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PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Table Of Contents Introduction 3 Requirements to use Personal Ticker Tape 3 Personal Ticker Tape Features 5 About the TRIAL period 6 Description of PTT Features 6 Translation of Ticker Symbols 8 Overview of PTT Processing 10 Personal Ticker Tape Installation and Setup 11 Extracting the PTT program files 11 Setting up PTT for use with your system 11 Setup Your Data Directories 11 Raw Quote Input File 12 Formatted ASCII File 12 ASCII Format Type 13 Notify of Possible Splits 13 Prompt for Missing Symbols 14 Reverify Data Files 14 Rebuild Symbol Index 15 Maximum LookBack Period 15 Maximum Number of Ticker Symbols 15 Append to Log File 16 Specifying Modem Parameters 16 Communications Port 17 Pulse or Tone 17 Carrier Detect (CD) 17 Data Set Ready (DSR) 17 Modem Initialization Commands 18 Setting up for Downloading 18 Downloading Quotes 19 PTT Operation 20 Command Line Options for PTT 21 The -f option 21 The -a option 21 The -D option 21 The -u option 22 The -x option 22 The -m option 22 The -RY and -RN options 22 Specifying the Raw Quote Input File 22 An Few Examples 22 Creating Reports of Current Price/Volume Activity 24 "Formatted" ASCII Data 24 Prodigy Market Close Information 26 PRODIGY "&" Symbols 28 Description of PTTSYM files 29 December 29, 1992 Page 1 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Raw Quote Conversion Notes 29 Dow Jones News Service Quotes 30 Converting DOW JONES HISTORICAL QUOTES (//HQ) 30 Converting DOW JONES AVERAGES (//DJA) 30 Converting DOW JONES //TRADELINE quotes 31 GEnie quotes (Daily and Historical) 31 CompuServe Quick and Basic Quotes 32 CompuServe Information Manager quotes 33 Additional PTT Usage Notes 34 How to create Metastock Format files 35 PTT Restrictions 35 Support for Personal Ticker Tape 35 How to Get Help 35 PTT BBS Operation 35 SAMPLE PTT SUMMARY REPORT 36 December 29, 1992 Page 2 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Introduction Personal Ticker Tape, PTT, is a software program designed to assist you, the investor, in maintaining current security data. PTT has many features which you should find useful in the daily process of obtaining security quotes and updating historical data files. PTT updates the following types of historical data files: - MetaStock (1) - MegaTech or ChartPro (.PRO format files) PTT has a downloading feature to access quote services from the - Compuserve Information Service "BasicQuote" Area. - GEnie Closing Quotes service - Other services to be added in a future release PTT can also process downloaded data from several major on line services. PTT generates "color coded" daily update screens, highlighting symbols whose volume and/or price has changed by percentage amounts that you specify. In addition, PTT generates a file containing a summary report for all symbols processed. This file is named "PTT.RPT" and is placed in the current directory. Requirements to use Personal Ticker Tape Personal Ticker Tape requires an - IBM PC or Compatible with 640K of Memory Optional hardware - Hard Disk - Extended Memory with an EMS Driver Loaded - Mouse - Hayes-compatible Modem Software Required: - DOS 3.3 or later ____________________ 1 MetaStock is a trademark of Equis International MegaTech is a program produced by Ret-Tech December 29, 1992 Page 3 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Optional Software: - Metastock format data files or - ChartPro format data files - Expanded Memory Driver (QEMM, 386MAX, etc) What You FlexSoft can provide you with another program, called Will Need to PDL, to get the quotes from Prodigy. PDL is a program to Use PTT download Prodigy (2) Quote Track data into a file. Using QUOTE TRACK, PDL can retrieve a maximum of 4000 quotes in each session. ____________________ 2 Dow Jones News Retrieval is an information data service provided by Dow Jones and Co. ] GEnie is an information data service provided by General Electric Co. CompuServe is an information service provided by Compuserve Inc December 29, 1992 Page 4 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Personal Ticker Tape Features 1) Automatically builds the list of stocks to be downloaded in order to update your databases on a daily basis. 2) Extracts quote data from many captured quote files, such as Prodigy, Compuserve, GEnie, Dow Jones and other sources you can define yourself. PTT applies extensive checking to each line of the print image file to ensure that only stock/bond/fund quote data is extracted. 3) Translates Ticker Symbols from the data vendor's symbol format to your own version of the Ticker Symbol. 4) Ignores non-quote lines in the print image file, allowing you to use the same file for saving printed mail, screen images, etc. 5) Fixes up the dates of the quotes so that they are on the correct business day, no matter which day you download them. This allows quotes to be retrieved on weekends or early in the morning before the market opens. 6) Allows multiple quotes for the same stock to be in the print image file. This allows you to accumulate quotes in a file as long as you want without making you create a new file daily. 7) Optionally creates an ASCII formatted quote file suitable for input to a spreadsheet program. 8) Replaces and enhances the updating functions of QUOTREAD (Chartpro utility) and MSU (Metastock Utility). Duplicate dates are not allowed in the data file. 9) Allows the creation of a new data file when a symbol is added for the first time. 10) Easy to use installation and customization. Online HELP while customizing PTT. 11) Fast Indexed symbol lookup via auxiliary files for FASTER file access. ____________________________________________________________ Prodigy is a registered service mark and trademark of Prodigy Services Company December 29, 1992 Page 5 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) About the TRIAL period If you are evaluating PTT, you are allowed to use the program for 3 weeks. It will give you an opportunity to try the program in a somewhat limited fashion(3). When you run PTT, you will see the date on which the trial period ends. After that date, you will be reminded to register your copy of the program. This reminder occurs as you are updating your data files. In addition, as a trial user, you can only update one data directory at a time rather than 20. You are allowed to copy and distribute the ENTIRE and UNALTERED package freely. It may be uploaded to bulletin boards or given to others, as long as the registration information is not transferred. If you believe that the registration amount is appropriate for the usefulness of this program and its features to you, print the file REGISTER.DOC which came with this program and follow the instructions for registering the program. Disclaimer. The author assumes no responsibility for any damages caused by the use or misuse of this product. This product is distributed "as is" with no warranty expressed or implied. The author will not be responsible for any losses incurred, either directly or indirectly, by the use of this product. The author reserves the right to make modifications at any time. Prices are subject to change without notice. FlexSoft makes no warranty for continued use of this program or maintainance of compatibility with any of the data services and formats supported. Description of PTT Features Downloads Personal Ticker Tape can download quotes directly from Compuserve the Compuserve Basic Quote area. There is no limit to Basic Quotes the number of quotes you can obtain from this source. The advantage over other sources is that the Compuserve Basic Quote area is accessible for $7.95/mo with no connect charges. ____________________ 3 The unregistered PTT will allow only 1 data directory, and cannot be run from a batch file. The unregistered PTT download feature allows only 40 ticker symbols to be downloaded from a data service. December 29, 1992 Page 6 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Translation PTT reads and automatically determines the type and of Raw format of a file containing the printed output from any Quotes from of the source shown below. A file containing quotes from Various any of these sources is referred to as a RAW QUOTE INPUT Sources FILE. + PRODIGY QUOTE TRACK or QUOTE CHECK + PRODIGY & Symbols for Market Indices + Many PRODIGY "Market Close" Indicators + DOW JONES(*) HISTORICAL QUOTES + DOW JONES //TRADELINE Pricing History + GEnie(*) Daily Quotes + CompuServe Quick Quotes (QQUOTE) + CompuServe Basic Quotes (BASICQUOTE) PTT then extracts stock quotes from the file. These quotes are written to a "FORMATTED ASCII" file that can then be imported into a spreadsheet or loaded directly into your data base. The 'FORMATTED ASCII' file which PTT creates can have multiple quote formats. See the description below for the various format types. PTT has a Setup Menu interface which allows you to set processing parameters for the historical data file update function. When PTT is installed and run the first time, it creates a pair of "index" and "summary" files which are used to lookup the data files much more rapidly on subsequent runs of PTT. These files allow PTT to go directly to the data file without scanning the directory index. The registered version of PTT allows you to update up to 50 Metastock data directories at one time. Due to the fact that there is no limit to the number of ChartPro format files that can be placed in a directory, PTT only updates one ChartPro format directory. December 29, 1992 Page 7 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Translation of Ticker Symbols Please take Because the various data vendors have different symbol the time to conventions, especially for securities other than common read this! stock and mutual funds, switching from one vendor to another can cause problems. For example, suppose that you have SP-500 as the symbol in your data files. The SP-500 quote on Compuserve is obtained by asking for "SP 500", while on Dow Jones //TRADELINE, it is "SPX.I". Since PTT obtains the list of ticker symbols which it should download from your data directory's ticker symbol, if it were to attempt to download "SP-500" from Compuserve, the symbol would not be found. And, even if you had downloaded the quotes by some other method, the Compuserve "SP 500" would not match your data directory's "SP-500" symbol, so it would be treated as a new symbol. One solution to this problem is to have a set of "translate" files for each data vendor. So, for Compuserve, you would translate the data directory symbol "SP-500" to "SP 500" before requesting the quote from Compuserve, then when the quote was processed by the update, you would translate "SP 500" to "SP-500" in order to locate the ticker file in your data base. PTT has this facility to translate based on this translate list. For each vendor, you create a file that contains the translation rules to translate that vendor's ticker symbols to your data directory symbols. The names of the translate files indicate which data vendor the translation is provided for. These files are named as follows: PRODIGY.XLT for PRODIGY downloaded data GENIE.XLT for GEnie downloaded data CIS.XLT for Compuserve downloaded data DOWJONES.XLT for Dow Jones downloaded data The contents of each of these files is a list of lines, where each line contains the following: data_dir_symbol = service_symbol For example, if you have BP% (British Petroleum 93 Warrants) in your data directory symbol, and you know that issue has a symbol of "BP/WS" on Compuserve, you would put the following line into your CIS.XLT: BP%=BP/WS December 29, 1992 Page 8 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) and, if you wanted to translate "SP-500" in your data to "SP 500" quote request on Compuserve, you would add the line: SP-500=SP 500 to your CIS.XLT file. December 29, 1992 Page 9 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Overview of PTT Processing The diagram below presents an overview of the processing which takes place during the various phases of Personal Ticker Tape's execution. Using PTT or your own communications program, PTT DownLoad download daily quotes to a or User Comm "Raw Quote" file Program | | | The "Raw Quote" file is an Raw Quote Input unformatted file exactly as File it is retrieved from the data vendor. | | | PTT now scans and extracts PTT Processing the quote fields from the Convert from Raw to vendor's format, and creates Formatted a "Formatted ASCII" file according to the format you | specify. | | This "Formatted ASCII" file Formatted ASCII is used by PTT when it File updates, and it can also be "PTTASC.PRN" used by your own programs, especially spreadsheets. | | | PTT reads the formatted PTT Processing quote file, locating each Update Data Base security symbol in your from Formatted historical data base and ASCII File updating each. | | | Finally, the result of this Updated History process is a completely Data Base updated historical data base. December 29, 1992 Page 10 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Personal Ticker Tape Installation and Setup Extracting the PTT program files Personal Ticker Tape should be installed in its own directory. For consistency, it is recommended that it be installed in the \PTT directory. If you received PTT from FlexSoft on an installation disk, follow the instructions that come with the disk. If you have downloaded PTT from a bulletin board or other source, it may be in either self-extracting format (with a suffix .EXE) or it may be in another compression format. In the first case, simply make a directory for PTT, copy the PTT*.EXE file into the directory and then type PTT*.EXE (where * is the a number indicating the PTT release and version number). If you received PTT in some other format other than an .EXE file, you should follow the instructions that come with the file compression utility (e.g., PKZIP and PKUNZIP). Setting up PTT for use with your system Once PTT's program files are extracted, you need to customize PTT for your configuration. Type the command PTT to invoke the program. You will be asked to enter your registration code and name at this point. If you have registered the program, enter the number provided to you when you registered. If not, simply fill in your name and hit ENTER until you are brought to the Main Menu. The Main Menu of PTT is a single line across the top of the screen which shows you what your options are. Choose the Setup option by moving the cursor to that item and hitting ENTER. Setup Your Data Directories Choose the Data Directories option. If you have registered the program, you will be presented with room to insert up to 20 directories. If you are evaluating PTT, you will only see room for one directory. Enter the full path to your Metastock or ChartPro format directory in each entry field. Once done, hit CTRL-ENTER to save the entries. December 29, 1992 Page 11 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) For Since PTT opens all of the directories at the time it Metastock begins the update, as well as several other files, you Users Only may have to modify your CONFIG.SYS to increase the setting of FILES= parameter by the number of DATA Directories you define plus about five. For example, if your CONFIG.SYS setting for FILES= is FILES=20 and you have 20 DATA directories, you might have to change the number to FILES=45 (This is 20 for the original plus 25) Now specify Then, go to the Update Options menu item and fill in the the Update entry fields in that panel. See the discussion of the Options Formatted ASCII file (page 24), Raw Quote Files (page 7), and other terms used by PTT for information on how to set these values. If you need help on any of the fields of this screen, hit the F1 function key while your cursor is positioned in the field. The PTT.HLP file contains descriptions of of the usage and meaning of each field. Raw Quote Input File Raw Quote Input File is the name of the downloaded file from Prodigy, Compuserve, GEnie or Dow Jones News Service. This file is "raw", in that it looks just like the terminal session you had with that service. If you have PDL, the normal name for this file is "\PDL\PDL.OUT". Formatted ASCII File The Formatted ASCII file name is where PTT will place the "formatted" quotes. The default name for this file is PTTASC.PRN. This file is the one that contains the "comma delimited" records formatted according to the "ASCII Format Type" shown below. December 29, 1992 Page 12 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) ASCII Format Type This is a coded number that corresponds to various combinations of symbol, date, high, low, close, volume, open, and open interest orders in the Formatted ASCII file. The code of "1" will provide all the data items above. Other combinations specify different formats for the date field, and order of data field, i.e., whether to put quotes around the symbol name and date..hit F1 on this field to see the explanation. Notify of Possible Splits If you want PTT to notify you of possible stock splits while it is updating, specify 'Y' in this entry. Otherwise specify 'N'. Look in the PTT.LOG file for the suggested split ratios. December 29, 1992 Page 13 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Prompt for Missing Symbols If you have ChartPro/Megatech, setting this to "Y" will cause PTT to AUTOMATICALLY add the .PRO file for any symbol it encounters for which a data file does not exist. If you specify "N" for this field, PTT will skip the missing symbols and not add them to the database. For Metastock Users, the situation is somewhat more complex: If you want PTT to stop when it encounters a symbol in the ASCII file which is NOT in the MetaStock data base, specify 'Y' in this entry. By doing so, PTT will allow you to enter the COMPANY NAME associated with the symbol. PTT will then ADD the symbol and the quotes to the MetaStock data base. If you decide to start following a stock, fund or bond, say AAPL, and you haven't added the security to MetaStock yet; then when PTT comes across a new symbol, it will ask you for the "full company name" of the symbol and add it to the data base for you. Be sure you have enough room left in your data base, however. You can only have 255 data files per MetaStock datadirectory. Occasionally you should run MSSORT to drop any old ones. As just described, PTT will stop and ask you to input a company symbol if it encounters a symbol not contained in the METASTOCK MASTER file. If you are gathering quotes into one file and updating more than one MetaStock MASTER file, this could be a real hassle. If you run one file past 2 or more MetaStock data bases, only the symbols that are in a data base will be updated. This means you'll have to use the more traditional method of adding stocks to your MetaStock data base, i.e., you'll have to do it through MetaStock. Reverify Data Files Leave this setting set to "N" unless you have reason to believe that there are duplicate dates or dates out of order in your data files. If you set this to "Y", PTT will read the "Maximum Lookback Period" number of quotes from the historical data file, sort them by date and rewrite the file, dropping any duplicates or quotes with invalid high,low,close relationships. December 29, 1992 Page 14 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Rebuild Symbol Index When you first install PTT, or whenever you add or move a historical data file that you want PTT to update, you should set this parameter to "Y" to cause PTT to "Reverify/Rebuild" its symbol lookup files (PTTSYM.IX and PTTSYM.DB). If you do not change your data directory contents by moving or adding symbols or changing the order of the directories from one run of PTT to another, then this parameter can be set to "N" to speed up the updating and reporting functions. Maximum LookBack Period This value is the maximum number of quotes in the past that PTT will access when computing the volume and price averages and new high, new low figures. To enhance PTT performance, you can set this value to a lower number. By default, the number set is 260 days, providing a comparison of the last year of daily data. If this value is set too large, PTT may reduce it to some value that it can accomodate in the memory available. Maximum Number of Ticker Symbols Specify the maximum number of ticker symbols that you will want have in all your data directories. This number is used to build the PTTSYM.IX and PTTSYM.DB speedup index so that PTT can find any symbol, in any directory, in the shortest time possible. If you make this number too small, PTT will crash when it encounters more than the number of symbols in all your data directories. Note that changing this value requires you to delete the PTTSYM.* files before using PTT again. In addition, PTT will need to recompute the high, low and averages for each symbol. The specification of this value consumes the following amount of disk space: 11 * 4 * max_symbols + 44 * number of symbols actually updated For 300 symbols, this would be 11 * 4 * 300 = 13200 + 300 * 44 = 13200 = 26400 bytes December 29, 1992 Page 15 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Append to Log File PTT keeps a "log" file where it places status and error messages that may occur during the process of converting and updating your data. If you specify "Y" to this setting, PTT will add the messages to the end of the file each time it runs. If you specify "N" to this setting, PTT will erase and restart the file from the beginning each time it runs. The name of this file is "PTT.LOG". The author uses the following setup on this page: +--------------Setup Process/Update Options-------------------------+ | Raw Quote Input File C:\PDL\PDL.OUT | | | | Formatted ASCII File? PTTASC.PRN | | | | ASCII Format Type? 1 Average Volume Calculations # of Days? 1 | | Flag Changes in Volume above? 50 | | Notify of Possible Splits Y and in Price above? 10 | | Maximum Number of Ticker Symbols 1000 | | Maximum Lookback Period 260 | | Prompt for Missing Symbols N Append to Log File? Y | | | | Reverify Data Files? N | | Rebuild Symbol Index? Y | -------------------------------------------------------------------- Specifying Modem Parameters If you plan to use PTT to download directly from a data service (such as Compuserve or GEnie) you will need to fill in the Modem Setup screen shown below. This is where you specify the serial communication port, and other parameters shown below in order to use PTT to download. +----------------------Modem and Phone Type-----------------------+ | | | Communications Port 1 | | | | Pulse or Tone (P or T) T | | | | Modem Supports CD? Y DSR? Y | | | | Modem Initialization Commands (without AT prefix) | | Z^ME1Q0X1V1^M&C1&D1 | | | | Hit the F1 Function Key for Help on each field | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ December 29, 1992 Page 16 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Communications Port Choose the Modem Port menu item and fill in the number which corresponds to the serial port number to which your modem is attached. You can place the modem on any port from 1 to 4. PTT only operates with "Hayes compatible" modems. It works with MNP, V.32, V.32bis and V.42 modems, but it is necessary that the command set for the modem comply to the minimal Hayes standards. This is generally the case with most modems purchased in the last few years. Pulse or Tone If your telephone system uses Tone Dialing, enter a "T". Otherwise, enter "P" for Pulse Dialing. Tone dialing sounds like a series of tones when you dial rather than a ratatat sound of a "pulsed" dial. Carrier Detect (CD) If your modem is set to report the presence of a "carrier signal" when there is an online connection, specify "Y" here. The CD signal is the only way that PTT can tell if the session is still connected. Most modems can be set to report the presence of CD. Consult your modem manual if you don't know how to do it. In general, the modem command "&C1" is used to enable this feature. Data Set Ready (DSR) If your modem can report DSR, then PTT can test if the modem is plugged in and available. If you specify "Y" here, PTT will attempt to test the modem's presence before starting to send commands to it. If you receive a message indicating the "modem port is not valid", it is possible that your modem is not sending DSR in to your computer. If this occurs, set the DSR setting above to "N". December 29, 1992 Page 17 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Modem Initialization Commands Most modems and programs require some special "commands" in order to work together. Since PTT can be used with many different modems that do not share identical command sets, it is up to you to customize the modem so that it can be used with PTT. The Modem Initialization string is not normally needed, but if you encounter problems connecting, you might need to set some modem parameters, and this would be the place to do it. Do not include the "AT" command prefix in this area, since that is automatically inserted by PTT when it issues this command. PTT expects the settings shown below. The items shown before the explanations are the "usual" modem commands for the option. V1 Verbose return codes Q0 Report return codes after each command E1 Echo Commands X1 Report Connect message only &C1 Data Carrier Detect (DCD) shows true state of the remote carrier signal &D2 Data Terminal Ready (DTR) should reset modem if dropped An example of a modem initialization string that should work for many modems is the following: Z^MV1E1X1Q0^M&C1&D2 Setting up for Downloading Once you have told PTT where your data files are and how you want to update them, you need to specify some information necessary for communicating with the data vendor (Compuserve or GEnie at this time). Choose the vendor (Compuserve or GEnie) Setup option. Here you will be asked for your userid, password, access number and connect speed. Consult your service documentation for the correct userid and password. You need to fill in the phone number which is to be dialed to connect to the service. Save your settings by hitting CTRL-ENTER. December 29, 1992 Page 18 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Special Before using PTT to download quotes from Compuserve, Requirements make sure that your Compuserve TERMINAL setting for specifies "Other" as the terminal type. To verify this, Compuserve log on to Compuserve, GO TERMINAL, and look at your Access Session Settings. If you have any other setting, PTT will show some "strange" character sequences at the bottom of the page whenever Compuserve tries to clear the screen. This will cause PTT to wait, since it won't recognize this sequence. In addition, you should set the PAGED DISPLAY setting to "NO" to prevent PTT from having to wait every 24 lines during quote downloading. Special In order to download from GEnie, you must set up your Requirements GEnie User Settings correctly. Prior to running PTT for for GEnie the first time, log on to GEnie using some manual Access procedure. Type "SET" to go to the User Settings section of GEnie. Choose the item "Review/Update User Settings". Then, you will be presented with a menu entitled "Terminal Settings". You should have Terminal Type set to 6, Page Width set to 80, and Page Length set to 0. Any other settings for Page Length cause GEnie to prompt for a Carriage Return in the midst of the download. Downloading Quotes You can download quotes to the file or directory you specified in the Update Settings as the Raw Quote Input File. Choose the Download Menu item and move to the service name from which you wish to download. Hit ENTER on that service. PTT now reads each of the data directories you specified in the Setup Data Directories menu and creates a list of quotes to download based on the type of service you are accessing. For a daily quote service, PTT builds a quote request for each symbol, unless that symbol has not been found on a prior download (these symbols are found in the file NOQUOTE.SYM). After reading all the ticker symbols in your data directories, PTT will read an additional file named "TICKER.IN" for any new quotes you wish to download. This file should contain a ticker symbol on each line. For example, if you want to start accumulating quotes for IBM and AMH, you would create the 'TICKER.IN' file with the two lines below: IBM AMH December 29, 1992 Page 19 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) The ticker symbols must begin in the first position of the line and there should not be anything following the ticker symbol. If you have specified a "translate file" (see the section on "Translation of Ticker Symbols"), PTT will, at this point, translate your ticker symbols to those required by the data vendor. To stop the PTT will now log on to the service, request the quotes download, and place them in the file. To stop the download while hit the ESC it is running, hit the ESC key once to cause PTT to log key off the data service. If a quote Once the quotes are downloaded, you should run an Update should not Data command from the Main Menu. be in the NOQUOTE.SYM Any symbol not found on the data service will be placed file, in a file "NOQUOTE.SYM" which will be used in the first remove it step (above) to avoid asking for that symbol again. This with a text prevents the needless asking for quotes that do not editor. match those on the service. If you have a symbol in your ticker file that does not match the symbol on the data service, you need to either change your historical data file's ticker symbol, or add that symbol to the vendor.XLT translate file. Determining Specifying the file name to which PTT is to download can the file be done in several ways name for the download 1) Specify a specific name in the RAW QUOTE FILE name. 2) Specify a directory name in the RAW QUOTE FILE name. If you specify a directory name, PTT will download to a file name created in the form 'YYMMDD.svc' where 'YYMMDD' is the current date according to your system clock, and 'svc' is 'GEN' for GEnie 'CIS' for Compuserve. 3) Specify a file or directory name on the PTT command line as the last argument PTT Operation December 29, 1992 Page 20 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Command Line Options for PTT Command Line Personal Ticker Tape is meant to be run from the DOS parameters command line rather than interactively. In order to do are Case this, it has numerous command line options that can set Sensitive and control the PTT processing run. (meaning you must specify The following section will cover the major useful upper and command line options that would be used on a day-to-day lower case basis. where shown) The -f option The "-f " option allows you to set the ASCII Format Type from the command line. The parameter following the "-f " should be one of the formats listed in the Setup Update Options panel. The -a option The "-a " option tells PTT that the file (or file list) following this "-a " contains Formatted ASCII files in the format specified by the current ASCII Format Type setting. You can use DOS type "wildcards" in the RAW QUOTE FILE name to process more than one file. If a Raw Quote Input File is specified, the file following the "-a " will contain the output of PTT's scan of the Raw Quote File. If no Raw Quote Input File is specified, then PTT will assume that the file specification following the "-a " contains an already formatted file and will use it as input to the update process. You can use DOS type "wildcards" in the FORMATTED ASCII FILE name to process more than one file as well. The -D option To invoke an automatic download from the DOS command line, use the "-D " option on the command line. Following the "-D ", specify the line number of the Download menu choice as shown on the Main Menu. For example, to download from Compuserve Basic Quotes (the first line in the DownLoad Menu), use "-D 1" December 29, 1992 Page 21 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) The -u option The "-u" option on the command line with a -D request to DOWNLOAD will tell PTT to do an update with the current downloaded data after the download completes successfully. The -x option The "-x" option on the command line (before the RAW QUOTE FILE name) will cause PTT to do all processing except the historical data file updating. This option is useful if you want PTT to parse the Raw Quote Input File, but do not want to update your data files without inspecting the Formatted ASCII file. The -m option You can specify the Maximum LookBack Period by using the "-m" option followed by a number between 1 and 10000 which will be used for the lookback period The -RY and -RN options To tell PTT to rebuild the Index files, specify "-RY" on the command line. To avoid rebuilding the index files, specify "-RN" on the command line. See page 15 for a description of PTT symbol index processing. Specifying the Raw Quote Input File The last parameter on a PTT command line must be the name of the Raw Quote Input File. If you are downloading via the -D command option, the downloaded data will be placed in this file and the update will take place from this file. An Few Examples If you want to simply run PTT from a batch file (and you have registered), you can place the following command in the batch file: PTT input_quote_filename December 29, 1992 Page 22 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) where "input_quote_filename" is the name of the RAW QUOTE INPUT file. The update process will use the parameters you last specified in the PTT menu for PTT Update Parameters (raw quote file name, etc) and the data directories you specified in the DATA Directories screen. To download from Compuserve Basic Quotes, place the quotes in file CIS.LOG, format the files according to ASCII Format 1 (7 field with quotes around symbol and date), you would use this command: PTT -f 1 -D 1 CIS.LOG To download as just shown above, and then to update your data files in one step, place the "-u" flag on the command line as follows: PTT -f 1 -D 1 -u CIS.LOG To update your historical data from a previously formatted data file contained in DJ30.PRN in 5-field MSU export format, you would say: PTT -f 8 -a DJ30.PRN Assuming you had a directory, called \DATA with several 5-field .PRN files in it, each named with the symbol name as "symbol.PRN", you could run PTT to update all the symbols in the directory as follows: PTT -f 8 -a \DATA\*.PRN December 29, 1992 Page 23 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Creating Reports of Current Price/Volume Activity PTT generates a report as it updates the data files. For each symbol updated, it contains the number of quotes, the AVERAGE VOLUME for the symbol, the CHANGE IN PRICE from the previous close, and the VOLUME%CHANGE (from the average volume). This last value can be very useful in spotting unusual activity in a security. This report can give you a jump on the rest of the world as they wait for their Investor's Daily to arrive. This report is written to the file PTT.RPT in the \PTT directory. The first time you run PTT to update your data files, it will take LONGER than normally will be required, because it reads each file completely to compute the necessary statistics, such as TOTAL VOLUME, HIGH, and LOW price. After the totals have been computed and stored in the file "PTTSYM.DB", it will not be necessary for PTT to re-compute these amounts, so the update will be extremely fast. PTT will also allow you to create these reports on your Data without actually updating them with PTT. "Formatted" ASCII Data All "raw" quote sources are converted and written to a "formatted ASCII" file, sorted by symbol and date. You can define the style of Formatted ASCII that you want PTT to produce in the PTT menu area "Describe PTT Updating Parameters". The field you should set is labelled 'ASCII FORMAT TYPE'. Choose one of the codes below. The default format is 0. Type Description 0 "symbol","mm/dd/yy",hi,lo,cl,vol (5 field format) 1 "symbol","mm/dd/yy",hi,lo,cl,vol,open,0 (7-field) 2 symbol,yymmdd,hi,lo,cl,vol 3 symbol,yymmdd,open,hi,lo,cl,vol,0 6 symbol,hi,lo,cl,vol (Historical Data Svc 'HDS') December 29, 1992 Page 24 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) 7 "mm/dd/yy",open,hi,lo,cl,vol,open_int (Chartpro) 8 yymmdd,hi,lo,cl,vol (MSU ASCII EXPORT) 9 symbol,yymmdd,open,hi,lo,cl,vol,vol In formats 0 and 1, the symbol and date have quotes (") around them so that you can import them into a spreadsheet easily. The following is a sample of the format 0 output in the PTTASC.PRN file with the 6 fields, Symbol, Date, High, Low, Close, Volume (in hundreds): "AAPL","05/24/90",42.250,41.500,42.000,13226 "ABT","05/25/90",73.875,72.500,73.125,2024 The default name for this file is "PTTASC.PRN". Though this file can be named anything you want, the rest of the document will refer to it as PTTASC.PRN. As shown above in the Overview of PTT Processing, PTT both creates and reads this Formatted ASCII file. It creates the file when you are "translating" quotes from "raw quote" sources to "formatted ASCII". Then, when you are updating data files, it reads the Formatted ASCII file. If you don't specify a RAW QUOTE INPUT FILE in the Update Parameter menu, PTT will read the FORMATTED ASCII file. This is a convenient way to avoid the time- consuming "translation" process if you have to run PTT against multiple groups of data directories. You must be sure that the ASCII FORMAT TYPE code is set so that it correctly describes the format of your file. If you choose options 6 or 8, the data is assumed to already be in that format, so there should not be a Raw Quote Input File specified. Both options 6 and 8 are 'export' formats for either Chartpro or Historical Data Service (phone 212-752-8660 to contact FFN). For option 6, HDS format, you MUST specify a file name of the form 'YYMMDD.*' where 'YYMMDD' is the year, month, and day of the quotes. If you look at this format, you will notice there is no date in there. December 29, 1992 Page 25 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Prodigy Market Close Information PTT will make a "best effort" attempt to convert selected values from the Market Close Screens of Prodigy. Unfortunately, some information is missing from these screens, and you should be aware of that. For example, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing price is given, but there is no figure for the High, the Low, the Open, or the Volume. So, when PTT converts it, it places the closing value in all of the price fields with a volume from the NYSE Regular Volume. The following is a list of the indexes and market information pulled out of the Market Close screens: December 29, 1992 Page 26 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) TICKER DESCRIPTION SP-500 SP 500 SP-100 SP 100 DJ-30 DJ INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE DJUA DJ UTILITY AVERAGE DJTA DJ TRANSPORTATION AVERAGE AVOL AMEX VOLUME NVOL NYSE VOLUME NYAD NYSE ADVANCING ISSUES NYDE NYSE DECLINING ISSUES NYSE NYSE COMPOSITE SPNU NYSE UP VOL SPND NYSE DN VOL NYNH NYSE NEW HIGHS NYNL NYSE NEW LOWS NYNHNL NYSE NEW HIGHS - NEW LOWS AMEX AMEX Market Vol SPAU AMEX UP VOL SPAD AMEX DN VOL AMSH AMEX NEW HIGHS AMSL AMEX NEW LOWS AXAD AMEX ADVANCING ISSUES AXDE AMEX DECLINING ISSUES XMI AMEX Major Market XOI AMEX OIL XII AMEX INSTITUTIONAL INDEX XCI AMEX COMPUTER INDEX AMNHNL AMEX NEW HIGHS - NEW LOWS COMP NASDAQ Comp INSR Insurance BANK Banks FINL Financial TRAN Transport XSUV NASDAQ Volume XSNHNL NASDAQ NEW HIGHS - NEW LOWS XSUU NASD UP VOL XSUD NASD DN VOL XSUH NASD NEW HIGHS XSUL NASD NEW LOWS XSUA NASD ADVANCING ISSUES XSUC NASD DECLINING ISSUES PRMR Prime rate TB91 3-mo T-bills T182 6-mo T-bills USTB-C 12-mo T-bills SP-15 10-yr T-notes SALO 30-yr T-bonds DJB DJ 20 bonds DJPU DJ 10 util DJIL DJ 10 industrials December 29, 1992 Page 27 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) The column on the left is the TICKER symbol which will be used by default when PTT converts the quotes. If you want to use some other TICKER symbol for one of these values, you need to create a file called "TICKER.CNF". Place the new ticker symbol in the file as shown in the example below. As an example, suppose you want to have the ticker "DJIA" for the Dow Jones 30 Industrial Average, and you also want "SPX.I" for the SP-500 Index. You need to use an editor to create a file called TICKER.CNF. Place the following lines in TICKER.CNF (4). DJ-30 = DJIA SP-500 = SPX.I Now, instead of updating the TICKER symbol SP-500, PTT will update "SPX.I". Similarly, DJIA will be used instead of DJ-30. PRODIGY "&" Symbols As of October 1992, PRODIGY began providing special symbols (beginning with "&") that include major indices, currency rates, and volume and issue totals. With release 1.09 of PTT, PTT will translate the & symbols as downloaded by ProDownLoad (PDL). These symbols are generally translated one for one, i.e., a single symbol generates a single quote, with the exception of the "Issues Traded" and "Exchange Volume" symbols for the NYSE, AMEX, and NASDAQ. Each of those symbols generates 4 quotes, for Total, Advancing, Declining and Unchanged. For example, the PRODIGY quote for &AMVL contains the total volume, advancing volume, declining volume, and unchanged volume. PTT breaks this quote line into 4 individual symbols, &AMVL, &AMVLA, &AMVLD, and &AMVLU, respectively. The "Issues Traded" quotes will have the same suffixes "A", "D", and "U" for Advancing, Declining and Unchanged. The PRODIGY.XLT file should be used to translate the "& symbol" tickers to those found in your historical data files. For example, the author uses the following: ____________________ 4 This procedure can be replaced by using the PRODIGY.XLT translation file as described on page 8. December 29, 1992 Page 28 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) DJ-30= &DJIA SP-500=&SPX SP-100=&OEX AMEX=&XAM AVOL=&AMVL XCI=&XCI DJTA=&DJT DJUA=&DJU FINL=&FINL GOLF=&NYGL INSR=&NSXI TRAN=&TRAN PRMR=&PRM XII=&XII XMI=&XMI XOI=&XOI COMP=&IXIC NYSE=&NYCI VALU=&VLIC R2000=&RUS2 Other translations can be used for other symbols as PRODIGY adds them. Description of PTTSYM files Raw Quote Conversion Notes When you first run PTT, it creates a pair of files in the current directory. They are PTTSYM.IX and PTTSYM.DB. The .IX file tells PTT, for each symbol, how to find the data in the .DB file. The .DB file, for each symbol, has a "summary record" which contains: 1) HI price for the symbol 2) LO price for the symbol 3) the number of quotes in the file 4) an "index" which tells which DATA DIRECTORY this symbol was found in (from your PTT setup screen), 5) what the offset in the MASTER directory was for the symbol. There are three reasons PTT issues the message "Rescanning for HI and LO ....": 1) It cannot locate the summary record for the symbol. 2) The number of quotes (item 3 above) does not match the number of quotes in the actual data file. This is usually caused by manual updating of the symbol, MetaStock EDIT DATA. If you have added or deleted data without PTT, PTT rescans to find out what you have changed. 3) You have set REVERIFY DATA FILES to "YES" December 29, 1992 Page 29 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) For the first cause (1), if you go to the directory where you run PTT and dump the PTTSYM.IX file, it should contain all the symbols in all the symbols that you updated from that directory. Then if you dump the PTTSYM.DB file, it also contains all the symbols. Each record in PTTSYM.DB is pointed to by a record in PTTSYM.IX (for the same symbol). If you have any doubt about the correctness of these two files, you should delete your PTTSYM.IX and PTTSYM.DB files and force PTT to recreate them. For the second cause, that's to be expected. For the third cause, PTT is only doing what you asked it to do. Dow Jones News Service Quotes Converting DOW JONES HISTORICAL QUOTES (//HQ) PTT will convert a file containing DOW JONES HISTORICAL QUOTES and create the intermediate file containing the formatted ASCII output. DOW JONES HISTORICAL QUOTES are obtained from Dow Jones News Service database //HQ, by typing, for APPLE COMPUTER, //HQ AAPL P1 You should capture the entire session to a disk file. Then this file is described to PTT as the "raw" quote input file. It will be converted and you will then have historical quote data on the stock. Converting DOW JONES AVERAGES (//DJA) PTT will convert the output of the //DJA command for the INDUSTRIAL average only. This output is obtained by typing //DJA IND P1 The quotes for INDUSTRIAL averages (DJIA) will be converted to the symbol DJ-30. December 29, 1992 Page 30 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Converting DOW JONES //TRADELINE quotes PTT will translate the "Pricing History" output of the //TRADELINE data base as well. This allows you to get all the major indexes as well as stock price history. You must turn on capture BEFORE typing in the //TRADELINE command. GEnie quotes (Daily and Historical) GEnie quotes from the GEnie *STAR service are also translated by PTT. Capture the entire output of the GEnie quote request, including the line where you enter the symbol. Early in 1991, GEnie changed their quote format to include the ticker symbol in the line with the quote information. This makes the job of converting the quotes considerably easier. However, they also chose to leave off the YEAR in the quote line. December 29, 1992 Page 31 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) PTT will not Be sure to apply all the quotes from one year during handle the that year if your quote source is GEnie Closing Quotes. crossing over from Also, GEnie gives back all the classes of a stock when one year to you ask for an issue. This means, for some utilities, the next that you can get MANY QUOTES for a single request. PTT with GEnie doesn't know which one you want, so it converts all of Closing them. Preferred classes of a stock are indicated by Quotes adding a period followed by the CLASS to the stock symbol. For example, Philadelphia Electric (PE) Preferred Class G will be "PE.G" If the Preferred Class is blank, then the symbol generated by PTT will be the ticker followed by a period. PTT will create the common classed stock symbol by adding the class to the symbol, e.g., WAN Class B becomes "WANB" for Wang Class B. Other suffixes, such as WS (Warrant), WI (When Issued) are also added to the end of the basic symbol to indicate the different quote type, for example, MVL.WS for Manville Corp Warrants Mutual fund symbols will not be terminated with (.X), so if you ask for FMAGX, the symbol generated by PTT will indeed be "FMAGX", not "FMAGX.X". In addition, now that GEnie is providing Mutual Fund data with only the NAV quote, PTT will place the Net Asset Value (NAV) in all of the price fields, (HIGH,LOW,CLOSE,OPEN). CompuServe Quick and Basic Quotes PTT will extract CompuServe Quick Quotes (QQUOTE) or BASICQUOTES if they are in the "standard" format. This format contains the fields: Name, Volume, Hi/Ask, Low/Bid, Last (Close), Change, Update (Date) in the order listed. You must capture your entire session in QQUOTE starting from the line which begins: December 29, 1992 Page 32 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Quick QuoteQQUOTE (for QUICK QUOTES) OR Basic Quote BASICQUOTE (for BASIC QUOTES) PTT allows you to enter MULTIPLE symbols at the prompt: Issue: See the previous section regarding MULTIPLE quotes per line (GEnie Quotes) for restrictions on the size of the line. CompuServe Information Manager quotes If you have CIM, PTT will convert CIM quotes obtained via the QUOTE Service. The CIM quotes must have the line below Ticker Volume High Low Last Change Update at the beginning of the list of tickers. December 29, 1992 Page 33 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) Additional PTT Usage Notes One nice feature of PTT is that it can "fix" your DATA files if they get out of date sequence. It reads the entire data file, merges in the quotes from Prodigy (or Dow Jones), sorts them, matching dates up, and then writes the whole file out in order, dropping any duplicates. Dates read from the ASCII quote file supersede those in the data file, so you can make corrections by changing your ASCII quote for a particular date. PTT will allow you to obtain your quotes on weekends or early Monday morning before the market opens. Even though the Prodigy header says that the quote is for a Saturday, for example, PTT is aware that the market isn't open on Saturdays, so the quote is "fixed up" to be for the preceding Friday. Even if the quote is listed on Monday, if it is prior to the market opening, it will still be fixed up to be a Friday quote. Also, you can keep gathering print data to the Prodigy print file for days, weeks or months. PTT doesn't mind. It can handle up to 21,500 quotes in the Prodigy print file. No need to keep creating "daily" files. Personally, I let the quotes and letters, bulletins, etc. accumulate for a month or so. Then I start a new file and name the old one something like "upto1209.lst" and then back that up to a floppy for historical reasons. You can input that file to PTT again any time..no problem. If you decide to start following a stock, fund or bond, say AAPL, and you haven't added the security to Chartpro yet; then when PTT comes across a new symbol, it will automatically add it to the data base for you. Be sure you have enough room left in your data base, however. If you have Dow Jones Historical quotes, just specify the input file containing the quotes as you would the Prodigy print image file. PTT will pick out the quote data from any Dow Jones News or other text. If you have captured DJA (Dow Jones Averages), it is necessary to modify the text slightly. PTT will change the heading "INDUSTRIALS"to "STOCK DJ-30" (if you are calling the 30 Industrials by some other symbol name, you should edit the PTTASC.PRN file to change this name). Also, PTT adds one zero to the volume figures, because it appears that Dow Jones lies; they claim the volume is expressed in 100's, but it is really in 1000's. December 29, 1992 Page 34 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) How to create Metastock Format files PTT can create Metastock format files from scratch. The PTT package comes with a "seed" file called "MASTER" which can be copied to any directory to make it a Metastock directory. When you do that, you can use the PROMPT FOR MISSING SYMBOLS option to have PTT request the symbol (company name) for any tickers not already in the Metastock directory. Once you have either Metastock format or Chartpro/Megatech format files, you can use other charting or analysis programs (such as Technical Analysis Scanner, "TAS") with them. PTT also creates and updates Chartpro/Megatech format files. This option is actually easier to use, since there is no company name associated with the file, nor is there a limit on the number of files per directory. PTT will just create (without prompting you for a name) each ticker's history file as it finds them. PTT Restrictions 1) No more than 20,000 quotes can be contained in a single Raw Quote File. If you need to input more quotes, break the file into pieces and use multiple file names in the command line. 2) This program will not work beyond the year 1999. 3) No provision is made for holidays when date fixing is done. Support for Personal Ticker Tape How to Get Help If you have any questions regarding the use of this program, or you discover any problems, please send me a message on Prodigy (JBMD65A). I can also be reached on GEnie -M.MOORE41 PTT BBS Operation If you would like to check for a newer copy of PTT, or if you have a problem to report, you can also contact the FlexSoft Bulletin Board System (BBS) at 510-829-2293. December 29, 1992 Page 35 PTT (Personal Ticker Tape) SAMPLE PTT SUMMARY REPORT Personal Ticker Tape (PTT 1.00) Summary Report for 10/12/90 VOL% PRICE PRICE% EQUITY NAME HIGH LOW CLOSE VOLUME CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE AXP 18.875 18.500 18.750 12864 -16% +0.125 +1% BEV 8.375 7.875 8.375 4797 -19% +0.875 +12% BMY 79.875 78.250 78.625 11587 +5% -0.625 -1% BV 11.625 11.500 11.500 3863 -75% +0.000 +0% CCON 27.250 26.750 26.750 278 -11% -0.250 -1% CNR 15.250 14.500 14.875 7866 -4% +0.500 +3% MO 70.750 70.000 70.625 16350 -35% +1.000 +1% NH The PTT Summary Report (found in file "PTT.RPT") contains a summary of the symbol updates for the day. If the volume exceeds 50% of the average volume, a 'V' appears in the right column. If the price is a New Low or New High, the characters "NL" or "NH" are shown in the far right columns. December 29, 1992 Page 36