MetaStock

Early History

In 1982 Steve Achelis started a company named Computer Asset Management to develop financial and technical analysis software for personal computers. Computer Asset Management was renamed Equis International in 1989. Achelis’ first software application, written for the Apple II+, was The Financial Package which calculated various financial planning metrics. The Market Mood Monitor was released in 1984 and was eventually renamed The Technician. The Technician, written for the IBM PC, helped investors analyze and chart broad market conditions using sentiment, momentum, and monetary indicators. MetaStock 1.0 was released in 1986. Both MetaStock and The Technician received PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice award in April 1986.

While The Technician analyzed broad market conditions, MetaStock analyzed individual securities (stocks, futures, mutual funds, etc.). In response to the increasing demand for real-time analysis of prices, MetaStock RT™ was released in July 1992. MetaStock RT received live, real-time quotes from Data Broadcasting’s Signal data feed. In 1995, MetaStock 5.0 was released for the Microsoft Windows 3.1 operating system. Later that year, MetaStock added support for the Reuters DataLink end-of-day data feed. This relationship with Reuters led to Reuters purchasing Equis International and its MetaStock software in 1996. In 1998, MetaStock was released for the Reuters Quotron data feed and in 2001 for the Reuters 3000 Xtra electronic trading platform. In June 2013, Thomson Reuters sold MetaStock to Innovative Market Analysis.

Versions

MetaStock 15 released November, 2016

Features

The MetaStock software package includes charting functionality in various styles, 250 prebuilt technical indicators, scanning, filtering backtesting, line study drawing, forecasting, automated analysis, and custom indicator creation.

Charting

MetaStock includes nine core chart styles: bars, line, candlesticks, point & figure, kagi, renko, three-line break, equivolume and candlevolume. All charts in MetaStock can be customized with linestyles, colors, indicators, text, symbols, templates, and alerts.

Up to 100 charts can be displayed simultaneously. Charts can be resized and moved. Each chart supports indicators and trendline-based studies that are overlaid on the price bars or plotted in independent inner windows. Colors, fonts, and line thickness can be adjusted to personal preferences.

Indicators

MetaStock includes over 250 pre-defined indicators. In addition to the pre-defined indicators, users are able to create custom indicators using a spreadsheet-like formula language called the MetaStock Formula Language.

MetaStock includes the following pre-defined indicators:

Scanning and Filtering

The MetaStock Explorer allows traders to scan through thousands of securities using trading criteria to find the ones that fit their specific strategy. Explorations are written using the MetaStock Formula Language. Traders can base their explorations off of the pre-built criteria included with MetaStock or they can use their own criteria. For example, a pre-built scan is included that shows a report of securities that are trading above their 200-day moving average. Another shows securities that have triggered a buy signal based on the MACD indicator. Explorations can be linked so that the filtered results of one exploration can subsequently be filtered by another.

Backtesting

The Enhanced System Tester allows traders to create, back-test, compare, and optimize trading strategies before risking money in the markets. System tests are written using an extended version of the MetaStock Formulas Language. Backtesting answers the question, “How much would I make or lose if I traded this security or these securities using these buy and sell rules?” Traders can change and edit conditions such as entry, exit, stops, order sizes, and commissions to make the simulation more realistic. The buy and sell conditions can be optimized in order to show the best performing parameters. For example, by optimizing, a trader can learn which moving average performed the best for IBM over the last five years.

Automated Chart Analysis

The Expert Advisor reveals the interpretive analysis of industry professionals through alerts, commentary, symbols and trends. MetaStock allows for various types of alerts; from simple price and volume to complex indicator triggers and multiple conditions that show buy and sell signals. The expert commentary offered by MetaStock shows how experts would assess the chart being viewed. For example, a pre-built expert for MetaStock shows how Bollinger Bands would be interpreted according to John Bollinger’s rules. The expert automatically alerts the user to special conditions using buy and sell arrows, text, audio, or video according to the analysis criteria.

Custom Indicators

The MetaStock indicator builder is a formula writing module with a wide array of math and investing functions. Custom indicators are created by combining one or more formulas written in the MetaStock Formula Language. This language is somewhat similar to Microsoft Excel formulas. Custom indicators can be referenced by system tests, explorations, and expert advisors with the fml() function.

Formula Language

Custom indicators, system tests, explorations, and expert advisors are written using the MetaStock Formula Language. Loosely patterned after the Microsoft Excel formula language, the MetaStock Formula Language is tailored to the mathematics of technical analysis. There are 267 functions. Formulas can contain up to 2,500 characters (1,024 in the System Tester).

A formula that computes the difference between a 39-day and 200-day simple moving average is shown below:

mov(close, 39, simple) – mov(close, 200, simple)

Formulas can also contain conditional statements using IF/THEN/ELSE as shown below:

If(close > mov(close,200,exponential),1, -1)

This would read as “if the close is greater than a 200-day exponential moving average then plot a 1, else plot a -1. Formulas can use variables as shown below:

X:= 39; Y:=200; mov(close, X, simple) – mov(close, Y, simple)

Formulas can prompt the user for input when plotted as follows: X:= Input(“How many periods for the moving average?”, 10, 200, 40); Mov(close,X,simple)

In this example, the variable X can range from 10 to 200; it has a default value of 40. The value represented by the variable X is substituted in the moving average formula.

Forecasting

A new tool called The Forecaster was introduced with MetaStock version 13.0. This tool uses statistical analysis and other methods to analyze past events in order to forecast future price moves. This power tool is on par with the System Tester, Explorer and Expert Advisor and is accessible from MetaStock's Power Console. The primary mechanism for viewing forecasted prices with The Forecaster is with the patent-pending “Forecast Cloud”. The cloud allows you visualize high probability future price movement through an analysis of price action following past events (i.e.,. moving average crossovers, indicator overbought/oversold conditions, candlestick patterns, etc.). When version 14.0 was released the ability to forecast based on patterns (either hand drawn or copied from the chart) was introduced.

The forecast cloud can be overlaid directly on a chart to help see how the forecast performed in the past following each event. A forecast cloud can be projected beyond the most recent day in order to see projected price movement into the future thereby allowing traders to set profit targets, stops, etc. for better trade management. A detailed statistical report shows specific probabilities for forecasted prices including margin of error, standard deviation and other metrics.

67 built-in Event Recognizers include volatility-based indicators like Bollinger Bands and Chaikin A/D, momentum-based indicators like RSI and Stochastics, trend-based indicators like MACD, a variety of Moving Averages, and popular candlestick patterns.

Data Feeds

MetaStock uses data provided by Thomson Reuters Corporation.
Real-time
The real-time software uses XENITH. XENITH data packages cover the regions of North/South America (Americas), Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Asia/Pacific (APAC). All regions come with FOREX data.
End-of-Day
The end-of-day software uses DataLink. DataLink provides data from all of the world’s major markets including North/South America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia/Pacific.

Historical daily data coverage begins in 1980 for North American equities, indices, and mutual funds, and as far back as 1973 for some futures.

File Format

Data records for MetaStock include up to 11 fields including: Date, Trade time, Name, Ticker, Open price, High price, Low price, Close price, Volume, and Open Interest.

The legacy (pre-12.0) MetaStock file format is a binary file format and originated from the Computrac file format. There are four files associated with the format: MASTER, EMASTER, XMASTER, F*DAT, and F*.MWD.

Prior to version 12.0, MetaStock provided a utility for converting data to and from various formats including ASCII, Excel, Lotus 1-2-3 and TC2000. In Metastock 12 this utility was removed. MetaStock 12 cannot read legacy MetaStock file format files stored locally on the user's drive. MetaStock 12.0 and beyond access data through a live, direct connection from Thomson Reuters feeds (DataLink for end-of-day daily data and XENITH for real-time intraday data).

With MetaStock 13.0, local data access was reintroduced. In addition to accessing live data through a direct connection with Thomson Reuters feeds, MetaStock 13.0 will natively read locally stored Comma-Separated-Value (CSV) files.

MetaStock 15.0 expanded local data support to include a new file format (MSLocal) in addition to support for MetaStock's version 11 and prior file format (known as MetaStock Legacy in version 15). A new DownLoader application was created to support the new file format, download data, and assist users in converting their data to the new file format.

Add-Ons

Add-ons provide additional functionality to MetaStock. Add-ons can include the creator’s trading methodology by adding custom indicators, explorations, system tests, and expert advisors. Many Add-ons provide precise buy/sell signals based on the author’s trading methodology. For example, John Bollinger has created an Add-on that gives buy and sell signals based on his popular Bollinger Bands.

The following are available add-ons for MetaStock:

System Requirements for MetaStock