Investor/RT - Tutorial - Tracking the S&P 500 futures intraday

Pricing Summary

Investor/RT
Tracking the S&P 500 futures intraday

The following will guide you through setting up Investor/RT to track the S&P futures contract for daytrading. The S&P is used here simply as an example, since it is a popular security for the daytrader.

Register Investor/RT

To connect Investor/RT to a data service you will need to register your software with us as either a trial user or a client. If you have not already obtained your registration information, we will need the following information in order to create a registration code for you. You may also click here and fill out the form to provide Linn Software with this information.

Your name
Your email address
Your data service (Signal, eSignal, myTrack, BMI, DTN, or DTN.IQ)
Your data reciever ID number (Signal, BMI, DTN) or login ID (DTN.IQ, eSignal, myTrack)
Your computer operating system (Windows 95, 98, NT, or Power Macintosh)
Your Dial/Data ID (if applicable)

If you have already obtained your registration information:

To register your Investor/RT software, choose one of the following options:

A) To auto register your Investor/RT software, copy the registration file attached to the e-mail message containing your registration information into the investrt\ directory (win/95) or into the Investor/RT Folder (Macintosh). Start Investor/RT and go to the Registration window in Setup:Preferences.

B) You may also manually register the software. Enter the 4 pieces of information exactly as shown below into the spaces provided in the Registration section under Setup:Preferences. When entering the 20 character registration code do NOT type the dashes (the program will insert them for you). It is important that you enter all of the information exactly as it has been provided, including capital letters and spacing.

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Then press the "Register" button. If the message "Registration Confirmed" does not appear in the window, press the Help button on Investor/RT's main toolbar and review the registration instructions. The Help button is the red question mark button at the right end of the main tool bar. If you cannot locate the Help button, choose Help from the Window menu.

Identify the Securities You Wish to Track

Investor/RT will monitor any security type (stocks, options, futures, bonds, etc.) that is being broadcast by your data vendor. It will be necessary to obtain a source for identifying symbols used by your data service. Some services publish a symbol guide, while others (such as DTN.IQ) place their symbol guide on their website

We must enter into Investor/RT the symbols of the securities we wish to track. In this discussion we will use the S&P 500 futures contract. Before we define any symbol to Investor/RT we must know the following information:

ticker symbol (gotten from your data vendor)
security type (stock, future, option, etc.)
session (the time of day during which the security trades, represented by numbered time slots in Investor/RT)

In this example we use the S&P future:

Ticker Symbol

InterQuote

SP8M

DTN

SP8M

Signal

SP8M

BMI

SP8M

Security Type

future

Session

8:20 am to 4:00 pm Eastern Standard Time

Investor/RT Trading Sessions

Investor/RT uses Sessions to identify the time period in a day during
which each security trades. You may use the sessions dialog to create
new sessions or use the ones already defined. It is not important what a
particular session is called; rather, it is the time frame that matters.
For example, the 0 session is called NYSE Stock Session, and is defined
for 9:30-4:00 EST, but the 0 session could also be used for AMEX or
NASDAQ stocks as well, since they all trade from 9:30-4:00 EST.

Investor/RT is shipped with all of the sessions defaulting to Eastern
Standard Time. If you live in any other time zone, one of the first
things you must do before using the software is change the relevant
sessions to your local time. Do this by clicking once on the session you
wish to change and alter the Start Time/Stop Time/Post Time
appropriately.

Note: Post Time is the time of day that all of the session price and
volume information is saved to the Investor/RT database. It works well
to add about five minutes past the Stop Time for the Post Time.

Creating a New Trading Session

Go to Setup: Preferences: Session Preferences screenshot
Click once on the "New" button at the top right of the window to create a new untitled trading session (seen at the top of the list of sessions).

Note: It is possible that the trading session you desire has already been defined in the software before shipping. Scan the list provide for the correct time frame before you create a new one. Remember, the NAME of the session does not matter, only that it reflects the correct time of day for the security you wish to track.

Set the correct Start Time, Stop Time, and Post Times for your new Untitled trading session. See Getting Started-Sessions.

ALL TIMES ARE EXPRESSED IN 24 HOUR LOCAL TIME.

Set the correct Posting Days for the S&P future (Mon.- Fri. in the U.S.)
Now you can rename your new Untitled trading session if you like by pressing the "Rename" button at the top right of the window.

Defining Symbols

Now that your S&P future session has been defined you are ready to define the S&P future to Investor/RT.

Go to Setup: Futures.

Use the lists provided to enter the S&P future, session 29, and the contract year. The months that the S&P trades will automatically appear in the Contract Months field; if you do not wish to enter all months for the S&P you may un-select those months by clicking once in the box next to them. When you have finished entering the appropriate information, click once on the "Add" button in the bottom left. Notice in your main toolbar (horizontally positioned at the top of your screen) that the message "SP8M added" appears.

Creating a New Quote Page

Now you are ready create a new quote page. On the far left of the main toolbar at the top of the screen is an icon with the letters "QP" (quote page). Click once on this icon to display the quote page menu.

FYI: You will notice in this menu that there are several quote pages already defined that have a period (.) in front of them. These are System Quote Pages. System Quote Pages automatically categorize every symbol you define to Investor/RT. This means that you may create a new quote page containing any number of different security types and they will automatically be entered into their respective category quote pages by the software (all stocks go in the .Stocks quote page, all futures go in the .Futures quote page, etc.).

Select "New" at the top of the quote page menu and then click OK. This will open a new, empty quote page with a Symbol Selector List to the right. Scroll down the list until you find SP8M (you may also press your "S" key to go to the symbols that begin with the letter "S").

Use your mouse to place your cursor on the symbol SP8M in the Symbol Selector List and double-click to add SP8M to your new quote page. At this point you can continue to add symbols to your new quote page from the Symbol Selector List or you can close the the Symbol Selector Window.

You are now ready to give the new quote page a name.

You have now created a new quote page containing the S&P future and the cash S&P. If you wish to chart the S&P intraday, you must now mark the symbol for intraday data collection.

Note: Investor/RT is shipped with a daily default for data collection. Even without saving ticks to your database you can create intraday and minute charts; if you wish to retain the ticks for a symbol even when the chart is closed, however, you must mark it for intraday data collection.

To mark a symbol for intraday data collection, point to the symbol in the quote page and click once to select it. You can tell that a symbol has been selected by the dark line that appears around the row.

Now go to the quote page toolbar and click once on the "Mark for Intraday" icon. This will make sure that the ticks are retained according to the settings in your Preferences (see Setup: Preferences: Historical Data).

Obtaining Price History for Graphing

Investor/RT must have data to chart in order for you to be able to graph the price history of a security. Obviously, when you first begin you will not have any back history for the S&P future. For the purposes of this example we will collect intraday history by collecting it as it occurs.

Historical data is obtained four ways:

Collect history as you use Investor/RT, allowing the software to collect it.
All versions of Investor/RT come with the abiltiy to connect to Dial/Data, a comprehensive historical and end of day database.
A history CD containing 5+ years is available for $49.95.
The data service you choose may offer history; for example, DTN.IQ has a history server (for stocks and indices only), and BMI and Signal offer history from their web sites.
History file import from another program you may have been using.

Creating a Chart

The easiest way to create a chart using Investor/RT is to point to the symbol in a quote page and double-click. Try this to create a chart for the S&P future.

Note: Investor/RT is shipped with a default to daily charts on all new charts created; however, you may change this by going to Setup: Preferences: Chart Period Preferences.

Unless you have changed your Chart Period Preference you will have created a daily chart that looks like the one above. The chart says "No Data On File" because you do not yet have any daily history on the S&P future. You can, however, begin tracking intrady charts immediately. Do this by changing the periodicity of the chart. Periodicity is the time frame displayed in the chart. The periodicity is changed by placing the cursor anywhere in the window of the chart and holding your mouse button down. A pop-up menu will appear that will enable you to change all characteristics of the chart, including the periodicity.

Setting Up Multiple Charts

You may wish to set up several different time frames for looking at the same intraday symbol. In the case of the S&P future, you may wish to set up charts for tick, one-minute, and five minutes. This will provide a look comprehensive look at the market in three different time frames. An analogy that represents this approach is that you are looking at the market simultaneously with a microscope, a magnifying glass, and plain eyesight.

threecharts1

Graphing Technical Indicators

You may add a technical indicator to a chart by pointing to the "Add a Technical Indicator" icon in your charting toolbar and clicking once.

The window that appears contains a list of indicators in the Investor/RT technical analysis library. Choose an indicator by pointing to it in the list and clicking once. You may then change any of the indicator parameters to your own values, or you may use the defaults set in Investor/RT. When you are finished, click the OK button at the bottom right (or Apply if you wish to add more than one indicator).

Note: You can set global defaults for the technical indicators by going to Setup: Preferences: Charting, Indicators.

If you wish to save the charts you have created make sure that you click the "Save Chart" icon in the charting toolbar and give it a name. It is helpful to give the chart a name describing the type of chart or indicators contained within it, since each chart you create can serve as a template for any security you want to graph with it.

Creating a Layout

Once you have gone to the trouble of creating this array of charts, no doubt you will want to save it to call it up at will. All that is involved in creating a layout is to make sure that all objects (charts, quote pages, news windows, etc.) contained within it are SAVED. Once each individual object is saved you can arrange on your screen as you like and go to File: New: Layout and give your new layout a name.

After your layout has been saved you call retreive it at will by going to File: Open: Layout.