Signal Markers

The Signal Marker indicator tests a user specified RTL signal or a specified Plugin Indicator that produces a signal using the periodic data in the chart. The purpose of the indicator is to mark all of the bars for which the signal is true. The signal marker setup can also perscribe a particular signal action to be executed when the signal fires true on the current bar forming in real-time. Signal Actions can in turn trigger the execution of a Trading Order and many other alert actions.

To see this feature in action, create a simple signal with the syntax : MACD1 < 0 AND MACD > 0 ; Bullish crossover of MACD Oscillator Setup the MACD as an oscillator with periods 26, 12, 3. Save the signal under the name "MACD Bullish". Open a daily bar or candle chart with plenty of historical data and add a signal indicator. Choose "MACD Bullish" as the signal name. Pick "Up Arrow" as the marker, set the color if you like and position the marker "Below the low". Set the period to 999 and click Ok and observe the chart. You should see colored up arrows below each bar or candle where there is a MACD bullish crossover. Right click (Macintosh command-click) on one of the up arrows to get the properties of the signal indicator. Click on "Add Signals Indicator's to Chart" and Investor/RT will add the MACD (from the signal) to the chart so you can observe the indicators used in the chart signal graphically. There is also a checkbox title "Alert on Current Bar". Check this box if you want Investor/RT to alert you if a MACD Bullish signal occurs at the current bar. When charting daily or intra-day, the signal is re-calculated on every tick that comes in. This is a powerful way to watch for intra-day trading signals with a chart object. If alert is requested, the first time the alert occurs you will be notified with a message window. If the alert condition continues to hold true you will be notified by the signal alert sound once a minute. The particular sound for "signal alerts" may be user-specified in the Sounds preferences window. Adding New Marker Images Signal markers are small video images that are used to mark up charts showing when user specified trading signals are triggered. Investor/RT has approximately a dozen such markers stored within the markers folder directory on the hard drive. Examples include diamond, ball, dot, box, up arrow, down arrow, etc. The user can add new marker images or edit the existing ones using an appropriate application. The image files are 16 by 16 bitmaps stored in Windows/OS2 BMP format. These files can be created or edited by Paint Shop Pro software or equivalent on the Win32 platform, or by Adobe Photoshop on the Macintosh.. After adding new images to the markers folder, Investor/RT must be restarted to recognize the new markers. The list of markers appears in the Setup: Charting Indicators window for the Signal Marker indicator. Markers are also used in the Trading Note Marker indicators.

Signal Markers: Completed Bars Option Normally Signal Markers trigger the associated signal action when the signal indicates "TRUE" on the last bar in the chart. During market hours, the last bar in the chart is a bar in progress. Sometimes it is important that the signal not trigger until the bar is completed. One way to accomplish this is to write the signal in a way that it signals true when the previous bar has some particular condition. There is now a checkbox in the Signal Marker setup titled "Signal Completed Bars Only". When this box is checked the signal marker will draw markers only on completed bars (the last partial bar will never be marked) and the signal action associated with the signal markers will be performed only when the signal is true for the last completed bar. Visually, this will be the next to last bar in the chart once the bar is complete. When this checkbox is left unchecked, Investor/RT will draw signal markers on all bars, including the partial bar being formed during market hours. The signal action will be performed when the signal evaluates as true for the partial bar. Furthermore, the signal action will be performed at most once per bar. Once the signal has triggered for the partial bar once, the signal may in fact become false then true again before the bar completes but the signal action will not be repeated until the Next bar begins forming.

Signal Markers and Signal Actions The Signal Marker Indicator setup now allows the specification of a named "Signal Action" that is to be executed when the signal triggers true on the current bar. Signal Actions are defined independently. The Signal Marker setup shows a list of existing signal action names. "New" and "Edit" button are present to enable the creation of new signal actions or the viewing/editing of any existing signal action. A Signal Action is a specification of one or more actions that are to be performed when a signal is triggered. The Signal Action setup has checkboxes for playing a particular sound or running a particular schedule for example. Formerly these specifications were shown explicitly in the Signal Marker setup window. Now, the Signal Marker simply refers to a the Signal Action by name and the Signal Action contains all of the detailed specification of what actions are to be performed. The Signal Action setup has a large text entry box into which you can enter any arbitrary text message up to 255 characters in length. The text can also contain %TOKENS as in the "Annotation" indicator. %TOKENS are replaced with actual values. There are three actions that can be performed on this text: a. Display the text in a notification window. b. Display the text in a named Chat Room. c. Write (or append) the text to a text file. When the notification window option is checked and a signal triggers the signal action, Investor/RT will construct a message, replacing any valid %TOKENS with the values for the particular ticker symbol that triggered the action, and display the resulting message in a notification window. For example, if the text reads: %TICKER – BUY SIGNAL at %CL Bid/Ask is %BID,%ASK Time %TIME and the signal action is triggered on IBM, a message window will appear showing text in the form: IBM – BUY SIGNAL at 86.25 Bid/Ask is 86.00,86.75 Time 10:33:20 Similarly, if the "Text to Chat" checkbox is checked, the text message will be sent to the chat room specified in the signal action. Finally, there is the "Text to File" option. When this is checked, the signal action enables entry boxes for specifying the filename and the path to the file where the text message is to be written. A "Browse" button is provided to the right of the path for convenience in selecting the folder/directory where the file will be written. Normally, the text of the message will be written to the filename specified, replacing the previous file by that name or creating a new file if needed. If you wish to "append" the text as a new line to the file, then enter the file name preceded with a plus sign. For example, enter a file name of "+signal_log.txt" and specify the path (folder) where the file will be placed. Then any messages generated by the signal action will be listed one after another in the text file named "signal_log.txt". The signal_log.txt file can be inspected at any time using File: Open: File. The new "Signal Action" specification in Investor/RT 6.1 replaces the former checkboxes for alerts and running schedules that were present in prior versions of Investor/RT. When upgrading to this new version, Investor/RT will automatically create signal actions with names of the form "Action N" (where N is a number) and assign them to your signal marker indicators. For example, if you formerly had a signal marker that that specified an alert sound and a schedule to run when the signal triggered, upon upgrading to Version 6.1.2, the setup for the signal marker might show simply "Action 11" as the named action for the signal. If you click the "Edit" button to the right of the Action list, you will see the setup for Action 11 and find the same sound and schedule setups are you had before.