Business Assistant/Business Assistant.iso/stock/ibmdisk5/smupdat3.hlp

Text File | 1992-02-08 | 9KB | 205 lines

DESCRIPTION OF THE CURRENT DATA UPDATE SCREEN     SM3.02     PAGE 1 OF 9

The Current Data Update screen is to update CURRENT volume and prices
for all securities, but for just one date.  To update HISTORICAL data
for many dates, refer to Chapters 16 and 17.

To invoke the Current Data Update screen, type D or W from the Master
Menu.  D is for securities tracked DAILY only; W is for securities
tracked WEEKLY only.  You should see a list of ticker symbols on the
screen.

WARNING: On the top line of the screen the word DAILY or WEEKLY should
appear inside a reverse video block.  Make sure you are about to update
the correct data!

NOTE: The Current Data Update Screen for DAILY (not weekly) securities
is also used to "flag" a particular weekday as a holiday.  The "(R)ecog-
nize a holiday" function is described later.  The Stock Charting System
does not know holidays - you must "flag" them manually.




DESCRIPTION OF THE CURRENT DATA UPDATE SCREEN                PAGE 2 OF 9

The ticker symbols you see may appear to be "scrambled".  In fact they
are in order by security type, exchange and name.  This is to facilitate
entry of current volume and prices from a newspaper.  It will not affect
the "importing" of data from an external ASCII file.

The security types are in the following order: T-Bills, Municipal Bonds,
Corporate Bonds, Preferred Stocks, Common Stocks, Mutual Funds, War-
rants, Call Options, Put Options, Precious Metals and Indexes.

The way you spell the name of a security is significant, because the
computer takes advantage of that spelling when sorting the names.  Blank
spaces are important because they sort lower than any other characters.
For example if you want SCE CORP to come before SAN DIEGO GAS & ELECTRIC
spell it S C E CORP, not SCE CORP.  Some names may have to be re-
arranged - two prominent examples which appear in most papers are BLOCK,
HR (not H & R BLOCK) and LILLY, ELI (not ELI LILLY).

You can also use special characters.  For example to put all telephone
companies together at the beginning of the stocks, precede their names
with a #, for example #AMERITECH CORP.

DESCRIPTION OF THE CURRENT DATA UPDATE SCREEN                PAGE 3 OF 9

You can also control the order in which the exchanges appear. If you use
the Wall Street Journal, use NY, OC and XA for New York, OTC and AMEX.
For Barron's, you will need to use something like NY, OA and OC.

You can, by making small changes in spelling, put your list of securi-
ties in the same order as almost any newspaper.  However you cannot
change the order of the security TYPES.

Here is now the computer arranges characters, from lowest to highest:
(Lowercase characters are converted by the program to uppercase.)

space ! " # $ % & ` ( ) * + ' - . / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?
    @ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^ _

To change the spelling of a name, type S from the Master Menu to get
into the Stock Select screen.  Select the security you want and press C.
Then move the selector block over the name of the security, press C
again, and re-enter the name.  To revise the exchange, move the selector
block over that data item.


DESCRIPTION OF THE CURRENT DATA UPDATE SCREEN                PAGE 4 OF 9

Use the up-arrow, down-arrow, PgUp, PgDn, Home and End keys to select an
individual security to begin entering data or to make a correction.  The
IMPORT function is not affected by the position of the selector bar.
The other menu functions are described next.

C = CORRECT the individual data item indicated by the selector block.
    Use this only to correct a single data item, not to enter volume and
    high-low-close.

E = ENTER current volume and price data, beginning on the line indicated
    by the selector block.  You will be prompted to enter volume, high,
    low, close and previous close.  Unwanted data items can be bypassed
    by pressing the Enter key by itself.  After finishing one line,
    the program automatically advances to the next line, and so on until
    the end is reached.  You can skip a line by pressing the Enter key
    by itself three times, or you can terminate the process by pressing
    the Esc key.




DESCRIPTION OF THE CURRENT DATA UPDATE SCREEN                PAGE 5 OF 9

    To enter just the net asset value (NAV) for a mutual fund, bypass
    entry of the volume and high by pressing the Enter key by itself
    twice.  Then enter the NAV.  The program will automatically set the
    high and low equal to NAV.

    If you don't enter the previous closing prices, the program should
    fill that data in for you if it is available, at the time of the
    actual update.

    WARNING: Entering or importing data DOES NOT actually update the
    price history files - the UPDATE function, described later, does
    that.  The process is not automatic, to give you a chance to inspect
    the data first.








DESCRIPTION OF THE CURRENT DATA UPDATE SCREEN                PAGE 6 OF 9

I = IMPORT volume and price data from an external ASCII file.  This file
    must be created by a communications, spreadsheet or database program
    which is external to, and not a part of, the Stock Charting System.
    It can be on a separate diskette or in a different directory from
    your data files.

    The term ASCII refers to a standard bit pattern for each individual
    character.  ASCII files can be displayed directly on the screen and
    read by a human, as opposed to most other files which look like
    gibberish.  Usually, names of ASCII files have the extension .ASC,
    .DOC, .PRN or .TXT.  Files with extensions .WK1, .WKS, .DBF, .CAL,
    etc. are not ASCII files and cannot be used.

    Most popular communications, spreadsheet, word processor and data-
    base programs have functions that can produce data in ASCII format.
    If you are using a popular spreadsheet program, print the file to
    disk using the "print to disk" command.




DESCRIPTION OF THE CURRENT DATA UPDATE SCREEN                PAGE 7 OF 9

    After invoking the IMPORT function, you will be asked to specify the
    order in which data items appear in the ASCII file.  At that point
    you can invoke HELP or read Chapter 14 for more information.

    Next, the program will ask for the name of the ASCII file.  You will
    probably need to enter the ENTIRE file specification including path,
    file name and extension.  At this point, the required data should be
    "imported" and the screen should be filled with information.

    WARNING: The IMPORT function does not actually update the price his-
    tory files.  You must invoke the UPDATE function (described next) to
    do this.  This process is not automatic, to give you an opportunity
    to inspect the data first.

    HELPFUL HINT:  If your communications or other program can do this
    automatically, have it store the ASCII data in your Stock Charting
    System PROGRAM directory.  Give it a short name - the author uses
    UPD.ASC.  When you "import" the data, you will no longer have to
    include the path.


DESCRIPTION OF THE CURRENT DATA UPDATE SCREEN                PAGE 8 OF 9

U = UPDATE all of the daily or weekly price history files. This function
    is not automatic, so as to give you an opportunity to visually scan
    the "imported" data and make sure it is correct.

    The program will ask you for the date for which the volume and price
    data are "current".  You can press Enter by itself to accept the
    current (today's) date, or you can enter any other date. The program
    will update volume and price data for that date.  If necessary, new
    dates will be added to the price history files.

    Invocation of this function will update each price history file
    individually.  There will be a lot of disk activity, and a status
    line will show the progress.  Price history files (and therefore the
    stock charts) are updated in the same order as they appear in the
    Current Data Update Screen.