Bid/Ask on Forex Tick Data

[sparkz]

Can someone help a forex noob understand something here.

I'm using eSignal's data feed in a program called NeuroShell (Day Trader) and was trying to get forex ask and bid prices on their tick data. The program kept telling me that there was no data on bid or ask.

So I phoned Ward Systems tech support and was told that:

a) there was no bid/ask prices because eSignal doesn't supply it.
b) you can't have bid/ask prices with forex because there's no way of getting it anyhow.

Answer a) totally confused me as I have other products which happily show them (MultiCharts and QCollector for example). Also, the eSignal data manager shows bid/ask prices on the symbol monitor.

When I mentioned this they told me that the programs may be making the bid/ask prices up. And as for the data manager, perhaps it's just showing stuff which isn't actually available to programs.

As for b) I just don't know but it would surprise me if it was true as the spread does vary quite a bit.

Is there some official eSignal information I can get back to Ward Systems with on this.

Thanks for any help...

Regards
Mark

[demarcog]

Re: Bid/Ask on Forex Tick Data

Originally posted by sparkz
Can someone help a forex noob understand something here.

I'm using eSignal's data feed in a program called NeuroShell (Day Trader) and was trying to get forex ask and bid prices on their tick data. The program kept telling me that there was no data on bid or ask.

So I phoned Ward Systems tech support and was told that:

a) there was no bid/ask prices because eSignal doesn't supply it.
b) you can't have bid/ask prices with forex because there's no way of getting it anyhow.

Answer a) totally confused me as I have other products which happily show them (MultiCharts and QCollector for example). Also, the eSignal data manager shows bid/ask prices on the symbol monitor.

When I mentioned this they told me that the programs may be making the bid/ask prices up. And as for the data manager, perhaps it's just showing stuff which isn't actually available to programs.

As for b) I just don't know but it would surprise me if it was true as the spread does vary quite a bit.

Is there some official eSignal information I can get back to Ward Systems with on this.

Thanks for any help...

Regards
Mark

Mark,

What can I say about that conversation except pretend it never occurred.

Of course eSignal has FOREX price data, I've used it for several years and it's the most reliable and comprehensive FX feed out there. It's consists of the current bid and offer prices from several hundred commercial banks.

Here are a few eSignal links that you will find useful the first one is an general introduction to Forex trading and the second the details on the eSignal Forex data feed including symbol format etc. The Forex feed is referred to as the GTIS feed which has to be ordered seperately, I think it cost's $50 a month.

http://www.esignal.com/international/forex/default.asp

http://kb.esignalcentral.com/display/2/articleDirect/index.asp?aid=1422&r=0.4124872

Hope this clears up the confusion.

Glen

[sparkz]

Re: Re: Bid/Ask on Forex Tick Data

Originally posted by demarcog
Mark,

What can I say about that conversation except pretend it never occurred.

Of course eSignal has FOREX price data, I've used it for several years and it's the most reliable and comprehensive FX feed out there. It's consists of the current bid and offer prices from several hundred commercial banks.

Here are a few eSignal links that you will find useful the first one is an general introduction to Forex trading and the second the details on the eSignal Forex data feed including symbol format etc. The Forex feed is referred to as the GTIS feed which has to be ordered seperately, I think it cost's $50 a month.

http://www.esignal.com/international/forex/default.asp

http://kb.esignalcentral.com/display/2/articleDirect/index.asp?aid=1422&r=0.4124872

Hope this clears up the confusion.

Glen

Thanks for the info Glen.

Actually I already have the GTIS feed and have been happily checking out the bid/ask data in MultiCharts until the NeuroShell confusion.

NeuroShell do give a "close" price which seems to be the bid price.

I've also been looking at the eSignal programming documentation (not api) which talks about using a status field to check if a price is bid or ask. So if they only have bid data in their charts then it would imply that they know about the ask data and are just ignoring it? I could be wrong?

Mark

[Guest]

Mark,

I'm not familiar with Neuroshell, but eSignal's charts use bid prices to display the graphs. In fact, you are bound to ignore either bid or ask as you can't display in real time 2 different prices (one lower and one higher) with the same time stamp on the same candle candle. You have therefore the choice between bid or ask. Other charting packages use the average price.

As far as I understand your post, Neuroshell uses bid prices to display the graphs.