Non-USD base symbols

[ian]

I understand that in currency pairs the base currency is quoted first and that most pairs are quoted against the USD. So in the case of USDGBP you omit the USD and the symbol is simply GBP A0-FX.

In the case of the GBP and EUR, however, you can have both symbols as a base:

GBPEUR A0-FX
EURGBP A0-FX

So to the Q:

I can't call up pairs where the USD is not the base currency:

GBPUSD
EURUSD

and so on. I'd like to do this because many sites talk about such 'reverse' pairs and

Is there a way to do this?

Ian

[DuaneG]

Hi ian,

In most cases, the reverse pairs are not sent out by the participating banks. This is why switching the symbols won't generate a reverse pair. However, with EFS, you can have eSignal calculate the reverse pair by taking the reciprocal of the orginal cross rate and dividing it by 1.

Here's an example.

The original cross rate for the USD and JPY is JPY A0-FX.

To reverse this calculation, we need to do this...1 / JPY A0-FX

[ian]

Thanks, Duane. Ah, the things you can do with eSignal...!

However, I was wanting to use the quotes in TS rather than eSignal and although I could plot inverses in TS in that way, it makes it difficult to write indicators and strategies.

So if reverse pairs are not sent out, how come many sites actually quote them and even suggest strategies to use them?

Ian

[DuaneG]

Hi ian,

Because the reverse pairs aren't sent out from the various institutions, many services often internally manipulate the cross rate to display the inverse. It's been some years since I've worked with the TS interface, but if memory serves correctly there should be a way in TS to manipulate the order of operations to display the reversed cross rate.

Per my last post on the subject, Alex came up with a way to display the reverse cross rate without the use of EFS. I know that you wanted this data for TS, but I thought I would pass it along as it may be beneficial for yourself and others within the scope of eSignal.

1. The typical Forex symbol goes something like this. JPY A0-FX. This is the (US Dollar / Japanese Yen.)

2. To calculate the reverse cross-rate, we need to calculate the reciprocal of this by performing (1/ Japanese Yen)

3. Because we can't use integers in eSignal, we have historically relied on EFS to perform the calculation.

4. The way to do this without EFS is basically a mathematical trick of eSignal. Because (JPY A0-FX / JPY A0-FX) = 1,
we can substitute the integer of 1 with this sub-calculation. So now we can perform the larger calculation by performing this,

(JPY A0-FX / JPY A0-FX / JPY A0-FX)

5. This calculation follows the order of operations and will provide the reverse cross rate.

Hope this helps.

[ACM]

Ian
Adding to Duane's reply.
In some instances (as is the case with JPY) you may need to apply a weight to the last symbol or the price axis will not show enough digits.
So whereas in the case of the Euro one can simply use
eur a0-fx /eur a0-fx /eur a0-fx
with the Yen the following will be required to return a value with the appropriate number of digits
jpy a0-fx /jpy a0-fx /0.000001jpy a0-fx
Alex

[ian]

Hi Guys,
Thanks again for the info.

Originally posted by DuaneG

Because the reverse pairs aren't sent out from the various institutions, many services often internally manipulate the cross rate to display the inverse. It's been some years since I've worked with the TS interface, but if memory serves correctly there should be a way in TS to manipulate the order of operations to display the reversed cross rate.

If you can recall this procedure, I think there'd be a lot of TS users interested...

But the other thing is - the reverse pairs aren't always mirror images of each other, are they? Looking at the GBPEUR and the EURGBP, for example, shows small differences which may - or may not - be useful for analysis.

Ian