. The "Setup Quote Page Format" window will appear with the current list of data columns listed on the right. Adjust the column order or make other changes as desired, then click "Save" to give the format a name. This saved format can then be applied to other quote pages using the "Change Format" button (without shift).
  22. N-Line Break Charts now supported (tour screenshot)
     The "three-line break" chart type in Investor/RT has been generalized to support N-line break charts where N is a user specified number. The preferences for "three-line break" now contains an entry box titled "Reversal (#lines)" where the N value is specified. This generalization of the three-line break chart is discussed in Steve Nisson's book, Beyond Candlesticks. 
  23. Scan language improvement
     The scan language has been improved to allow testing of historical values or properties of fixed instruments during the scan. For example, suppose you wanted to see a list of stocks that were performing better than the Dow Industrials over the last 5 day period. The scan request: 

    CL/CL5 > CL(INDU)/CL5(INDU) 

    would identify all issues whose 5-day performance is better than INDU (INDU is assumed to be the ticker for the Dow Jones Industrials in this example-some data services use $INDU). Similarly the scan request: 

    PE < PE(IBM) 

    Identifies stocks whose PE Ratio is lower than IBM's. Any Historical or Primitive Data Element in the scan language may now be qualified by specifying a ticker symbol after the token enclosed in parentheses. During the scan run, all such tokens will be evaluated based on the properties or historical values of the specified instrument, while unqualified tokens will be evaluated using data for the instruments in the subject quote page. 

    Note that scans containing specific references like this can also be added to charts using the Scan Markers technical indicator.
  24. Automatic downloading for Pt. & Figure Chart
     Point and Figure and Three Line Break charts now have an automatic downloading option similar to time-based charts. The default setting is specified in Setup: Preferences: Charting, Pt. & Figure. The setting can also be adjusted for a particular Point and Figure or Three Line Break window using the Preferences window for the particular chart window.
  25. Market Profile/Volume Profile Enhancements
     In addition to the multiple session enhancements described in item #10 above, the Market Profile chart has been enhanced to optionally show (superimpose) a volume histogram in the background of the window. This essentially provides for a Volume Profile/Market Profile chart in a single window. When the volume histogram is displayed, the volume bar is shown in two shades depicting the total volume due to block trades vs. small trade. The user can specify the tick volume limit at which the trade is considered a block trade. Other enhancements include a user option to specify the time in minutes depicted by each letter in the Market Profile. Prior to Investor/RT 4.0, each letter always represented 30 minutes. Gridlines are now optional. Both Market Profile and Volume Profile charts may now be printed.