The Folder Average Tool calculates the average open, high, low, and close
of all securities in a folder. This is also known as a
price-weighted index. The calculation is a simple summation
of all values for each day, and then division by the number of securities
for each day. Volume and Open Interest are summed up, not averaged.
The Dow Jones Indices are price-weighted, although most others are
capitalization-weighted. Higher-priced issues in a price-weighted
index have a bigger influence on the index than lower-priced issues.
Load Info
Last Date - the last date of data to load.
Time Periods - the number of time periods
to load. Data will be loaded even if a security doesn't have the
specified time periods (e.g., if you specify 500 days, and a security has
400 days, it will still be loaded).
Require Data on Last Date - select this
option to force the program to only load securities that have data on the
last date specified. This assures that only securities that are
trading as of the last date are included, and prevents any "old"
securities from being included. Maybe you want those "old"
securities, maybe you don't. It's up to you.
"Smart-Adjust" the Average - if you just do a straight
average of every security in a folder, you'll get jumps up and down in the
average as stocks come public, or stop trading, or don't trade for a
day. If you select "Smart Adjust", the gaps created by
such activity will be filled (e.g., if XYZ doesn't trade on May 2, the
"Smart Adjust" would use the value from May 1).
MetaStock Folders - the calculation
folders. An average is calculated for each folder.
Add - select this button to add a new
folder (or folders if you select the "subfolders" checkbox) to
your list of folders.
Subfolders - select this checkbox before
pressing Add, and you'll be able to add all of the MetaStock folders below
a given folder to your calculation (e.g., if you select "C:\MetaStock
Data\Industry Groups", if will find every MetaStock folder below that
folder and add it to the list).
Remove - select this to remove a folder
from the calculation list.
Lists - once you've created a grouping of
folders, you'll probably want to save it in a List so you can load it
again later, or access it from another calculation tool.
Where's the data?
For maximum flexibility, the resulting
calculations are put in two places:
First, the averages are saved as MetaStock files
to a MetaStock folder of your choice (see Tools | SpyGlass Options to
change the folder). This
allows you to page through all of the resultant calculations.
Second, the averages can be retrieved by MetaStock
using the "ExtFml( "Folder Average.GetValue", Folder, Field) "
function. The "Folder" parameter is the name of the
MetaStock folder upon which the average was calculated (e.g., "My
Favorite Stocks"). The "Field" parameter is the price
field to retrieve, either OPEN, HIGH, LOW, CLOSE, VOLUME, or OPENINT.
This method allows you to use the calculations in explorations, custom
formulas, experts, and system tests. The data itself is actually
stored in an ASCII file in the same folder as the one specified for
MetaStock files.
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