FFcal - Plot News indicator

Hey David, you're welcome. I'm sure there are several current users of this great tool, however, many people are quite intimidated by data problems that require them to edit the data to remove/alter the offending characters. I'm using XP and I never could edit and fix my data. It always crashed when I tried. Perhaps my problem was the long filename, and so if I ever need to edit it, I may try relocating my files to shorten the name. I might have just given up back in December, but after a couple of weeks, I knew enough to delete the news.csv file and by then, running ffcal.exe did not load the old data as it was 2 weeks prior. I got by for another month until of course the same data problem came up today, so, I took the time to fix the mq4 file.

I'm sure that many people might be intimidated by the sheer size of your first post. It's not really that bad to install the indicator and program but still, it may discourage some from even trying. Their loss, IMO.

I know that whenever I've shown my charts to some friends, I show them the news arrows and they react extremely positively. Whether or not they actually install it for themselves is another matter...

Kent

P.S. As mentioned, I use "RemindToRunFFcal=TRUE". The one setting I also change for myself in the posted Plot_news.mq4 is the "AlertMins" variable which I change from "-1" (off) to "5". The alert is a nice feature that also helps me be aware of news events without my necessarily looking at the one chart of mine that displays the arrows. I've been tempted to shut off the display of the "Plot_Low" priority news events but it's just not enough of a bother for me to do so at this time.

Thank you for updated version !!!

Hi Kent,

As you know, I originally developed Plot_News for my own use, but decided to share it here, and it's grown progressively as I've implemented user requests.

If post #1, or the number of functions available in the product, is daunting, that's because I've attempted to make Plot_News as comprehensive as possible. There are other news plotters out there for those who prefer simplicity. I was going to make some instructional videos and upload them to YouTube, but I never found the time or the inclination to learn Camtasia studio.

From a completely selfish perspective, the less folk that use Plot_News, the better, as it reduces the number of potential queries that I have to spend time answering.

Thanks again for all of your efforts.

David

Hanover,

Yes. Your tool is very feature rich which and I am amazed at the documentation you have provided. It is very good and I know must have taken a lot of time.

Anyway I also have a Vista machine that gave me errors before I moved the plot news folder files to my root C: drive (to shorten path) and it works beautifully now too. Seems to have solved my ills and it is an easy fix. So I don't think you need to do anything for it any time soon.

I will see if I can contact Forexfactory and see if they can change it.

I was wondering something that I could probably figure out but it would be easier for me to ask .... I think that when in F9 mode if you make a change to a line of data it is just changed in the database file? THus you need to do something to get that written to the news.csv file. I think pressing enter on the F5 screen is what writes it to the news.CSV file? If so is it important to change the date up in the top area of get forecfactory data to a data later then 1/28 so it does not go get the bad data again?

Thanks,

PippiLong

PippiLong, perhaps you missed my recent post. If you follow the link to my post, download the new Plot_News.mq4 fileand put it into your C:/Program Files/_your_MT4_/experts/indicators/ folder.

It handles the so-called "bad data" that contains strings such as "&lt;" which previously you needed to edit and manually change to "<". For example, the Jan 28 "Federal Funds Rate" event contains in the database the string "... A: &lt;0.25% |F: &lt;0.25% |P: &lt;%". There are 3 occurrences of "&lt;" which you previously needed to manually change to "<". Unless I'm mistaken and you are referring to some other kind of "bad data", then the new Plot_News.mq4 (v1.1) file should eliminate the need for manual data fixes!

With respect to contacting ForexFactory to see if they could fix the problem on their end, again, if you are referring to characters such as "&lt;", that is the way that HTML represents a "<" on the screen, and since they (FF) are most concerned about showing web pages, I'm not so sure they would be open to making any such changes just to suit this news program. My change to the indicator is a good workaround that handles the problem pretty well. If David gets around to changing FFcal.exe such that it eliminates those characters when it builds news.csv, that's even better.

Kent (pips4life)

P.S. Thanks for helping to identify the solution of moving the FFcal.exe files to a much shorter path to allow the user to edit the data. I was frustrated in not being able to do so (but now I don't need to )

I think that when in F9 mode if you make a change to a line of data it is just changed in the database file?
Yes, this is correct.

THus you need to do something to get that written to the news.csv file. I think pressing enter on the F5 screen is what writes it to the news.CSV file? If so is it important to change the date up in the top area of get forecfactory data to a data later then 1/28 so it does not go get the bad data again?
It is probably easier to simply uncheck the box "Update Events History database from FF calendar" near the top of the screen. This setting determines whether data is (re)captured from FF calendar, or not. That way, you don't have to keep changing the date.

-- The settings in the upper panel on the screen control the gathering of data from FF calendar, to the database.

-- The settings in the lower panels determine what is exported, from the database, to news.csv and any export files.

Hanover,

Just to let you know, I'm still using this and find it extremely useful.

Thanks,
David

ps. Still hoping to see the birth of the NCI (News Composite Indicator)... ;-)

dear hanover,

i also have error due to 28 jan federal fund rate and have download file from post 527 but my problem still stay. any sugestion to do this. thanks

Hanover has a data file in post #527. Did you try downloading Plot_News.mq4 from my post #528? That should fix the problem. Be sure to put the file into the experts/indicators/ folder, and either open and "Compile" the indicator using MetaEditor, or, you can delete the old Plot_News.ex4 file, quit MT4 and restart. It will automatically compile and create a new Plot_News.ex4 file.

Actually, sometimes you have to quit and restart MT4 to get newly compiled indicators to work properly. Give these steps a try and post an update if it still doesn't work for you.

dear pips4life,

ok i'll give it a try thanks alot

dear pip4life i will give it a try. thanks alot

Thanks Pips4Life


PippiLong

This can be downloaded from post #1 in this thread. Full installation instructions can be found there also.

Version 1.32 does the following:

1. Fixes all known problems with the HTML entites &....; that have been causing errors with MT4's plotting of certain news events (most recently the Federal Funds rate). The problem entities are now being converted at the time the FF calendar is being imported, so that the values in the Description, Actual, Forecast, Previous and Revised From fields in the Events History database will be consistent with those in the help info 'bubble' on the MT4 charts.

&quot; is now converted to "
&amp; is now converted to +
&lt; is now converted to <
&gt; is now converted to >
&circ; is now converted to ^
&tilde; is now converted to ~

Any other &.....; entity is now being omitted altogether.

You can use Pips4life's version of Plot_News.MQ4 (see post #528), or the original version in the post #1 ZIP - both will function correctly.

2. A new checkbox "Use local time with exports" (see red area in the screenshot below).

-- If left unchecked, the date/time output to any export files is the MT4 broker date/time (i.e. works exactly as previously)

-- If checked, the date/time output to any export files is the local date/time (which is calculated by adding the "No of hours your local time is ahead of MT4 time" entry to the MT4 broker time). Time is exported in 24 hour format hh:mm regardless of the entry in the "24 hr format" checkbox. The latter applies only to the format used in the MT4 help 'bubble'.


Please note that I have done my best to test all of the above on both my Win-98 and Win-XP platforms, which run firewalls and anti-virus software. However, you download and run this software at your own risk. I accept no liability for any damage or losses that you might incur.

Please feel welcome to report any bugs, and post queries or suggestions in this thread.

David

Thanks for the feedback. NCI will be implemented in the next release (v 1.33), which I hope to complete this coming week.

Excellent news! I'll look forward to that (might have said that before). Keep up the good work!

All the best,
David

Hanover, Glad to get the new version. Had a little difficulty with that data glitch in Dec.: trying to figure out what was going on from connecting an-hour-a-day from NY Public Library, then finally remembered. Attempting to alter the data though... oh well, but did finally get it to work. The automatic update thing is great without even having to open the Indicator Menu. and still believe Plot_News is the best indicator available for Forex.

We will not be trading today, but hope and trust - and really it's 100% per month. Happy New Year, Bruce

Just a note: it looks like somebody (an FF admin?) has recently deleted 5 of the early posts in this thread. So any references to prior posts are now numbered incorrectly. For example, when you see "Please refer to post #269" the post you actually need to look at is 5 posts earlier, i.e. #264.

The links in post #1 should still take you to the correct post, even though the numbering is wrong. I don't have time to fix the numbering, and in any case, there's no guarantee that more posts won't be deleted in the future, repeatedly re-creating the same problem.

I will eventually create a new thread for Plot_News. Post #1 has grown out of control and is now a daunting read. And there has been some trading related discussion in the thread, which apparently caused it to be moved away from the Programming Discussion forum, which it where it ideally belongs.

I am probably largely responsible for Plot_News being placed under Forex Discussion as opposed to Programming, for which apologies. If it's any use, I wouldn't care if the offending posts were removed and will try not to talk about trading again. B.

No problem, Bruce, it doesn't really matter where the thread resides. I just thought it was more appropriate in the Programming section, since Plot_News is an indicator. Anyway, looks like the FF admins have moved it back.

Hi David,

Have you (or anyone else) gone to the trouble of creating supplemental calendar events to record the Options Expiration dates for 2009?

I actually don't know a lot about whether these are main events or not, but last month on January 21 at 10AM EST, you can look at the GBPJPY (or USDJPY) chart(s) and you will see a massive downward spike at the very top of the hour. (Attached).

In the Auslanco thread (which follows GBPJPY a lot) someone said there was a large position in USDJPY at a price of 90.00 and the instant that the options expired, supposedly there was some reason for the market to spike as it did. I don't claim to understand why, nor how to predict it, but at least I do have a "when".

This calendar has the dates and sometimes it mentions the times (if not, it must be available somewhere, or maybe it's always at the same time EST??).

2009 Options Expiration Calendar: http://www.cboe.com/AboutCBOE/xcal2009.pdf

The January 21st event says it was a "VIX, VXN, RVX expiration date". That doesn't mean squat to me and it certainly doesn't say "currency" but as the spike occurred at that very instant, it seems relevant. If I can get it on a chart, perhaps it could be studied and then anticipated if it is useful.

The next similar options event is Wed Feb 18th (presumably 10AM EST).

On Thur 2/19, "A.M" settled index options cease trading" (What time??)

On Fri 2/20, "Expiring equity, P.M. settled index options and treasury/interest rate option classes cease trading. Expiring cash-settled currency options cease trading at 12:00PM EST."

Over the weekend on Sat 2/21, "Equity, index, cash-settled currency and treasury/interest rate options expiration date" occurs. Maybe that would have some effect either the week before or on Sunday/Monday opening??

I have never plotted custom "news" events but I guess I'll check out good ol' Post #1.

Thanks, Kent (pips4life)