A lot of you have sacrificed speed in moving to Windows 95. That's why we made performance a top priority. The table below gives the time in seconds it took each configuration to run a moving average report on 682 issues using a 66mhz Pentium computer. The first pass is the time it took to initially compute the report running from a clean boot. The second pass is the time it took to compute the report immediately following the first pass. (Note: The second pass may be more indicative of the times you will see under repeated use, but keep in mind that your times may vary depending on your system configuration.)
| |
TFP7.1.5 |
TFP8/Win95 |
TFP8/WinNT |
| 1st pass |
28 secs |
19 secs |
12 secs |
| 2nd pass |
22 secs |
14 secs |
7 secs |
(Metastock users may be interested to know that we used Metastock 6.0 and TechniFilter Plus 8 to screen 900 issues using the MACD Cross report. Metastock's results? Over 4 minutes. The same screening in TFP8? 45 seconds!)
Using a specially designed report profile, TechniFilter Plus can filter through thousands of issues and in minutes-or even seconds-identify just those that match your specified technical patterns. For example, you could filter for divergence between price and RSI; or for something as complex as patterns that involve freehand trendlines drawn and saved on a chart. To further refine your search, you can restrict reports to use only previously filtered issues. You also can create multi-column individualized reports in which each report issue uses different formula parameters.
Report results will be displayed in sizable, scrollable and movable windows. At the click of a mouse, you'll have access to tools and properties menus. The tools let you filter, score and order results to quickly identify “best” and “worst” issues based on your specifications. You also can chart report issues; match issues to a list and save issues to a list.
The strategy testing portion of the program lets you edit or design a trading system, backtest it for profitability and fine-tune it through parameter optimizations in formulas and signals. TechniFilter Plus comes with 19 popular trading strategies that you can use immediately, or you can modify them to stay ahead of the herd. You can test single strategies on one or more issues; and multiple strategies on one or more issues.
The five test types are stock, percentage, futures, basket and equal. Would you like to see how profitable it would be to always hold the top four Fidelity Select Funds when you rank these funds by strongest RSI? Use the new basket test to find out. Basket tests let you buy the top n issues from your chosen collection of issues based on some ranked statistic; and, they let you test a strategy on a collection of issues. Equal tests let you invest an equal dollar amount at each position, making it easier to compare test results among issues that trade in different ranges. Percentage tests simulate how mutual funds are traded.
The Statistics, Trades and Details reports are preset with default contents, but you can customize your results by choosing from among a wide assortment of tracked statistics. Test results will be displayed in sizable, scrollable and movable windows; and can be filtered, ordered, charted and scored.
TechniFilter Plus lets you turn dry figures into colorful, graphic representations of past trading performance. Chart types include bar, line, point & figure and candle. You can chart from results using a toolbar button, or by completing a charting dialog. When charting from test results, you can graph signal points based on the Trades report. When Details results are displayed, you can chart test details. You also can chart using global or custom templates; save selected charted issues to a list; match charted issues to an existing list; open a chart report with prices, dates and indicator values; draw freehand trendlines; zoom in on a selected area; change data compression and chart type; and chart formulas.
You can even use more than one global template to see, for example, a bar chart, a point & figure chart and a candle chart of the same issue. In point & figure charting, you'll have scrollable charts; the ability to adjust token size with a mouse click; a tool to draw major P&F trendlines; and the option to use any valid formula in your calculations.
TechniFilter Plus comes with a library of more than 220 formulas, including 46 formulas that pick out candle patterns and 14 formulas that search for point & figure patterns. You also can build your own formulas using the program's formula-writing tools, or edit an existing formula to better suit your needs. In addition to the standard format, you can create point & figure, multiline and recursive formulas. A formula can have as many as nine parameters that can be varied in strategy optimizations and individualized reports. You also can refer to standard formulas by name within another formula body.
You use formulas in trading strategies, filter reports and in charting. In charting, three toolbar buttons offer three easy ways to graph formulas. A customizable Hot List contains indicators saved under “tag” names. Use one tag to chart several indicators at the touch of a button.
You can create multiline formulas, which are a series of formulas treated as one formula, with the last formula in the sequence defining the value of the formula. Multiline formulas let you break complex calculations into simply, easier-to-understand calculations; and, when done properly, they can help reduce computation time. You also can create recursive formulas, which derive their current value from the previous value of the formula. You supply the initial value and the recursion relationship.
Named formula reference lets you use a standard formula as a building block within other standard formulas. It is also a time-saver in charting, reporting and testing because you can simply enter the formula name and its parentheses instead of browsing the library.
In point & figure formulas, you can specify the time series used in the calculation.
Lists usually contain symbols of issues that have been grouped together for some purpose. Symbol lists can be great time-savers because they let you, for example, test issues that have been filtered out of report results. For fast charting, you also can save lists that contain chart template names. For example, select a list containing custom chart template names to automatically chart the related issues-complete with saved analysis!
Automation files can be set up to handle your daily reporting, filtering, charting and printing. The automation feature is also used to create and update ASCII histories of report values.
A special command lets you create and update ASCII histories of indicator values contained in your computed reports. For example, suppose you have a report with a single column containing RSI values. When you compute this report, you see the RSI values for all your tickers for a single day. TechniFilter Plus lets you parse these values out into individual RSI files.
You can import and study ASCII files. You set your import preferences on an easy-to-use dialog tab. You also can export test and report results in a variety of formats, including comma-separated text, tab-separated text, and WK1.
TechniFilter Plus contains a comprehensive help file and context-sensitive help on nearly every dialog. Printed documentation for TFP8 includes the "TechniFilter Plus Program Guide," the "RTR Software Guide to Technical Analysis & Formula Writing," and "TechniFilter Plus Reports, Strategies & Formulas."
- RTR Software Guide to Technical Analysis & Formula Writing
- This is your printed guide to technical analysis and formula writing in TechniFilter Plus. It will: (1) explain essential technical analysis concepts; (2) define the formula syntax used by TechniFilter Plus so that you can write custom reports and trading strategies, and develop your own indicators; and (3) offer some practical applications. Throughout this book, you will find workshops that offer examples or additional details on a particular topic. The final chapter includes eight articles that illustrate how you can use some of the tools discussed in the previous chapters. The articles are:
| Regression Channel Breakouts |
Using Reports to Test Entry Conditions |
| Moon Phases & The Markets |
Trend Balance Point System |
| The Random Walk Index |
Signal Prices: What to Look for Tomorrow |
| Trendlines By Design |
Filtering for Cup & Handle Patterns |
-
- Reports, Strategies & Formulas
- This book documents the ready-to-use formulas, strategies and reports that came with your TechniFilter Plus 8 package. It also explains 15 methods of evaluating technical behavior, including formulas that can be used to identify the behavior. The chapter on the the ready-to-use filter reports includes suggested filters, gives sample results and marks points of interest. The chapter on the ready-to-use strategies explains the formulas, rules and signals. In some cases, alternative signals are given. The chapter on the ready-to-use formulas includes sample graphs, and, for the candlestick and point & figure formulas, examples of the patterns that the formulas identify.
Version 8 requires Windows 95/98/me/NT/2000. (It will not run under Windows 3.1 or 3.11.) You’ll also need 16 megabytes RAM (more is better), and 6 megabytes of disk space for the program and support files.
One program will read all the supported data formats, which currently include: EQUIS’ MetaStock™ (including 6.0 data), TeleChart 2000™ Version 4 and Version 3, Quotes Plus™ Version 2, AIQ Trading Expert®, and ASCII. TechniFilter Plus works exclusively with end of day data.
