With the release of eSignal 8.0, we added a very nice enhancement to our Forex currency data, allowing you to view contributor specific quotes on currencies and crossrates. While this data is available to users on all current releases, there’s an advantage in upgrading to the latest release because you can also create contributor spreads. This article will show you how to find and make use of this enhanced data.

Talking about the data
Let’s start by explaining what’s in this new data set. The existing currency composites, such as the Japanese yen / U.S. dollar (JPY A0-FX), will all continue to be in the feed using the existing symbols. This includes forward rates, such as the 1 month rate for the Australian dollar / U.S. dollar (AUD M1-FX). You can continue to look at these symbols in Quote, Detail and Depth windows, as well as chart them. (See Figure 1 for a look at the Euro composite in several eSignal windows.)

These symbols are composites that contain quotes from hundreds of different contributors. They are great for taking an overall look at the currency market and for viewing the trend in a chart. However, they aren’t as good for looking at tradable quotes if you’re active in this market.

Figure 1: Euro composite in a Detail and Depth window, as well as in an Advanced Chart

As more and more Forex brokers pop up and users start becoming involved in trading currencies, we’ve seen the need to add the ability to see individual quotes rather than all the noise of a composite symbol. To this end, we’ve created separate symbols for every contributor of a quote in any currency or cross rate. This lets you view and chart specific quotes from a broker or contributor such as FXCM or HOTS.

What are the symbols?
To keep the symbology unique and easy for users to remember, we added the contributor to each composite symbol. The format is [Currency][@][Contributor] [Rate Type][-FX]. As an example, the spot rate for the Canadian dollar / U.S. dollar as quoted by GAIN would be CAD@GAIN A0-FX. Figure 2 has more examples of these new symbols.

Figure 2: Quote window with examples of individual contributor symbols

Although the symbology should be easy enough to follow, it’s important to note that not all contributors quote every currency. Some contributors only quote a handful of currencies and some currencies are only quoted by a handful of contributors. I bring this up because you can get into trouble waiting for data on a symbol such as GBP@GT A0-FX. The reason? GT doesn’t currently quote the British pound / U.S. dollar.

The two best places to find out which contributors quote a specific currency or cross rate are in the Time & Sales window and the Symbol Search. You can enter a composite symbol in a Time & Sales window, and you’ll see the contributors in the Bid Exchange and Ask Exchange columns as shown in Figure 3.

As you look at these contributors, you can pick any one of them to follow as an individual contributor symbol. As you can see in Figure 4, you will end up with fewer quotes, but each one is from the specific contributor that you want to follow.

Using the Symbol Search gives you an even better look at these new symbols. Figures 5 and 6 show examples of the types of searches you can do. If you’re looking for all the contributors that quote a specific currency, you can do a search type of Symbol and can enter something like HKD@* in the top entry field. This will give you all the contributor-specific symbols available for the Hong Kong dollar / U.S. dollar.

If you’d like to find all the cross rates as well, you can modify the search to *HKD*@*, which will look for HKD with another currency either before or after the HKD part of the symbol.

Figure 5: Using the Symbol Search to find contributors for the Hong Kong dollar

Another way to use the Symbol Search is to find all the currencies and cross rates that a specific contributor quotes. In this case, you would enter something like *@HASE*. In all cases, your search time will be reduced if you select Forex for both the exchange and instrument type filters. This limits the search to that specific part of the database rather than having the entire database searched.

You’ll get the same results even if you don’t use the filters, but it will take longer. Each of the searches described will give you results for spot and forward rates. However, if you’re interested in seeing only the spot rates, you can add A0-FX to the end of the search criteria, such as HKD@*A0-FX.

Figure 6: Using the Symbol Search to find all currencies that HASE quotes

The 8.0 advantage
As I previously mentioned, all of the preceding information can be used on all currently supported versions of eSignal. You can look at the individual contributors or composite symbols effectively on the older versions, but you gain the ability to do some comparisons using the recently release 8.0 version of eSignal.

With this newest version, you can do currency spreads that can be accurately formatted in any window type. This can be a big plus if you want to look at a comparison of the same currency between two contributors.

Figure 7 shows you a chart of the CHF@KZ A0-FX - CHF@LH A0-FX, which is a comparison of the Swiss franc. Using spreads like this, you can look for enough of a spread to potentially buy from one source and sell to another for a profit. Simple spreads can be entered directly into a chart, or you can use the Spread Symbol feature (under the Tools menu) to build bundles of spreads for easier use in other windows.

Figure 7: Currency spread of two contributors for the Swiss Franc in an Advanced Chart

Currencies trade in a fast-moving, 24-hour market, and these new symbols and tips should help you make the most of the data. Please take a look at what we’ve added if you’re currently following the Forex market, or consider finding out more about Forex if you’re not already actively trading currencies.

You can learn more about Forex broker partners on our main eSignal website and there’s a lot of great information about trading strategies at our eSignal Learning site.

Note: The charts in this article were captured from eSignal. To find out more about how you can get streaming, real-time quotes from all the markets, plus streaming charts, news and Market Depth, go to: www.esignal.com.