I just updated the stock Excel CAT tool to use RTD instead of the now defunct DDE. This only works on Excel for Windows unfortunately. You can go download it now from my Google Site under Released Tools in the Donors Only folder. If you already donated in the past you can use your password to access it. If you want to become a donor (or throw me some more coin) you can do so by clicking the Donate button:
If you want to learn more about the CAT, the original blog entry is found here.
If you are a DDE user you’ve noticed that it’s broken after this latest Think Desktop update. I just got word from the developers that they are looking to release improved capability this coming weekend. Now, please remember that development estimates are just that: estimates. This weekend is the goal. Don’t burn down your local village if it doesn’t happen on time. 😉
What they have should be better than the old DDE in terms of what we could do with it. It’s not two-way interaction with ToS, so done get that excited. It’s faster and more improved data handling that should be much easier to work with and more powerful for data handling inside of Excel. I’ll update as I know more.
If you are having trouble with DDE links to Think or Swim with Excel 2010, and your Excel application hangs, then make sure you don’t have the Google Chrome browser running. For some weird reason, the links don’t work if Chrome is open, but if you close it then they start working again.
I’ve got an Excel sheet working that will send you an email upon a cell value changing. Right now it requires a Gmail account. I’ll try to generalize it as much as I can. I plan on releasing it as a free tool when it’s done. Then you can use it in your own DDE spreadsheets. I will also incorporate it into the CAT tool for donors. And I will also update the ability to stream custom columns from TOS through DDE in all my tools, thanks to reader Allen, and put up a full tutorial to walk you through setting it up. No ETA, could be a couple of weeks.
Donors rejoice: It’s finally here! My Complex Analysis Tool (CAT) for Think or Swim. This tool is an extension of my TOS_Excel_DDE tools, with the addition of macros that record the data at time intervals you choose. I covered the full how-to on DDE linking in a previous post. An earlier version is what I used to create the plots in these two posts.
The CAT tool comes pre-configured to take the S&P 500 and calculate an Advancing / Declining Volume for the index in real time. You can get data as often as every second. If the price of a stock now is above the price at the last time step, then the volume for that stock since the last step is positive. Vice versa for down. The result is summed for the whole list and then plotted. Here’s an example plot:
You could adapt this tool to other calculations or stock watch lists. Instructions are in the file; hopefully it’s self explanatory, but I can answer any questions you may have as you try to modify it to your needs.
The CAT tool is for donors only. You can download the file “CAT_TOS_DDE_Recorder.zip” from the Donors Only folder under the “Released Tools” section on my Google Site. If you haven’t yet become a blog donor, you can do so now by clicking the donate button. Donate an amount you feel my tools are worth to you.
If you want me to make you a custom version of the CAT tool, you can also email me for a price quote. Thanks for your support!
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