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Trading Date & Time Section |
  
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Trading Date & Time Section
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Trading Date & Time Section |
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The Trading Date & Time section, located on the Home Tab of the Ribbon screen area, allows you to set the Trading Date and Time for the modelling and evaluation of Trades and Positions. It effectively allows you to select the date and time of interest so that you can go back in time and test your strategies on market data as it was then.
There are two important points to note about the Trading Date & Time section:
1.The times actually represent candle times (as represented in the price chart candles). For example, 14:55 is the candle that starts at 14:55:00 and ends at 14:59:59 - the times being in 24-hour clock format in your local time zone.
2.The section is configurable (see here) so what you see on your screen may not always look exactly the same as the above screen shot. However the usage is the same: the section allows you to navigate through any trading day, in time intervals of your preference.
The individual components that go to make up the Trading Date & Time section are described as follows:
The components of the Trading Date & Time section of the Home tab |
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Component Name |
Description |
Text Box Date |
Displays the currently selected Trading Date and Time (24-hour clock format in your local time zone). You can see the Trading Date and Time in both local time and US Eastern Standard Time on the Status bar area at the bottom of the main window. If necessary, the Date and Time can be manually overwritten to select the required Trading Date and Time, however it is usually easier to use one of the additional controls. If entered manually, the time must be in 24-hour clock format and in 5 minute intervals within the regular market hours for your local time zone. |
Calendar |
Clicking the mouse on the Calendar Symbol displays a popup Monthly Calendar which can be used to select the required Trading Date. |
Clock |
Not yet implemented. Please watch this space. |
Exp |
Displays a list of all Expiration dates which can be used to select the required Trading Date. This is useful if you are testing a monthly strategy and want to quickly jump to a specific expiration date. |
LIVE |
Sets the Trading Date to the current Date and Time and attempts to connect to your broker data feed (selected in Configuration). |
Date & Time Navigation Controls |
A series of buttons that can be used to change the selected Trading Date and Time: "<< Jump button" : move to that part of the current trading day determined by the Jump button configuration (see here). Right click on the button to override the configured default and select from the list (see here). ">> Jump button" : move to that part of the current trading day determined by the Jump button configuration (see here). Right click on the button to override the configured default and select from the list (see here). "Day-" : move backward in time by one whole day (the currently selected time of day is preserved if possible). "Day+" : move forward in time by one whole day (the currently selected time of day is preserved if possible). Four other buttons help you move backward or forward by smaller increments (such as five or ten minutes, one or two hours etc). Note that these controls are configurable, allowing you to select hourly or minute increments that suit you. For this reason your Trading Date & Time section may not look identical to the example given above. The default increments are 1 hour and 5 minutes. Show me how to configure the Date & Time Navigation Controls |
Right click on the "<< Jump button" to access useful Date Navigation Controls: ▪"Start of Day" - jump to the start of the current trading day. ▪"Low of Day" - jump to that time of the current trading day when the Underlying's price was at its lowest ▪"Previous Adjustment" - jump to that date and time when the currently selected Position was last adjusted. Right click on the "<< Jump button" and ">> Jump button" to see some useful Date Navigation Controls: ▪"End of Day" - jump to the end of the current trading day. ▪"High of Day"- jump to that time of the current trading day when the Underlying's price was at its highest ▪"Next Adjustment"- jump to that date and time when the currently selected Position was next adjusted. |
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These components can conveniently be grouped into three separate categories:
The categories to the Date Time section |
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Category |
Description |
Main Date Line |
Date and Time display (shows the currently selected Trading Date and Time) plus Calendar, Clock, Expiration Date and Live buttons that allow quick Date and Time selection. Note that the Clock button is currently not available. |
The Jump Buttons |
Two Buttons: Jump to that part of the current trading day determined by the Jump button configuration (see here). May be removed from view (see here) |
Time Increment Buttons |
A series of four Buttons that allow movement forward and backward through the currently selected Trading Day. May be configured (see here). If Intra-day prices are not available then these Buttons are disabled. |
You can only select Dates and Times for which pricing data is available. Therefore, you cannot select dates which are weekends or financial market holidays. Furthermore, you cannot select times that are outside of market open hours for your local time zone (as defined by your operating system).
As an example, the current Trading Date and Time is set to Monday 17th October 2011 at 15:55 [US Eastern Standard Time]
As 15:55 [US Eastern Standard Time] is actually the end of the trading day, then moving the Trading Date & Time forward by 5 minutes (by pressing the Forward 5 min ("5m+") button in this example screen configuration) will automatically move the Trading Date & Time forward to the start of the next trading day:
that being Tuesday 18th October 2011 at 09:30 [US Eastern Standard Time]. If your operating system is set to use a different time zone, you will see the times relevant for your specific time zone.
Remember the navigation buttons are configurable and may be set to some other time increment on your system.
For example, the following screen shot shows a configured Trading Date & Time section where the Jump Buttons have been removed and the increments have been changed to "1 hour" and "2 hours" respectively (where the defaults are "5 minutes" and "1 hour"):
It should also be noted that trading dates and times available will depend upon what pricing data is available (see here for an explanation of pricing data availability). For example, you cannot set the Trading date to a weekend or the time to before or after regular market opening and closing times.
Clicking the mouse on the Calendar symbol will bring up a monthly calendar display which you can use to browse by month or year. Once you have found the date you require, clicking it with the mouse will select it and close the calendar display. All market prices will be updated to reflect the prices as they were at that selected date and time.
Clicking the mouse on the Exp button will display a list of all available Expiration dates. Select the one you require by clicking it with your mouse. All market prices will be updated to reflect the prices as they were at that selected date and time.
Selecting a date in the past may result in limited or, if you go far back enough, no prices. For example, for a trading date of Thursday 8th October 2009 only "End of Day" data is available, so on selecting this date you may see a yellow warning triangle appear in the date box - note that only a date is displayed, without a time.
You can confirm this by hovering your mouse over the yellow warning triangle to see an information message...
Selecting a date way in the past before any data is available results in an error message displayed in the Status screen area at the bottom left of the ONE main screen:
In this scenario, the pricing data displayed will be that of the Trading Date & Time before the change was attempted.