Any suggestions on where to find a flaw?

[sopelote]

Hi, I am pretty new at TS and a friend sent me a strategy that he has written that has buy and sell signals that are given when the price closes, on the bottom of the hour, beyond the limits of a certain indicator. It works fine on his TS and has given a pretty good progress report over time.
My problem is that his strategy only give the sell signals, on my TS, and none of the buy signals. Nor are any buy signal results shown in my progress reports for this indicator. I've asked him what he thinks the problem could be and he says that; he dosen't know, and the strategy works fine on his TS. He has sent me the strategy twice and I have deleted it and reinstalled it a couple of times but it still hasn't found the buys..I checked the Easy Language power editor and there are seperate buy and sell signal scripts in there for this strategy...
Can anyone suggest where to trouble shoot for solving this problem?? many thanks for any comments

 

[Trader333]

You will need to post the Easylanguage code for each of the indicators or signals in the strategy and then one of us who use TS should be able to work out what is wrong.


Paul

 

[sopelote]

Thanks Paul, unfortunately I don't have the originator's ok to post his script. I do see that the buy and sell scripts are mirror images of each other. yet only the sell signals are working.. The strategy works in his TS and he sent it to me twice. Perhaps I should examine the scripts of all related indicators as you imply. all the indicators should be 'out of the box' and OK but it is a place to look...anyway, that is what I am getting from your post.. many thanks and any more ideas of where-how to check are very welcome!

 

[TWI]

Most likely he was using older or newer version than you.
Look for buy and sell and Exit commands in EL.
or
buy to cover, sell short commands. What used to be exitlong and exitshort are now sell and buy to cover.
sell is now sell short. Buy remains buy.
If you say which version you have then I can tell you which way to change these.

 

[sopelote]

thanks Twalker.. as I have other strategies from the same person and those are functioning fine, I think that we can rule out this idea.
I remember when first beginning with TS how there were dozens of problems that I had to solve and they took months for me, a slow learner. This one is a bit frustrating and I will go over the new strategy again looking for the flaw.
Perhaps with the experience on this board, you can point me at the number one and two places to look...a strategy that fails to give buy long signal entries but it gives the buy exits from the shorts. It dosen't show the buy long entries in neither the charts nor the progress reports. The difference between wether a signal is a buy or a sell, depends on the direction (last tick) of a 20 period simple moving average of the index traded.. and to make it more mind puzzeling; other strategies, that use the same smav. indicator, are working fine.... so, what do you think, anyone? thanks again

 

[garethb]

Can't say I've had similar problems but could try:-

a) check format strategies dialogue for the chart - check status of each of the signals you are expecting is on. try swithching status off and back on see if an error is raised.

b) make a trivial change in the EL editor and rerun verify - see if any errors

Debug the code - I guess if you are a programmer you will have tried this and if you're not you may not know where to start but :-

Make copy to play with -read and understand the code then either add print statements or commentary to output key numbers at critical points to see if they are what you expect or step through with the debugger (often not practical because of number of bars being evaluated) and look at values.

If you have the stomach for it the EL reference guide will help with print statements etc also has a good section on how EL decides to place an order which might give some clues. Find this in tradestation by selecting <help> then <tradestation books> - its a free download

Sorry if you know this stuff already

Good Luck

 

[sopelote]

THanks Garethb..every bit helps..no, I haven't tried any of what you are suggesting but I will try each one of them. I am definately going to get this to work and when I find the bug, I will post it here. thanks and keep those recommendations coming.

 

[sopelote]

hi folks..Im finally getting around to spending time with my TS...the first bothersome lack of knowledge that i have is how to get rid of the spaces in my interday data that I have because I missed inputing some recent holidays..like Friday. Is there some way to get rid of a space in all my charts all at once or do I have to do each symbol seperately...? many thanks for any replies..

Garethb..Ive had a family problem and havent gotten around to using your troubleshooting advice yet...I will do it very soon though ..it looks very smart....thanks

 

[Trader333]

If you are using TS2000i then you should be able to highlight all symbols in GlobalServer and then input new holidays.


Paul

 

[sopelote]

thanks paul..I must be still missing a step somewhere.. I highlight the symbols...edit the holiday list ..add the holidays but unfortunately I still have the data gaps.. the problem is that I forgot to add the holidays before they occurred...now what? thanks

 

[sopelote]

Is there some way to fix the holiday gaps AFTER they were made....when I highlite all symbols and put in the holiday that I missed...the gaps remain.. do I have to revise the data for each and every symbol for the holiday, individualy? thanks

 

[sopelote]

Perhaps I have too many questions on this thread, I am looking for a place to begin a new thread..can anyone point me to such a link, please? thanks everyone