Each month in this Journal, our technical support staff addresses issues of interest to many CSI subscribers in a question-and-answer format. 

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.

    The Unfair Advantage API program and demonstration package have been enhanced to support additional programming languages, including: Borland® C++, Borland® DelphiT Pascal, Microsoft® Visual Basic®, Microsoft Visual C++® and Microsoft Excel®.

    For information and access to the new example programs, go to the Online Documents page of the CSI website. . Click "Download the UA API Doc File and Sample Programs (uaapi.zip) ".

    CSI will be closed for voice communication on Monday, July 5th for the Independence Day Holiday. U.S. exchanges will be closed, but data from other exchanges will be available at the usual time.

Q.
    Does the "roll-forward date" used by Unfair Advantage in creating continuous contracts refer to the last day of the old contract or the first day of the new contract?

A.
    The roll-forward date is the last day of the current (in force) contract. The next contract in your continuous series will be added to the data set on the subsequent trading day. Consider it the roll-from date, as opposed to the roll-to date.
 

Q.
    I find that detrended continuous back-adjusted data series produced by UA work well in my long-term analysis. Unfortunately, this process leaves me with some negative values that my trading system can't handle. Any suggestions?

A.
    Detrending is generally considered a good tool for backtesting because it presents the whole series in current-day dollars. The process flattens the slope of the time series, resulting in lifted values for most markets. In some cases, the lift is insufficient raise back-adjusted prices out of negative territory, and for some markets (such as gold, whose price has come down from its high) detrending can result in lower values. Detrending does not guarantee that prices will never fall below zero. To eliminate the possibility of negative values, use UA's "Raise negative back adjusted series" option on the User Settings/Data Handling screen. This will add a constant value (a multiple of 1,000) to any back-adjusted series that dips below zero.
 

Q.
    CSI offers a lot of Unfair Advantage upgrades on your website. Do I need to get all of these?

A.
    Unfair Advantage users benefit from our constant quest to improve and enhance the program. We typically release a new version every three months or so, with intermediate beta (test) versions available in the interim. The beta test versions are intended for very experienced computer users who are able to test the software without technical support and who are willing to report any problems to our staff. The average user should avoid test programs and download only the official releases. 

If you want to upgrade to the latest full version (beta or not), you can usually do so by simply downloading it from the website. It will include all of the necessary program and configuration files. It will not, however, include the database itself, and may exclude certain user information. Some of the UA options available on the website are "Lite" version. These include only the changes made since the last available version. "Lite" versions of UA should only be downloaded if you have conscientiously remained current with previous versions of the software.

To determine if the latest upgrade is right for you, please read the on-line description posted on the website. It lists the specific enhancements and known weaknesses of each version. Under normal circumstances, we recommend receiving the new versions as they become available. If a feature that is important to you has been removed from the upgrade, you'll have to decide for yourself if the new enhancements are worth the tradeoff and act accordingly.
 

Q.
    I recently downloaded a UA test version and found that it has more problems than I want to deal with. I tried to go back to the latest released version by downloading it from the website, but that left me with even more problems. What should I do now?

A.
    Now you know why we call it a test version! Yes, test versions may have problems that we had not anticipated, some of which occur only under certain conditions. We hope you backed up your functional UA version before downloading and installing the test copy. Restoring your backup is the best way to make the previous version functional again.

The software is not backward-compatible, which means that re-installing an older version on top of a later version may cause problems. If you didn't make a backup and the test version doesn't work properly, the only option is to order a new CD from CSI. The cost is $10 for U.S. and Canadian customers or $20 for overseas users. This CD, which is available to regular (non-trial) subscribers only, will be the latest non-test version with a complete, updated database. Older versions are not available. Call CSI or contact techsupport@csidata.com to order.
 

Q.
    I'm upgrading from an older version of UA and have ordered a new CD-ROM. Will I lose my current portfolio?

A.
    If you are upgrading from Unfair Advantage version 1.60 or higher, the portfolio should be fully compatible. Remember to back up your complete \UA directory before any upgrade and delete or uninstall \UA before installing from a CD-ROM. Upgrades from the web should be installed on top of earlier versions (without deleting or uninstalling). In either case, you should restore your portfolio by copying your backed-up portfile.adm file into the \UA\archives directory.

The first time you use the new program, you will be prompted to [REVIEW] it for errors. If unexpected problems occur, please e-mail a copy of the following files to techsupport@csidata.com  so we can diagnose the problem: portfile.bak and portfile.adm (and portfile.ins if you upgraded from the web) from the \UA\archives directory. Also e-mail the file unfair.ini from the \UA directory.