Answers to Common Questions
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Question |
How can I find and delete "dead" symbols or symbols that do not have sufficient historical data? |
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Answer |
Let's assume you've imported the S&P 500 into
Investor/RT from a list that was somewhat out of date. You
promptly download the last 5 months of daily data on those 500 symbols
in order that you might run a daily scan on those symbols. Now you
need a quick way to get rid of any symbols which don't have complete
data over the last 3 months, because your scans requires that data.
Create a scan (Setup: Scans) with the following syntax: BARS > 0 And click the "Scan" button at bottom. It will ask you for you BARS preferences. Setup BARS with the following preferences:
I ran this scan on 7/29/4. You'll have to adjust to preferences to have a "From" date of 3 months back, and a "To" date matching the current date. The scan will produce a quotepage that includes a BARS column showing how many daily bars exist for each symbol over the date range specified. Most of your symbols will have the same number (which is the complete number that they should have). Keep this number in mind and close the quotepage. In my case, that number was 62. Now, run the following scan: BARS < 62 You'll need to replace 62 with whatever number it gave you. This scan will produce a quotepage of symbols that did not have complete daily data over the past 3 months. You can then delete these symbols by using the red trash can on the quotepage toolbar. There could be two reason these symbols didn't have complete data. Either that symbol has stopped trading, or that symbol just started trading during that 3 month period. Either way, you probably want to eliminate them from your quotepage if your scan requires that much data. |
