Despite persistent advice to conform to industry trends, at the time of this printing, TradeStation and other Omega Research programs still do not recognize exchange-assigned commodity symbols of three characters or more. While two-character symbols were the norm through the 1980s, this convention became woefully outdated during the 1990s, when the commodity industry exploded with new products throughout the world. Overseas commodities are typically identified by three-character symbols, which are also used for various specialized series.
Select the appropriate portfolio, and then click [Edit] to adjust portfolio settings. The Symbol Size prompt displays as shown:
Click the box in front of "Force two-character symbols" to use only the symbols identified in the factsheets in the "2 Char Symbol" column. You'll note that these symbols are not necessarily representative of the commodity name, and often include characters such as #$%, etc. The use of these special characters artificially expanded the quantity of two-character symbols available.