Forex Trade Record question

[lameyering]

Just spent a rather lone time on the phone with two different E-Signal tech reps - both of which deny that the Trade record exists on the E-signal history server.

If they are correct then what I'm I downloading when I request the Trade record?

Larry

[ScottJ]

Let's start with your specific definition of "trade record". We do store tick data so time and sales history is present but we don't store trade conditions (like cancelled, late opens, etc.). Please clarify what you're looking for.

Thanks.

[lameyering]

Sounds like a good idea to me Scott. However it is not my definition of what is the Trade Record that is in question. It is E-Signals definition. We have even searched the "KnowledgeBase" for references to "Trade Record" - nothing. Even the glossary that comes up in the search does not define it.

The reason that I posted this in this form is because E-Signal's tech support (both reps) said that E-Signal does not have any thing called the Trade Record on Forex only the Bid/Ask. And that if we are getting some thing called the Trade Record in a history download it must be some anomaly of the dreaded "third party" software that we are using to do the download. This is the form that supports that "third party" downloader. Which is what we are using to download history data from E-Signal and which is giving us the "Trade Record" that Tech support says does not exist.

An on line chat session with E-Signal Tech support about the history download produced a different answer. This session was the result of the vast difference between the amount of Bid and Ask records and the trade record. ie A one day download of the Bid/Ask/Trade data at one tick produces some thing greater than 10k records of the Bid and 10K of the Ask however the "Trade Record", also at one tick, produces only about 5k records. The explanation for this was that the Bid/Ask are just the offers and that the trade record was the actual trades.

The reason that we went back to tech support after this was because we were unable to get this trade record data in real time either through TS2000i or on an chart in E-signal.

Tech support went to great pains to say that Forex trades are not recorded by E-Signal. If this is true then just what is it that we are downloading as the "Trade Record"?

We are and have been trying to find out just what this "trade record" is that we are downloading from E-signal and one more question - why, if it exists, can't we get this data in real time.

The data from a download shows the trade record up to date. ie If you download the "trade record" of todays data the last entry of data has the time stamp of when you asked for the download.
So if this record exists how come we get it in real time?

BTW - All this applies ONLY to Forex. The Bid/Ask and Trade record are available for stocks in real time.

Larry

[ScottJ]

Hi,

Our Forex data contains bid/ask records only. There are no specific "trade transactions" associated with this feed. It's purely indicative pricing from hundreds of banks and other contributors. We map the bid price to the last (for charting purposes being one reason) so that may explain why you get what appears to be some trade records via TS2000i. We don't typically use the term "trade record" although it is a pretty common term in this industry.

In terms of your question regarding whether TS2000i can update Forex quotes in RT, it appears that was already addressed by Alex in this other conversation with you.

We don't directly support any third party application but as a courtesy to users, we had the eSignal/TS2000i plug-in written and we set-up this forum to facilitate community-based support.

For more on how we handle Forex data, please see this KB article.

Thanks.

[lameyering]

You still ducked the question that started all of this - When we download history data what is the "Trade Record" that is in fact being downloaded from e-signal?

[ScottJ]

Not ducking at all actually. "Trade record" is not our nomenclature so that's not a question for us. Omega supported any number of feeds with their system so the terms w/in their program could reflect a number of different vendors. You'll need to ask Omega to be sure.

As indicated prior, since we map the bid to the last, I'd suspect that's the data resulting with each new bid. You can also compare the data you download in TS2000i with the data in a time and sales window in eSignal. Try to match the exact same time ranges and I think you'll confirm for yourself.

Thanks.

[lameyering]

Sorry Scott - I thought that I was on the form that supported the third party Downloader plugin for TS2000i. Which would make the question relevant for this form - if I'm in the right place. If I'm not in the form that supports the downloader please direct me to the proper form.

What is the data that the downloader is downloading when the downloader is setup to download what the downloader calls "Trade Record" in any time frame that the downloader has in it?

Larry

[ACM]

Larry
Perhaps you are not reading carefully what Scott has been telling you all along or maybe you do not understand what "mapping" means.
Irrespective because no "Trades" actually exist in Forex (as eSignal tech support correctly told you) eSignal uses the Bid as a proxy for Trade for charting purposes (amongst other reasons) as Scott has already explained to you.
All you needed to do to verify this was to simply plot a chart for any interval based on Trade Record and in Subgraph Two plot the same using the Bid Record. You would have immediately noticed that the two plots are identical (see first image below).
You would have also seen that the plot based on Trade Record is identical to the plot you get in eSignal when using time based charts (see the subsequent two images).
Alex

[lameyering]

Sorry Alexis - the question still stands -

What is the data that the downloader is downloading when the downloader is setup to download what the downloader calls "Trade Record" in any time frame that the downloader has in it?

Larry

[ACM]

Larry
The question has been answered three times.
1) By Scott Johnson "We map the bid price to the last..."
2) By myself "eSignal uses the Bid as a proxy for Trade..."
3) By the chart posted earlier and replicated here in which you can clearly see that the plot in Subgraph One which is the Trade Record is the same as the one in Subgraph Two which is the Bid Record.



Another interesting detail which is worth pointing out as it seems to have escaped you is that while in GlobalServer/TS2k the term Trade Record is used to define a resolution, when that resolution is plotted on a TS2k chart it is called Last (see the Status Line at the top of Subgraph One).
Hence, the terminology used by Scott is applicable even to TS2k.
Alex