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The Setup Instruments dialog can be used to define or modify several characteristics of the instrument.  For more information on setting instrument preferences, click here.

To access the Setup Instruments button, right-click (Cmd-click on Mac) on a ticker symbol in a quotepage and chose Setup.  Optionally, you can use the keyboard shortcut Alt-A.  From a chart, you can click on the Setup Instruments button on the chart toolbar.

The Setup: Instruments window has been improved in various ways. For the benefit of users of the IB Edition of Investor/RT, the Advanced Section of the window now includes controls for viewing and adjusting the Expiration Date, Underlying Symbol, and Currency of any symbol. These setups are especially important for futures contract setups in the IB Edition. Various controls in the setup window will be disabled until you enter a symbol already defined to Investor/RT. Other controls are available as you begin typing a new symbol that you are about to add to Investor/RT. As you enter an existing symbol, its setup information will fill the entry boxes automatically. The current last price of the instrument is shown just to the right of the "Display Format" menu button. Revising the Display Format of a symbol will show the last price in the revised format, providing immediate feedback of the changed format. The actual change is not applied, of course, until you click "Modify" to apply the revised setups. The last price will initially be displayed with a ? after it. If you are connected to a realtime data service, the first trade that occurs after the initial display will remove the ?. The window will show the last trade time as trades occurs. This essentially provides immediate visual feedback that the symbols is properly defined and realtime data is flowing for the symbol.

A variety of iconic buttons have been added to facilitate access to Investor/RT features after adding or adjusting the setup of the instrument. An eight button embedded toolbar at the upper left of the window perform functions based on the symbol currently entered in the ticker symbol entry box. When the ticker symbol entry box does not contain an existing symbol defined to Investor/RT, the embedded eight button toolbar is hidden from view. The toolbar includes:



(1) QuickQuote - a window for checking if data is flowing on a newly added or adjusted symbol.

(2) Time and Sales - opens a Time and Sales window for the symbol.

(3) Chart Setup - opens the Chart Setup Window, providing quick access to all chart types on the symbol.

(4) New Ticker - opens a streaming news window on the symbol, applicable for some data feeds.

(5) Get Info - Shows detailed information about the symbol.

(6) Trading Notes - View or Add trading notes for the symbol.

(7) Alarms - Setup price and/or volume alarms on the symbol.

(8) Delete - Delete the symbol from Investor/RT.

Six additional icon buttons are positioned next to various entry boxes in the window. To the right of the symbol entry box are two buttons. The first is a button for opening a symbol selection window.  The symbol selector will be positioned alphabetically on the first symbol matching the letters already in the entry box. For example, type ES into the entry box and click the button to see all ES contracts that are already setup in Investor/RT. The other button is for requesting symbol setup assistance.  For most data services, this button opens the symbol lookup page for the data vendor you are using. The Interactive Brokers Edition of Investor/RT uses this button to request "contract details" for the underlying future or symbol in question. The requested information is displayed in the Investor/RT "Message Log". The message log window opens automatically when you request symbol setup assistance. You can view the message log later using File-->Open-->Message Log, or use the shortcut: double-click in the message area of the main toolbar.

To the right of the security type menu button is a "QP" button  that opens the System-Defined quotepage corresponding to the selected security type. For example, if you are setting up a Future, clicking the button will open the .Futures quotepage. It lists all existing futures contracts being tracked by Investor/RT.

 To the right of the Session menu button is a preferences button that takes you to the Setup: Preferences: Sessions window for viewing and/or adjusting session setups.    The window will position automatically to the selected session in the Setup: Instruments window.

In the Advanced Section of the window there is a red ? Help button     in the lower right corner of the window. There is a preferences button to the right of the Underlying symbol entry box. Clicking this button takes you to the Setup: Futures window for the particular underlying symbol. For example, if you want to add futures contracts of type YM you can enter YM into the Underlying box, and click this button to open Setup: Futures for YM. From there you can click once to generate symbols automatically or view/adjust the settings for YM contacts if you wish.

All of the embedded iconic buttons have button help tips if desired. Turn them on/off by right-clicking in the main toolbar message area and choosing "Button Help".

The Expiration Date entry box has a convenient menu of upcoming contracts to choose from or you can enter the expiration month and year in dd/mm/yy (e.g. 3/15/07) or mmm yyyy (e.g. Jun 2007) format. When entering expiration date only the month and year are important for data reception purposes in the IB Edition of Investor/RT. For other data sources, the expiration date is documentary only and need not be specified at all. 

When the Setup: Instruments window is in compact form without the advanced section, the underlying, exchange, and currency values set for an instrument will be visible as textual content along the bottom of the window. This feedback is designed for users of the IB Edition since these three items of information are essential for data reception for futures contracts; displaying this information makes it unnecessary to toggle the advanced section open to inspect these settings.

When you add a new symbol (by clicking "Add"), the newly added symbol will remain setup in the window so you can observe the current quotes after Investor/RT requests streaming data for the symbol. The Add button changes to read "Modify" to enable you to make further adjustments if necessary. Clicking the Modify button applies any changes to the current symbol and clears the window so you can enter a new symbol. If you wish to keep the current symbol in view, shift+click the "Modify" button to apply changes leaving the symbol in place. 

The title of the Setup Instruments window is augmented with the name of the data service in use and indicates whether the data feed is active or inactive. Instrument setup window images are often shared on Charthub.com, so this will make it clear that the shared setup pertains to the symbology used by the particular data vendor.

 For users of multiple monitors on the Windows platform, the Advanced section has a check box titled "Floating Window". Checking the box enables the window to be positioned outside the normal Investor/RT window without being obscured by other floating charts and quotepages. Checking or unchecking the Floating Window check box causes the desired window status to take effect immediately. Note that turning off the check box will relocate the window into the Investor/RT task window since it must be inside to be seen. Only floating windows can be moved outside the overall task window workspace.

For equity and index options and future options setups, the Advanced section of the window show has and entry box for viewing and editing the strike price of the option and radio buttons for specifying whether the option is a put or a call. If you use the Setup: Equity and Index Options window or the Setup: Futures Options window, these properties are setup automatically. For completeness the strike and rights are now available for editing should you need them.

Finally, the Setup Instruments window now communicates directly with IB/TWS regarding setup information for futures contracts that Investor/RT does not have pre-defined in its database. Investor/RT uses a setup file named futures.txt located in the admin directory as a guide for setting up futures contracts. If a user of the IB Edition of Investor/RT attempts to setup a futures contract for an underlying that Investor/RT does not know about, Investor/RT will request contract data from IB/TWS. When TWS responds, the future type is setup automatically and the symbol being added is added with the correct currency and exchange setup. The icon button to the right of the Underlying entry box in the Advanced section can be used to inspect Investor/RT setups for any future type.