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Each image takes about 250K bytes. If you keep switching pages, eventually you will run out of RAM and DollarLink will start using the hard disk to store page image files. (You never see these page image files because they are temporary and get deleted when you exit DollarLink.)
Naturally, storing on the hard disk is slower than storing in RAM. In an attempt to speed this operation we have added an option to compress these page image files. This compression is done on the fly and, depending on your PC and hard disk speed, may actually be as fast as the storing of the image in high RAM. The compression is quite effective -- about 4:1.
Of course, since DollarLink knows about this compression, it also knows how to decompress a page image file if it has to read it.
To enable this option, start DollarLink
$$ GRX [enter]
That tells DollarLink that if and when the time comes to put the page image to disk, it wll compress it on the fly.
DollarLin can also draw these 25%, 50%, 75% percent lines anytime you press Control+L . For greater resolution, if you press Control+O , DollarLink will draw 20%, 40%, 60% and 80% lines.
For even greater resolution, we have now added the drawing of 5%, 10%, 15%,20%, 25%,...,95% lines. Press Control+M and DollarLink will draw these lines across the active window.
You will now also see a (N) in the upper left corner of each graph window where that stock is displayed. This should make it more convenient for you if you spend most of the time in the graphics mode. (Of course, the best solution is to add a monochrome monitor/graphics card so that you can have both text and graphics active at the same time.)
For the past year or so we've been looking at the age-old problem of defining price trends. Conventional wisdom says that markets trend only about 20% of the time, and the rest of the time they just oscillate.
We don't know how accurate this 20% of the time claim is, but intuitively it seems right. We are more concerned with finding some -- preferably mechanical -- system that identifies trends.
The whole idea of finding a reliable indication of a trend is controversial. After all, it's like trying to predict the future. Physicists will tell you it cannot be done, but, as a saying goes, Most rocket scientists are not rich. The markets are not governed by laws of physics, but by greed and fear. If psychology and sociology weren't such dismal sciences, we should be using them.
Controversy aside, having looked at most conventional technical analysis concepts that attempt to quantify trends, we don't see much success there. A lot of the popular tools seem to work great, but when you do a quantitative win-lose analysis, their probabilities hover near the 50-50 level. (Perhaps that's why many successful traders don't try to beat the odds, but, instead, concentrate on disciplined money management tactics.)
We did come across a methodology we reported in this newsletter (and added to DollarLink as the High Chance option) that looks only at very short-term trends in day-to-day commodities trading. The High Chance system has been tested historically and some commodities do have high probabilities of success.
Most recently we've been looking at trend persistency, which is a compact way of describing the reliability of a trend. In other words, once you think you have a trend, how long will it persist?
Rather than concentrating on what signal-generating tool to use, this approach tries to select trading instruments that have historically proven to have a better persistency than others.
To identify trends, we've used most of the standard technical analysis studies, as well as some chaos theory and statistics. It is interesting to note that the choice of a trend-identifying tool is less important than the choice of a proper trading instrument. In other words, you can't win a race with a bad horse even if you have the best jockey.
So far we have found significant levels of persistency only in day-to-day and month-to-month trading of some mutual funds, not stocks or commodities.
We are continuing our research in this area and will keep you posted.
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