Metastock data organisation

[kotim]

Folks I have a program that jses the old 255 files per folder in metastock and hence for eg with a custom folder of the S&P500, can only see the first 255 files.

Is their away that I can create my own folder with say 250 in each one using some metstock tool or magic or something.

thanks

 

[Richard Dale]

If you have installed MetaStock, it will also include a program called "The Downloader". This can do more than just download - it will allow you to move/transfer/copy securities from one folder to another.

If you transfer less than 255 securities into a folder your program should be able to read it.

However, note that the 255-securities-per-folder MetaStock format was superceded back in 1997 so you are talking about something that is out of date by more than 14 years. It's questionable as to whether it has Y2K compatibility too.

Perhaps if you mention the program here then some of us might know of it or any workarounds.

 

[kotim]

thanks for your reply, it is Bryce Gilmores Wavetrader/cycletrader. I don't actually have metastock though I used to have an old 7.2 version so I might be able to find that somehwere although I have not used it for years.

y2k compliance is not an issue.

I will try and track it down.

I use norgate premium data for USA stocks amongst others.

Per chance is there anywhere on the net it can be downloaded. Might be quicker than me trying to find the old metastock.

 

[Richard Dale]

Since you're using the custom folders feature of Premium Data, you could create your own set of custom folders by creating text files of your own.

To do this, navigate to C:\Trading Data\Stocks\US\Lists

Create two text files there "S&P 500 part 1.us.txt" and "S&P 500 part 2.us.txt"

Open up "S&P 500.us.txt" and copy and paste the first 250 lines into the first file and the remainder into the second file. Save both files.

Then start Premium Data and click Custom Folders, select US then scroll down to the two S&P 500 part 1 & 2. Highlight then click "create selected custom folder". Then you'll be OK.

You will need to do this periodically as constituent maintenance (eg. code changes, new additions to index, removals from index) will only be performed on the original S&P 500 list.

Perhaps it's worth dropping a note to the Wavetrader/Cycletrader developers and asking them to please enter the 21st century with their data format support. For not very much money (EUR250) they can easily incorporate a third party library to read the latest Metastock data format:
http://www.trading-tools.com/metalib.htm