Instrument Manager bugs/requests

[kdoren]

BUG: In the Instrument Manager, NT7 hangs when updating splits & dividends from Yahoo if the symbol is bad (i.e. a symbol that has been delisted due to a merger).

BUG: In the master instrument list, if you select an instrument and right-click, it offers the option "Update Splits & Dividends". Unfortunately, it doesn't work, nothing is updated and no error message is given. You still need to bring up the instrument editor, go to the "Misc" tab, and click the update button.

REQUEST: PLEASE allow updating splits/dividends for an instrument list, and/or selecting multiple instruments in the master instrument list and updating all at once. It's really a pain to update them one at a time.

REQUEST: Another request which would make the instrument manager easier to use: in the "Instrument Lists" panel, where the instruments in a list are displayed, if you select an individual instrument in the list, the only thing you can do is delete it. Please implement some simple functionality here, such as double-click to open the instrument editor, right-click to update splits & dividends.

Thanks,

Kevin

[NinjaTrader_Brett]

Hello,

Thanks for the post!

Can you please let me know what version of NinjaTrader you are using this is located in the Control Center under Help->About and is to the right of the NinjaTrader logo.


Reason I ask is some of these bugs should already been fixed in the latest version of NinjaTrader.

Look forward to your follow up.

[kdoren]

I'm using version 7.0.1000.3 (64-bit). Windows 7 64-bit (No SP1, I had to uninstall it because it broke something else).

The hanging doesn't seem to be consistent, it seems to hang on symbol ABI, but some other bad symbols don't cause it to hang (i.e. ACS).

ANOTHER BUG: It won't get splits & dividends from Yahoo for a symbol which has a "-" in it, examples: RDS-B & BF-B (also no error message). This worked at one time but doesn't seem to work now.

Yahoo sometimes uses different symbols than other providers, it would be helpful to give an error message if the symbol didn't exist.

Thanks,

Kevin

[NinjaTrader_Brett]

Hello,

I will check into this and get back to you to see if I can duplicate on my side.

Thanks for your patience.

[kdoren]

It also seems that you can't update splits/dividends from Yahoo for symbols with a "." in them, which includes OTCBB stocks such as FNM.BB

[NinjaTrader_Brett]

Hello,

Thanks for your patience.

I did testing on both these intruments and on my current build of R3 had no issue.

FNM.BB
BF-B
RDS-B

All these symbols updating there splits and dividins. How are you updating them through the Instrument Manager?

Also, what exchanges do you have checked when you update.

I look forward to assisting you further.

[kdoren]

I think I figured out what the bug is.... when requesting split/dividend information from Yahoo, NT7 doesn't use the "Yahoo" symbol from the symbol map (like it should). It incorrectly uses the "Master Instrument" name as entered in the "Definition" tab.

[NinjaTrader_Brett]

Hello,

That could be the case. I'm having development check into this now.

Thanks for your patience.

[NinjaTrader_Brett]

Hello,

I spoke with development and this is a limitation as we never saw a case to map the default for example AAPL to MSFT. With the yahoo connection. Therefor you are correct it will pull from the master instrument name and not the yahoo symbol map.

Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

[kdoren]

You can rationalize it however you want, but the behavior is quite obviously wrong.

Less than an inch away from the "Update Splits & Dividends" button, which as far as I can tell only works correctly with Yahoo, there is a "Symbol Map" field for a Yahoo Symbol. This is the field used to get quotes from Yahoo. The obvious correct behavior is that this field should be used to get splits/dividends. This is especially true considering that Yahoo uses different symbols than the rest of the world for some instruments.

NinjaTrader - quite correctly - gives the ability to map an instrument to different symbols for different providers for quotes. Why in the world would you think it's OK to ignore the symbol map when updating splits/dividends? This is an obvious bug no matter how development tries to sugar-coat it. And it has to be trivial to fix. You should be embarrassed to repeat such a lame response, I suggest you grow a spine and push back when they give you a BS answer like that.

-Kevin

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

Kevin,

When this was first implemented, maybe five years ago, we did not see a use case where an instrument name would be different than a mapping...for stocks. You have obviously pointed out a use case and the error in our logic. I don't disagree with what you have posted and we will put this on my development list but for now, we have a lot of higher priority items that impact a larger subset of our users and our development is tasked to deal with those issues at this time.

I do realize that this is not an optimal response for you but its an honest one.

Ray (CEO)

[kdoren]

Ray,

I fully understand that it's not urgent and I don't expect it to be a high priority. I can deal with it, but it will confuse other people down the road, so it should be on you list of low-priority bugs that get cleaned up eventually. It's a small low-priority bug, but if you care about having a consistent UI that behaves the way people expect, you have to call it a bug and put it on the list of things to eventually fix.

From my perspective, it's a far higher priority to have the ability to batch-update splits & dividends (from an instrument list or group-select). It's really a pain to do them one at a time.

The reason I care is that I trade systems that use intraday data for entry/exit, but hold positions for multiple days. If I don't adjust for splits/dividends, backtest results are worse than useless because, for example, a short position will appear to be profitable when a dividend is paid (the price drops), when in fact it's really not (I have to pay the dividend); and if I use the optimizer it will hunt for that. Or a long position will appear to be unprofitable (the price drops), when in fact it is (I receive the dividend).

The NT7 Instrument Manager needs and deserves a bit more attention in terms of UI and functionality. It's close to what it needs to be, but it's not quite there yet, and I believe a relatively small effort would get it all the way there.

Thanks,

Kevin

[NinjaTrader_Brett]

Hello,

I can confirm with development that the symbol map pulling location for the Split and Dividend data is on our list to look into making a change.

As far as your secondary suggestion on the one click update of this data for all stocks this is also on our suggestion list to possibly add to a future version of NinjaTrader as well.

Thanks for the excellent feedback!