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) 2000 Commodity Systems Inc. (CSI).  All rights are reserved.

    The COT Index is based on the Commercial net position compared to its historical range (not Large Trader).   Therefore the above statement should have read: "The value is high when commercial interests are large against small trader interests, and the value is low when commercial interests are short against small trader interests."   Thanks to Steve Briese of Bullish Review for setting the record straight.

Q.
    I am interested in trading overseas markets, but all the different currencies involved make analysis tedious and leave me with uncertain risk. Does CSI offer anything to make it easier?

A.
    Yes. Our next Unfair Advantage software release will produce commodity charts that display in converted currencies. For example, you can look at the Korean stock market index in US dollars, or you can view corn in dollars per contract in place of cents per bushel. Other possibilities include viewing dried cocoons in dollars per kilogram, yen per kilogram, d-marks per contract, etc. Your exposure in your native currency becomes immediately apparent from the day-to-day details of the historical past. Visit our website at www.csidata.com (click SUPPORT) to get the UA Version 2.1.4 or higher upgrade which will include this new feature. We recommend you visit this website regularly to view an updated list of program changes and any known problems.

Q.
    I downloaded UA version 2.1.3 from the CSI website, but when I installed it, the program still said it was version 2.1.2. Did the upgrade work?

A.
    Sorry, no. The link on our website was wrong, so you got a repeat of the same Version 2.1.2 you had before. The problem has been fixed, so please return to our website and download the 2.1.3 upgrade again.

Q.
    My settings are such that UA builds my stocks and commodity contracts in the CSIM format, the CSI format and the ASCII format following each day of data collected. This process takes longer than I would like. Any suggestions?

A.
    The problem introduced here is the requirement for many files containing the same information. Asking for many formats multiplies the time required to accomplish the building of your portfolio. Only one format is usually necessary, as all formats contain essentially the same information in slightly different forms. Unless your third-party software specifically requires a different format, we usually recommend using CSIM because it can accommodate negative numbers. Negative prices sometimes occur when creating continuous data files with the proportional adjust switch in the "off" position, invoking a subtraction approach for adjustments. 

Q.
    I recently switched to CSI because I got an unacceptable number of errors from another service. While I am very pleased with the quality of the CSI data, I am concerned about the time involved in updating the database and creating my portfolio. Why is CSI's stock data available at a later time and why does it take longer to process?

A.
    The answers to these questions go to the heart of the reason you switched to CSI in the first place. CSI is a little later with stock quotes because we wait until the close before we capture prices from the markets (as opposed to capturing earlier prices, as some services do) and we check our data against multiple sources before posting to avoid errors. The result: accurate stock prices that are available between 7:30 and 8 p.m. eastern time. Our more thorough approach does take longer than the "quick and dirty" methods employed by many of our competitors, but the quality of our data makes it well worth the wait.

    You'll find that the latest version of UA processes adjustments 65% faster than previous versions. Even so, the issue of data distribution time is another example of "quick and dirty" versus deliberate and accurate. If UA's Data Options are set to update stocks without proportional adjustments (as most competitors do without comment) the process will be as fast or faster than other services. Feel free to opt out of proportional adjustments if fast updates are your top priority. However, if you want to take advantage of UA's ability to proportionally adjust your stocks for dividends and distributions, the compute time can be high. Longer-term stocks such as GE may have build times of up to three minutes, but only when an adjustment is required. UA will append to any series, including those marked for proportional adjustments, if no dividend, split, capital gain or correction is observed. Dividends are often posted four times per year, and December is a particularly difficult month because capital gains and dividends are posted then.

    If you think proportional adjustments are valuable (as we do) and don't screen many stocks for investment opportunities every day, consider the following techniques for speeding daily updates. 1) Since UA adjusts an average of 1% of your data files with each update, and waits until the end of the distribution to apply the adjustments, why not go ahead and analyze the other files while you wait? 2) Limit your UA portfolio to the stocks you are actively trading or those that you wish to view on a daily basis. On those days when you want to screen thousands of stocks for new opportunities, use UA's Stock Scanner to create your stock list. Leave the "Maintain Stock Scanning File" option unchecked (off) on days you won't be using the Stock Scanner. This won't decrease distribution time on your heavy analysis days, but it should speed the process on other days.

Q.
    I have a problem viewing the Commitments of Traders (COT) indices with my new UA version. How can I correct this?

A.
    Saturday dates were inadvertently included in the COT history files in early releases, making it impossible for UA to read the data. If you were affected by this problem, the use of historical COT data requires obtaining a history refresh on any COT series, or the ordering of a corrected CD-ROM with the fix in place. Please visit our website or call customer service for details.