Q: How to Use the Program?
A: Begin Techsignal™ by double-clicking the Techsignal™ icon located on your Desktop.
After the program opens, select a portfolio and a data symbol for analysis. Techsignal™ takes over and
loads the data for that symbol, plots the data in a graph, runs a Spectral Analysis looking for cycles, and
displays the results in a grid below the plotted data.
The Techsignal™ program may also be opened by double clicking the application file TechSignal.exe
located in the FCSTS folder located at C:\Program Files\FCSTS\ TechSignal.exe.
Q: How do I Use Commands, Menus and Buttons?
A: Techsignal™ makes use of several types of commands, menus and buttons:
- The Command buttons on the screens
- Windows Main Menu Data Input screen
- Icons on most screens
- Right mouse click functions from the active graph window
- Double click actions on Grids (where various data are seen)
- Keyboard commands
- The scroll bars on the active windows.
- Exit commands
Command Buttons
Most screens have command buttons that execute various routines.
Windows Menus
The Windows Main Menu Data Input screen has two basic menu commands, File and Help. File is where
you go to open single files outside of the portfolio system (“Open”). The data file types under Open are
ASCII, CSI, Metastock, Excel and Worden Bros (TC 2000).
Q: How do I Add a New Portfolio?
A: The process of creating a new portfolio takes place in several steps. There is a detailed paper entitled
“Building Portfolios in Techsignal™” which walks you through the process.
The first step is to name the portfolio and place it in a folder of your choice. Next you need to add files to the
portfolio. You must double click and highlight the portfolio before adding files. Pay close attention to the
steps. The list box that shows the contents of a portfolio will not appear until a portfolio is double clicked. In
Metastock and CSI data you can add all the files to a portfolio at once using a Master or Qmaster file, or you
can add data files one at a time.
ASCII files are added one file at a time and require you to type in a Graph name or title. CSI and Metastock
files store a graph name or title which the Techsignal™ program recognizes and reads (e.g., INTC, GM).
Once the files are added you then click the Save files and Continue button and start your analysis. Portfolios
and the Master Portfolios files are text files and can be edited in a text editor like Notepad. Remember if you
change the location of the data files on your disk, you will have to rebuild your portfolio.
Q: How do I Edit a Portfolio?
A: When you go to the Build or Edit a portfolio, you have two choices on the screen, Begin New Portfolio and
Quit. If you double click and highlight an existing portfolio in the list box a box below, the Portfolio contents
will appear. Also a new Command button will appear on the screen, Edit a Portfolio. When you click on this
button, four more choices will appear: Delete a Portfolio, Delete a file in a portfolio, Add a file to an existing
Portfolio and Save Files and Continue. The buttons do exactly what the button description says. You must
save your work to have your changes recorded. When you delete a portfolio, you do not remove it from the
disk. You simply remove it from the Portfolio list you see in Portfolios Available The Portfolio.txt file still
exists in the Techsignal™ folder C:\FSCTS, and the actual data files still exist somewhere else on your
computer.
Q: Which Data do I to Analyze?
A: The default data to used for analysis is the Close or period closing value. If the data consist of OHLC, you
also can analyze one at a time, the Open, the High, the Low or a Median Price which is the High + Low
divided by two. Most use the Close or the Median price.
Q: How Much Data Should I Use?
A: Statistical testing of periodic signals is very sensitive to the number of data points being examined. Too few
and the data can not be tested. Too many and the test begins to get confused and poor results can result,
particularly as you exceed 10,000 data points in your analysis. Sometimes there is simply too much motion
over time or too much trend, and you would need to first detrend the data. Instead, Techsignal™
recommends compressing the data into fewer data points by changing typically from daily to weekly data
points and therefore better statistical analysis. For a point of reference there are approximately 252 trading
days in a year in the U.S. stock market; so, 10,000 data points is roughly 40 years of data, and 20,000 data
points takes you back 80 years to just before the stock market high in 1929.
In general, results begin to get compromised as your data series exceeds 3000 data points. Too few data
points also produces poor results particularly with fewer than 1200 data points. Experience has shown that
1800 to 2000 data points is about optimal in most analyses (roughly 8 years of data). Techsignal™ will
allow you to analyze up to 20,000 data points (80 years). Cycles will likely be found in almost any data
series, but it is a question of how reliable the cycles are. Techsignal™ provides statistical test results to
help pinpoint which are the stronger, more persistent and reliable cycles.
If you find that 2000 data points is not working well, you can try loading more data to discover if something
bigger is going on such as a larger cycle you haven’t picked up with only 2000 data points (about 4 years).
You can load more data points (if you have that much data) from the Main Menu Data Input screen by
manually changing the number of data points on the left hand side from the 2000 default or whatever is
showing (double click the box when done), or by entering the Program Defaults from the same screen on
the right, and changing the default.
This process of using a larger data series to define your cycles we call definitizing a cycle, that is, finding
the presence of a strong, persistent cycle within a longer data series, and one which still passes the rigid
Techsignal™ statistical testing. Cycles in stocks which have proven over time to be more persistent and
reliable are those of approximately 14, 26, 55, 70, 100, 131 and 200 trading periods, with variations
depending on the data series you ask Techsignal™ to examine. For example, after you run a cyclic
analysis and find periods of say 51.3 and 99.6 trading days based on 2000 data points, you might rerun the
same analysis on 4000 data points and find cycles of 50.1 and 102.5 trading days. These are likely the
same cycles.
When you find longer cycles in larger data series, i.e., in the range of 150 to 250 data points, [THIS NEXT
PART IS VERY IMPORTANT] you usually then need to adjust the phase of the cycle in the current time
frame, by moving the plotted cycle forwards or backwards a bit (using arrow keys on the left side of the
Graph screen to actually move the cycle plot). The reason we phase cycles is that older data is sometimes
too far back in time to be in synch with more recent data. Why? Cycles can “wobble” or expand and
contract a bit over several years, enough so to throw off the match up of recent cycle highs and lows with
recent price highs and lows in the current time frame, even though the cyclic periods are statistically valid.
Q: How do I Get my data?
A: To get started you must first obtain data in any of the three Techsignal supported formats (CSI, ASCII and
Metastock). Make sure the data that you obtain have enough history to do a proper analysis. We
recommend that you run analyses on no fewer then 250 data points and preferably on about 2000. Two
thousand data points, for example, are a little less than 8 years of daily data in the financial markets where
there are roughly 250 trading days per year. As one example for obtaining and setting up a data source,
see the Techsignal article entitled “Setting Up a Data Source for Use in Techsignal.” This article is
found in your Techsignal folder at C:\FSCTS
Q: How do I Manually Input ASCII Data?
A: The only data file you can manually open and input data into, without special programs, is an ASCII file.
Microsoft Word is the best program to use, with the Show/Hide feature turned on to show all hidden
characters. Text editor programs like Word Pad and Notepad are older programs than Microsoft Word and
both add assembly language junk to the files. When those various characters appear at the end of the file,
the Techsignal™ program, which reads data to the end of the file, finds, instead, confusing junk characters,
the file stops loading into the Techsignal™ program.
You should manually replace some of the more common characters rather than using the delete key. Go to
Edit – Replace -- type in “^t” (omit “ marks) for the Tab key (tabs show up as right arrows), and replace with
“, “ (that’s comma and a space, omit the “ marks). Simply use the delete key to remove any ¶ characters
you see on a separate line(s) at the end of the file. Once you’ve added your data or made data changes to
the file using Microsoft Word, save the file in plain.txt formatting. Do not use the Unicode encoding.
CSI and Metastock are non-ASCII binary files and you can’t read them (makes sense with your eyeball)
with a text editor.
Q: What Date Format Should I Use?
A: The Techsignal™ program accepts the following ASCII date formats using numbers, letters and hyphens
(see Graph Defaults from the analysis screen for these options). The default format is MMM-DD-YY:
[Note MMM means spell out the first 3 letters; MM or DD means always display 2 digits; M or D by
itself means display 1 digit or 2 digits if there are 2 digits to display; YY means last two digits of the
year].
MM-DD-YY (e.g., 01-01-06)
M-D-YY (e.g., 1-1-06)
MMM-DD (e.g., Mar-26)
MMM-DD-YY (e.g., Mar-26-06)
MMM-D (e.g., Mar-12) |
|
MM-DD (e.g., 01-07)
M-D (e.g., 1-6 or 11-21)
MMM (e.g., Mar or Jul)
M-YY (e.g., 1-06 or 11-06)
MM-YY (e.g., 02-06) |
|
MMM-YY (e.g., Mar-06)
M-YYYY (e.g., 1-2006 or 11-2006)
MMM-YYYY (e.g., Mar-2006)
YYYY (e.g., 2006) |
Select Your Data to Load
When you first load the Techsignal™ program, some sample data in CSI format (a F001.dta type file; see
section 2.2.3 Data Types) will be loaded into the C:\FCSTS\Cyc\Sample folder and a Sample.txt portfolio will
appear in the Portfolios Available grid on your first Techsignal™ screen, the Main Menu Data Input screen.
