In this issue:
I. The polls are still open for the TASC 2012 Readers’ Choice Awards
II. More on the ChaosHunter IB Trader
III. Commentary by Steve Ward, CEO
IV. One way to stop this newsletter
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I. The polls are still open for the TASC 2012 Readers’ Choice Awards
The October issue of Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities magazine announces on page 37 that you can now vote for the 2012 Readers’ Choice Awards. We’re asking for your vote.
During the continued hard economic times of the past year, one comment that our sales staff often hears is that prospective buyers pick up the phone and make the call because NeuroShell Trader won the Readers’ Choice Award. In order for those sales phones to keep ringing, please take a few minutes of your time and cast your vote. This will mean that we can continue to pay staff to provide FREE technical support and assistance. We can also continue to invest in updating your software. We both benefit, so please do it now before you forget.
Here’s how you cast a vote:
1. Get your copy of the Stocks & Commodities magazine and visit www.Traders.com (any issue will do; it doesn’t have to be the October one). Look on the right side of the web site for the 2012 Readers’ Choice Awards and click on the Vote Now! link. On the Readers’ Choice Awards Ballot enter your subscriber ID from your magazine address label (look at their example to see which numbers on the label are the subscriber ID). Next enter your last name.
2. After you are logged in, look for the Standalone Analytical Software, $1000 and more category on page 2. Be sure to mark you ballot for NeuroShell Trader Professional (Ward Systems Group Inc.)
3. Do the same for the Artificial Intelligence Software (Expert, Neural) category on page 3. Look for NeuroShell Trader Professional (Ward Systems Group Inc.). THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT VOTE!
4. Also in the Artificial Intelligence Software category, we’d appreciate a second place vote for GeneHunter, the genetic algorithm optimizer that is included in NeuroShell Trader Professional.
5. Also on page 3, right before the Artificial Intelligence Software, there is a category called Software Plug-Ins. Be sure to vote for MESA for NeuroShell Trader.
The staff at Ward Systems Group Inc. extends a very heartfelt thanks to all of you who take the time to vote for us. Please do it soon before you forget.
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II. More on the ChaosHunter IB Trader
We usually do not announce our new products before they are about ready, but last month we mentioned that we are building something we call the ChaosHunter IB Trader. It loads ChaosHunter model files and automatically trades them with Interactive Brokers. It will also do manual trading, and exporting of text files that can be loaded into ChaosHunter.
The unique thing about this platform is that it can trade several ChaosHunter models as a “panel of experts”. For example, it will buy when a majority of models is signaling buy. Let’s say you make 5 different models for AUD/USD. You can then load those 5 models into the platform and specify that you want to trade when 3 of the 5 are in agreement. Or 4 of the 5 are in agreement. You can have any reasonable number of models for your panel of experts. Each chart can have its own panel of experts.
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III. Commentary by Steve Ward, CEO
1. Protect your investment in NeuroShell. For 23 years we have been bringing you free technical support on all of our artificial intelligence products (29 years if you include our earlier mainframe product). We have never charged anyone for help as many other companies do, and we do not want to start. Maintaining a staff on the phones every day is expensive, so we have to depend on a good supply of new sales to pay for that. One of the best sources of new sales is our reputation, manifested in our rating in Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities magazine. Help us help you by voting now. Go to www.ward.net and there will be a link at the bottom that will take you the site to vote.
2. Exploration idea. Last week I started thinking about a new area for research, at least new for me. I am letting you know what I am doing so you can do some research too, if you like the idea. It has to do with making timing models with multiple time frames, both in NeuroShell and ChaosHunter. That is, how good are models made with several time frames (e.g., 5 minute bars, with 1 minute bars, with a certain size range bar)? As a side benefit, the process will actually choose which ones of a basket of time frames are best to use!
As you can imagine, we are biting off a pretty big chunk to chew on, because there are so many different time frame combinations, never mind all the modeling techniques that can be built. I started off with a 1000 volume chart for the Australian dollar futures contract in the DayTrader Power User. Then I inserted 2000 and 3000 volume bars as well.
You get a bar to process each time one of the time frame bars closes, and of course, the 1000 bar data series closes more frequently. It is a reasonable assumption that bar sizes which are not an even multiple of each other will be better than the regular ones I used. Maybe even sizes that are relatively prime, like 3, 7 and 13 minute bars might work better.
Now you can process this data in either NeuroShell or ChaosHunter. If you use NeuroShell, it will be nice to let the optimizer pick which of the time frames to use in indicators, as well as the indicator lookbacks. To accomplish that read this tip in the Changes in Documentation section of ward.net:
Using parameter search to choose a time series (9/22/2009)
If you use ChaosHunter, it will automatically decide which time frames to use in its indicators, even as it is building the trading formula.
Whichever way you build your model, make sure the spread and spread percent indicators are allowed, because it seems to me that they might be important.
I will show you what the data looks like if you were to export it in a text file, perhaps for loading into ChaosHunter. It looks like this (I hope you can read it – widen your page):
“Date”,”Open”,”High”,”Low”,”Close”,”2000 Volume bar High”,”2000 Volume bar Low”,”2000 Volume bar Close”,”2000 Volume bar Open”,”3000 Volume bar Open”,”3000 Volume bar High”,”3000 Volume bar Low”,”3000 Volume bar Close”
11/1/2011 4:00:00 AM,1.034,1.0351,1.0335,1.0351,1.0351,1.0335,1.0351,1.0346,1.0336,1.0348,1.0317,1.0346
11/1/2011 4:03:49 AM,1.035,1.035,1.0327,1.0327,1.0351,1.0335,1.0351,1.0346,1.0346,1.0351,1.0327,1.0327
11/1/2011 4:06:55 AM,1.0327,1.033,1.0319,1.032,1.035,1.0319,1.032,1.035,1.0346,1.0351,1.0327,1.0327
11/1/2011 4:09:15 AM,1.032,1.032,1.0311,1.0312,1.035,1.0319,1.032,1.035,1.0346,1.0351,1.0327,1.0327
11/1/2011 4:14:09 AM,1.0312,1.0329,1.0307,1.0325,1.0329,1.0307,1.0325,1.032,1.0327,1.033,1.0307,1.0325
11/1/2011 4:19:35 AM,1.0325,1.0325,1.0299,1.0307,1.0329,1.0307,1.0325,1.032,1.0327,1.033,1.0307,1.0325
11/1/2011 4:24:19 AM,1.0307,1.0308,1.0285,1.0292,1.0325,1.0285,1.0292,1.0325,1.0327,1.033,1.0307,1.0325
11/1/2011 4:28:05 AM,1.0292,1.0294,1.0273,1.0274,1.0325,1.0285,1.0292,1.0325,1.0325,1.0325,1.0273,1.0274
11/1/2011 4:31:48 AM,1.0274,1.0289,1.0267,1.0286,1.0294,1.0267,1.0286,1.0292,1.0325,1.0325,1.0273,1.0274
11/1/2011 4:38:23 AM,1.0286,1.0296,1.0285,1.0292,1.0294,1.0267,1.0286,1.0292,1.0325,1.0325,1.0273,1.0274
11/1/2011 4:46:37 AM,1.0292,1.0292,1.0277,1.0286,1.0296,1.0277,1.0286,1.0286,1.0274,1.0296,1.0267,1.0286
11/1/2011 4:56:25 AM,1.0286,1.0298,1.0284,1.0295,1.0296,1.0277,1.0286,1.0286,1.0274,1.0296,1.0267,1.0286
11/1/2011 5:06:43 AM,1.0295,1.0306,1.0292,1.0304,1.0306,1.0284,1.0304,1.0286,1.0274,1.0296,1.0267,1.0286
11/1/2011 5:17:12 AM,1.0304,1.0314,1.0301,1.0303,1.0306,1.0284,1.0304,1.0286,1.0286,1.0314,1.0284,1.0303
From the above you can see what I meant when I said “You get a bar to process each time one of the time frame bars closes”.
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IV. One way to stop this newsletter
It is really easy. Just change your email address and don’t tell us.
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