Calculate on Close Only

[Rick]

Since the new beta I have not experienced the freezing problem that existed before although the markets have been fairly quiet lately and my layout uses only 4 charts, 1 market and a total of 8 exponential moving averages (EMAs). With the almost exponential rise in daily trading volume of the Emini S&P I'm trying to find ways of reducing the CPU load even more. I do not need or want the EMAs to recalculate on every tick. I actually lag them forward by 1 to 3 days simply so I'm not distracted by the lines yoyoing up and down on the last bar.

Would it be possible in a future build to add a bullet check box for calculate on close only for the basic moving average calculations. Ensign software provides this for all of their hard coded studies. Alternatively would it be possible to add a global option to perform calc on close only for ALL studies on ALL charts. This option appears to exist for EFS studies under tools>EFS settings but this does not work properly for most studies I have tried and Win98se starts sending out error messages. I would actually prefer the bullet option under Basic Studies>Moving Averages anyway.

I know some will suggest upgrading the computer but it seems silly to do that to perform calculations that I simply throw away.

[eSignal_Todd]

The built in studies are written in a different language than the EFS studies so the need for computing on close wasn't something we considered a need, but I'll present it to the engineering group to see if that option would benefit the program. I'll post a follow up once I get some feedback from them.

[Rick]

A key question to consider

Thank you Todd for submitting this issue to your staff. Just for fun I took a look at the trade volume on the Emini ESH3 for last Friday. I don't normally look at volume but I'm assuming the volume plotted for 1 minute bars is trade volume not total number of contracts. In any case the volume sometimes hits around 5000 contracts per minute. That averages out to about 83 per second. Pose this question to your staff. Does it make any rational sense at all to run an exponential moving average or any other calculation 83 times per second? Keep in mind the markets have been relatively calm and actually slow moving lately. What happens in January when the big boys get back from the holiday and start trading size and perhaps a real shooting war breaks out. Perhaps the trade volume per minute will shoot up to 20000 trades per minute. Remember this is just one contract. What about those folks tracking ES, NQ and 50 very active stocks. How fast a computer will they need to get the job done. All is this is for calculations almost no one is actually using.

I'm not suggesting throwing the volume away. I can understand that those traders using volume want every print recorded. I just think that drastically reducing the computation load makes a good deal of sense. I notice that other data vendors are starting to run into trouble with CPU issues and it almost always occurs with the emini. I'm looking forward to what you find out from your engineering team.

[Rick]

Followup on Compute on Close

Attention: Todd Pellizzer

I wonder if you've gotten any feedback from your eSignal staff on the Compute on Close issue. Specifically I'm wondering if the efs compute on close tool available through Tools>EFS Settings>Compute on Close will be repaired in the final Version 7.2 release.

In another thread titled "Modification to AMA.efs" gspiker suggested that the efs command setComputeOnClose() is also buggy, but I have not verified this myself. If true, will this be repaired in the final Version 7.2 release?

The trading volume has been relatively light for the past 2 months. I think it could explode higher in the next 2 weeks. IMO resolving the compute on close issue could forestall any new CPU issues by dramatically reducing needless calculations. Please give this careful consideration.

Rick

[eSignal_Todd]

With the holidays and end of year vacations, we haven't all been in the same place yet, but this is still on my list for our next meeting together.

Thank you,