Each month in this Journal, our technical support staff addresses issues of interest to many CSI subscribers in a question-and-answer format. This month, they present questions about Unfair Advantage(UA), focusing primarily on premium services.

Notice:
  The views and information expressed in this document reflect the opinions and experience of the author Robert C. Pelletier.  Neither CSI nor the author undertake or intend to provide tax advice or trading advice in any market or endorse any outside individual or firm.  All recommendations are provided for their informational value only.  Readers should consult competent financial advisors or outside counsel before making any software purchase or investment decision.  CSI does not stand behind or endorse the products of any outside firms.

Copyright (c) 1998 Commodity Systems Inc. (CSI).  All rights are reserved.

   UA's Uninstall function should only be used if UA is stored in its own directory (probably C:\UA). Do not use Uninstall if the software is in your root directory (probably C:\).

Always back up your hard drive before using any Uninstall program!
 

QT Reminder: 
 
   Users of very old QuickTrieve programs (before version 4.0) must complete your annual file extension for continuous contracts before Jan. 4, 1999.  This involves manually creating and moving continuous contracts into files that include 1999 dates.  Please see your QuickTrieve manual for details.

   Each month in this Journal, our technical support staff addresses issues of interest to many CSI subscribers in a question-and-answer format. This month, they present questions about the CSI database and Unfair Advantage
 

Questions and Answers
 
Q.
    I've been analyzing a great deal of overseas data with Unfair Advantage, and was shocked to find Saturday prices for a number of contracts. Are these errors?
 
A.
   No. Although Saturday trading may appear to be incorrect for historical series, the information shown represents valid statistics. Several overseas markets offered Saturday trading at one time. These include SSI (#248), JNI (#255), HIS (#119), and KOS (#501). As of the date of this Journal, no market covered by the CSI service, to our knowledge, currently trades on Saturdays. We urge all customers to report questionable data points to our service staff for explanation or correction.
 
Q.
   Since CSI started quoting IPE (London) data later in the day, I feel as if I would benefit from two daily updates instead of one. Is this permissible?
 
A.
   Since IPE data is largely unnecessary for market analysis because the NYMEX light crude is essentially the same data, less a discount for FOB delivery, we began quoting these prices at 8 p.m. to avoid excessive exchange fees. 
If commodities of interest to you are usually unavailable when you call for your update, you'll need to choose one of these three options: 1) adjust your update time to accommodate the missing markets; 2) continue retrieving your updates at the normal time, but wait until the following day to get the late data in your normal update; or 3) make a second call after 8 p.m. eastern time, which will assure you have the most complete data for the day. 
Extra charges apply for regularly receiving more than one update daily. For two accesses daily, the extra monthly cost would $12 or $18 for North American or World markets, respectively, prepaid annually.
 
Q.
   My Unfair Advantage would not install from the CD I received from CSI. What should I do?
 
A.
   We have two ways of making CDs. One involves custom writing the individual CDs, called CDRs. Super-fast, very new technology CD-ROM drives, (36X and above) sometimes have difficulty reading recordable CDs. If your UA software and data won't install from the CD, please call CSI customer service to get advice on how you might obtain service through some other alternative such as through a pressed CD-ROM, or by calling our web site, etc.
 
Q.
   I have heard that CSI now offers UA covering the stock markets. Have you released a stock version?
 
A.
   We are actively testing and certifying the equity version of UA, but because we don't wish to prematurely release UA for stocks, we have held off on any announcement. We are looking for additional speed in downloading and more efficiency in the updating and distribution process. When we have sufficient confidence that the product will more than satisfy general customer needs, the product will be released.
 
Q.
   In the early data of the MATIF CAC-40 contracts, Unfair Advantage shows some opens and closes outside the trading range. How can both the open and the close be outside the high and low?
 
A.
   The exchange did not publish an opening price in the early days of trading the CAC-40 (#79), the Swiss Market Index (#214), London Cocoa (#49), London wheat (#51) and London barley (#52), so to keep charting programs from blowing up with the nonexistent open, UA set the open equal to the published settlement price. As you are probably aware, the close (actually, settlement) price can be an artificial value determined by the settlement committee. Because this value is not necessarily a traded price, it can be outside the high-low range. In cases where both the settlement was outside the opening range and the open did not exist, we correctly elected to maintain our policy of showing the open as a duplicate of the settlement.
This policy is disclosed in our printed CSI Databank Factsheets, but it did not end up in UA's online factsheets. It will be added to our next revision.
If you find equal values for both the open, which is outside the high-low range, and the settlement, which is outside the high-low range, consider it a tip-off to that the open was not provided by the exchange. 
Although we prefer our approach, you have other options. For example, you could couple in yesterday's close or assume that you have no information about the opening price, or use the high/low average. You have the control to do what is best for you through your own manipulations.
 
Q.
   When a currency cash file is distributed to ASCII (*.csv) files, the resultant data has no decimal places! How can I restore the decimal points?
 
A.
   UA's User Settings, Text screen (through the VIEW menu) includes an option to "Display data in decimal format." This should be selected. When viewing your ASCII files, avoid Excel and use Word Pad to view your .csv file. This software will allow you to see the raw data, including the full eight decimal places UA can produce. Using spreadsheet software such as Excel, dBase or Paradox, etc. will give you the number of decimal places dictated by UA's conversion factor (see factsheets), and this is not what you need to get the precision you want.

Attn:  Non-USA Customers--Visit  www.timeanddate.com

If your data is being released later, and you forgot to switch your clock, take note of the release times we advertise and access www.timeanddate.com  This convenient web site will tell you what time it is in the US Eastern time zone. Consult it and you should be more on target with respect to the release time of your market information.