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RE: A newbie's first question



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I 
agree that a severe limitation of MetaStock is the lack of a Portfolio 
Manager.
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  <FONT face=Tahoma 
  size=2>-----Original Message-----From: 
  owner-metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On 
  Behalf Of Lionel IssenSent: Thursday, November 30, 2000 12:31 
  PMTo: metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxxSubject: Re: A newbie's 
  first question
  Put all the stocks you own into a separate folder, then 
  you can follow them easily.
  Lionel Issen<A 
  href="mailto:lissen@xxxxxxxxx";>lissen@xxxxxxxxx
  <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr 
  style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px">
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    <DIV 
    style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black">From: 
    Bill 
    Irwin 
    To: <A 
    href="mailto:MetaStock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"; title=MetaStock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>Mail 
    List - MetaStock Submit (E-mail) 
    Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 
    11:48 PM
    Subject: A newbie's first 
question
    
    Hello list members:
     
    I'm a brand spanking new MS owner (7.03 
    EOD) and I've just spent the last three days going over the Getting Started, 
    DownLoader and User Manual.  I have to say that, aside from some 
    keyboard weakness in the Browse dialogue boxes, I'm impressed with the 
    software's number crunching ability and, what appears to be (at this early 
    stage), it's configurability for tuning.  I'm far from being a 
    technical expert (which will soon become glaringly apparent to you) so I'm 
    feeling more than a bit overwhelmed at this point.
     
    After scanning the entire contents of 
    these three manuals, and reading a good deal of them, I haven't seen any 
    mention of where you tell MS that you've taken a position, so that it would 
    know to alert you to exit.  The only thing I can think off (at this 
    early stage) is to attach an exit alert to a stock when you take a position 
    and to remove the alert after you exit so that you aren't alerted when 
    you're out.
     
    What I'm hoping to be able to do is to 
    update prices daily, then run an Exploration across all the stocks that will 
    alert for buy/short on stocks I'm out of and alert for exits on stocks I 
    have positions in.  Then review the alerts, make my trading decisions 
    and book my trades for the next day.  I know this must sound very naive 
    to those of you who know MS but we all had to start somewhere, 
    right?
     
    Perhaps some of you could give me an 
    overview of your normal daily activities, aside from the arduous task of 
    testing new systems and tweaking the indicators in search for the optimal 
    system.  I know I have a lot of work ahead of me just to get a basic 
    understanding of the indicators, so for now, I'm just working with the 
    canned ones.  Getting a feel for how some seasoned users use the 
    software each day would go a long way towards helping me know where I should 
    be focusing my time at this point.
     
    I never expected MS to be a portfolio 
    manager but I thought it should at least know which stocks I have a position 
    in so it knows what and when to alert me.
     
    Thanks for any advise and suggestions 
    you may be willing to share with me.
     
    New List Member Bio:  I've 
    been interested in technical analysis ever since I bought my Commodore PET 
    2001 (circa 1978) and became fascinated that this 40 column screen, 8 Kb 
    RAM, cassette tape I/O device could be programmed to follow my 
    instructions.  I typed in a program (Commodore BASIC) I found in a 
    magazine that monitored stocks and enhanced it to (among other thins) be 
    able to scale the chart so that the 18, or so, horizontal lines I had 
    available would be fully utilized regardless of the unit value.  It 
    taught me how to be very frugal with my coding as every module had to fit 
    within the approx. 6 Kb of code space I had available after the data arrays 
    were loaded.
     
    The program used a 5, 15 & 40 week 
    simple moving average and buy alerts were triggered when the 15 
    was below the 40 and the 5 crossed above the 15, indicating the bottom 
    may have been reached.  The buy alert operated the other way.  
    There were no online data feeds in those days (at least not ones that the 
    average mortal could afford) so I weekly keyed in the closing prices for the 
    50 - 60 stocks I followed from the Saturday paper.  The only criteria I 
    used in picking which stocks to follow were: I had to be able to pronounce 
    it; the annual high/low spread was around 100%, so I had stocks that cycled 
    ... somewhat.
     
    Using this primitive system, and 
    accounting for trade commissions, I was able to generate (on paper) an 
    annual return of 30% - 35% over a 3 year period.  This experience 
    convinced me that even a simple mechanical system could, if emotions were 
    eliminated, generate superior returns.  I have no idea what the TSE 
    market was returning in those days (1982 - 1985), but I doubt it was 
    30%.  The problem back then was that what few programs existed were way 
    too expensive for my budget (What budget?  In those days it all went on 
    beer!).  This was way before Windows.
     
    I recently became a victim of corporate 
    downsizing (anyone been following GAC.TO for the last 2 years?) and lost my 
    job after 15 years of continuous employment - exactly 1 1/2 years after my 
    previous employer was acquired by Geac.  The reasonable severance I was 
    able to negotiate has given me both the time and the funds to finally see if 
    I can really do anything meaningful with technical trading.  After 
    browsing all the indicators described in the MS manual I feel inclined to 
    build my old 5, 15 & 40 MA system and see if it can still generate 30%, 
    and forget about the steep learning curve I know awaits me!
     
    Actually, I'm hoping that over the next 
    few months I can build a reasonable understanding of some of the indicators 
    and develop proficiency in MS so that I can paper trade to a point where I 
    have some degree of confidence in whatever "system" I come up with.  An 
    unrealistically optimistic scenario would be me, in 6 months, 
    responding to my wife's questions about when am I ever going to get another 
    job, by stating that I'm making more money trading than I was in my old day 
    job.  I know.  I hear you all muttering, "What a dreamer this 
    guy is!"  I would like to get there some day and I know it won't 
    happen in 6 months.
     
    Anyway, I plan to be a regular reader of 
    this list, in addition to some technical trading newsgroups, and would 
    welcome any suggestions you might be willing to toss my way - especially 
    those things you've learned that made you say, "Now, if I'd only learned 
    this when I first got into TA trading..."
     
    Profitable trades,
    Bill
    <A 
    href="mailto:Bill-Irwin@xxxxxxxx";>Bill-Irwin@xxxxxxxx