Some symbols not recognized

[egan857]

Hi, I keep my own database of stock symbols and spool out a text file in NT's instrument format and then reset the symbols with my symbols. I have been doing this very regularly for about 15 months and have never had a problem with it until yesterday. For some reason, about 15% of my symbols are not recognized by NinjaTrader.

For example, ABX is one of the symbols in my list. It's a very thick stock and I've traded it many hundreds of times this year. It's in the instrument.txt file in the correct format, and the Instrument Manager displays it just fine. But, I can't create a new strategy using ABX as the symbol and I try to import a list of symbols with IBM and ABX it only imports IBM.

I tried to import a list of the 200 thickest stocks in my universe (all of which are in the instrument.txt file), but only 167 of them imported, so that's a 15% failure rate on thick stocks (all averaging over 4M shares a day), and most likely the failure rate would be higher on the thin stocks.

Why would I not be able to create a strategy with a symbol, or import a symbol into a list, for a stock that's already in the Instrument Manager?

[NinjaTrader_Kyle]

Hello,

When attempting to import ABX data does an error appear as a pop up or line in the Log tab of the Control Center? If so, what does the error report?

[egan857]

Hi Kyle,

No error messages anywhere. When I reset the instruments, no problem. When I import IBM and ABX into a list, it says 1 stock imported. When I try to create a new strategy and type ABX in the symbol field and press OK, it just doesn't create the strategy. If I go into Instrument Manager and select ABX, it displays the information just like any other symbol.

[NinjaTrader_Kyle]

Hello,

If you create a chart to display ABX data does the data appear to load or will the chart remain blank?

[egan857]

ABX's chart displays just fine. I compared it to the chart from Yahoo and it looks correct.

[NinjaTrader_Bertrand]

egan857, thanks for the infos - would you mind contacting me via Help >> Mail to Support from the setup where you see those issues?

[egan857]

Hi Bertrand,

I'm trying to send a response via Help, but it's taking a while and may not finish.

My instruments.txt file has 5,870 equities, all of which are in the Instrument Manager, but only 515 of them can be imported or traded, so the failure rate is over 90%.

[egan857]

A followup for future readers: apparently 7.1000.0.15 has slightly different behavior when resetting the database and the instruments. If you want to reset the database by deleting it and if you want to apply your own instrument list, the steps are:
1. Shut down NinjaTrader
2. Rename NinjaTrader.sdb to something else
3. Restart NinjaTrader
4. Disconnect Kinetick.
5. File/Utilities/Import Symbol List. Paste all your instruments. Create a new list.
6. Tools/Reset Instruments

From that point on, you can create any list with a subset of your instruments.

It's possible that this sequence also worked before 7.1000.0.15, but it used to work without step 5.