Updata vs AIQ

[Joe]

Hi,
I'msorry you are effected by it, but a t least it's not just me !

I agree wholeheartedly with the advice you give , it will be right , but only because the likes of you and me make it so. There is no quality control, and I say that having done the job. With all due respect to programmer, they are always able to demonstrate that the program works. What matters is how it handles the unexpected, how it cdpes with errors or different entry sequences. Trader 11 is hopeless at this at the moment.

As the man says, steer clear fo now, ask for a demonstration, check with others BEFORE you part with any money.

p.s. (for Mike's benefit) Onnerappy!

Regards
Joe

 

[troyresearch]

Updata vs. AIQ

Updata are very anxious that I should renew my subscription with them which expires shortly and at the same time upgrade to Trader Pro II. I am not so sure and am thinking of putting the money towards AIQ.

Does anyone have any experience of TP II, is it any less problematic than TP I? Dr Iraj was pretty scathing about TP I, indeed my copy is currently crashing every single time I try and use Analytics. I haven't bothered trying to sort it out because I am so close to the end of my subscription.

Hi Oggie

I can't comment on Updata as I haven't had any experience of using it (although am interested).

However, I have been using AIQ for some months and thought you might be interested to learn of my experience of the package.

I would preface my comments by saying that I came to AIQ as a relative TA virgin, so not the most auspicious start when you combine this with having to master what can be a complicated program in itself.

The EDS functionality of AIQ is great if you can get your head round how to program it. Having shirked anything formula-related during my school years, again this hasn't got me off to the best start. I've sensed a distinct lack of willingness to help out with these problems from AIQ themselves and its UK representative (although the latter has held out the prospect of some training courses, albeit at a further cost, later on this year).

To balance what I've said above, there are several AIQ BB's, the users of which are really friendly and will certainly help out if they can -- some will even go so far as to write code for you.

To me it appears that Updata are a little more pro-active in the way it chooses to manage its relationships with users, but would be interested to hear back from you on this.

Turning to your point re data management, this has been my real bete noire with AIQ. Most users opt for taking data feeds from Prestel or US outfit myTrack. I use the latter. I have identified ongoing issues with specific tickers, but no more than I would imagine coming across with any data vendors. After each data download a list of potential discrepancies is generated to a message log. This is where the time-consuming housekeeping comes in. This can be cut down by keeping smaller ticker lists (namely, deleting those stocks which trade below a certain value/volume). But I do find the lack of automation in this process to be a real drag.

While I came into both TA with eyes wide open, I had presumed that one of the key benefits of [expensive] analysis software packages was to filter out as much noise as possible, freeing users up to get on with doing what they do best.

After a few months of using AIQ I fear I am retreating into the lair of anoraks, spending ever-greater amounts of time hunched over a keyboard just trying to fathom out the functionality.

I know I'm not alone among UK users, many similar thoughts have been expressed on the AIQ BB's. One comforting thought is that through sheer perseverance and enough badgering of its UK rep to organise training sessions that I'll eventually get something useful out of this package.

I'd be interested to learn more about your experience of using Updata as I have been mulling over taking on this system either in parallel with or in replacement of AIQ. It does appear to be much more user-friendly and user support also appears to be several notches above that of AIQ, but perhaps you'd care to elaborate?

All the best,

Troy

 

[RogerM]

Troy,

I use AIQ with Prestel Citifeed for eod data, but use Mytrack for R/T data for futures, or historic data for any index or commodity not included in Prestel. I find the Prestel data much more reliable for eod data than Mytrack and have had none of the trouble yu describe with data handling. Indeed I would regard ease of data handling as one of the main AIQ strengths. Any rogue data, new issues, splits and capitalisations are covered by the weekly data maintenance file sent by Trendline UK, the UK agent.

If you are new to AIQ you may find the following note I wrote for a friend of some use. If it is insultingly simple tho please accept my apologies in advance!

*******


Reports are easy. Select "Reports" from the tool bar.
In Reports, go to Generate/Set up parameters.
Tick stocks, group and market log under the "generate daily" column. Tick stocks and groups under the "end of week" column.

The weekly return on investment report that I post here will only generate at the end of a week, once you have Friday's data. You can check this though by selecting generate/generate all. This will give you the opportunity to input the date that you wish to generate reports for. Put in a date for any Friday and the system will produce both daily and weekly reports to that date. You will find the return on investment report under
Weekly Group Reports in the listing down the left hand side of your screen.

Once you have generated reports, you can drop the results into a reports group so that you can see charts of all tickers in that report.

With a report on screen, click the "build report list" icon ( little screen with the yellow square) on your toolbar and this will drop the contents of that report into a charting group called reports and will take you to the
charts screen automatically. If you still have the list of indicators down the right hand side of the screen, press enter, and these will be replaced by a column of symbols for the tickers in your list. You can then view them in turn, either by clicking on the one you want to view, or by going down in sequence using the arrow down key.

If you want to view a group from a group report, click on the group you want to view, and then click on the chart icon on the reports toolbar. This will take you to that group chart. Now select UK List from the drop down menu in the centre of your charts tool bar, and press enter if you still have the indicators to the right of your screen. This will show you the group symbol with all the shares in that group listed below. You can then view them in turn as before.

Hope this helps.

 

[troyresearch]

Hi Roger

Thanks alot for the posting and for the note on reports, much appreciated.

Generating reports has been the easy part for me - the harder part has been trying to write EDS code for my various trading strategies.

I've found the folks on the AIQ BB's really helpful, as I mentioned in my previous posting. Just a shame this isn't backed up by a more proactive AIQ or UK agent for the same.

Thanks for the tip on Prestel - I take it this only covers UK markets though? Anyhow, I'll give Bob a call and sound him out on it.

Thanks again

Troy

 

[stone]

Hi Everybody

Trader Pro 11, what can I say?
Data mining does not work.
Price alerts do not work.
No cash management facility.
Plus a host of other annoying little glitches.
This is a package that Updata claim to have tested for 6 months yet two of the "must have" parts of the package are not working eg. data mining & alerts.
Call me a cynic if you like, but after spending almost £600 to upgrade should we really have to put up with a product that does not do what it claims. Just a little more time spent testing the product would save us and Updata an awful lot of frustration and hot air. Perhaps boys and girls, we should offer our services for the next major upgrade to put the software through its paces!! before release
Have been a loyal Updata Trader user since its birth a few years ago and I'am normally of a mild disposition but you can only be pushed so far, we all have our limits.

stone

 

[madasafish]

Stone
Hard luck.
Be like me: I've now returned it and asked for my money back.

And did they not offer you a discount for upgrading?

Mike

 

[Burney]

Trader II

Hi All,
Adding as promised my comments on Trader II-got it yesterday and after couple of false starts last nights and one re-install seems to be working OK.First impressions are good with some real benefits over old package-Intraday Charts worth using-much more TA Indicators and some nice touches like recent direction of ticks and ability to put news tags on indivdual shares in Quotescreen.Still lots more to try to use but will keep folks updated.As for the Portfolio bit disappointing but guess they dont want to get it to near to what Fairshares does or they could be shooting themselves in the foot.Overall though so far thumbs up.

 

[Joe]

Hi Burney,

I am being promised a further patch version tonight or tomorrow, which will go towards answering a number of my complaints.

At present there are too many problems to warrant purchase, in my opinion, but I will post again once I have teted the patch.

Check your version, I am on build 234 13th March 2001, JVM 1.1.4

Regards and very good luck
Joe

 

[Burney]

Trader II

Hi Joe,
Thanks for the message-I am on Build 234-hopefully it sorts out most of the glitches-but I havent tried to use a lot of the programme yet.It does get annoying htough when companies release stuf that isnt stable or needs constant patches to get it to do the job that you paid for-anyway lets hope things dont get worse and hopefully speedily improve.

Take Care

Alan

 

[stone]

Hi Burney & Joe

Found any improvement in build 235?
Have they sorted out any of the main faults eg. data mining, price alerts, tickerbars? I cannot see any improvement at all, or perhaps I do not understand the system and I'am not setting up properly.
Looking forward to your views.

Regards Stone

 

[Uncle]

From a non user point of view, looking from the sidelines, it sounds as though the customers are being expected to find the bugs in the system. Meanwhile, time is money, so guess you should also be asking for some recompense for your time. Might be more in it than a profit from the market in these current times!!!

Good luck

John

 

[Joe]

Hi Stone,

I downloaded Build 235 last night and installed it hoping for great things.

The 235 Build has not made any discernible improvements. The software has 4 main features: -

1. Portfolio- using the icon button from the bottom bar and selecting load existing still freezes the program and can only be rectified by switching off the power to the computer. There is still no cash management system; The Broker system does not calculate stamp duty and the edit button merely allows commission rates to be set.

2. Newstore; I am still unable to access historical data, and , I am still without any saved data for March.

3. Analysis: I have been unable to spend too much time testing this, as it is impossible to save a chart. It appears to work but there is no point spending time if the work cannot be saved.

4. Quotescreen: This is the best feature at present. Except for the quick column, which duplicates itself, and the recent arrows, which ignore the colour settings, it is very good. However one of its main features, much talked about in adverts and magazine articles by David Linton, is the Stock picking facilities. These do not work and obviously have not been tested properly. A simple example is to seek the new high and new lows of shares within the FTSE350. Using the same parameters for the search you get identical reports, both listing in alphabetical order.

I am embarrassed to say that after 3 weeks and 4 downloads of builds, I have given up, thrown in the towel, accepted defeat. I am the weakest link.

I have asked for my money back under the Sale of Goods Act provisions, followed this up by e-mail and taken the opportunity to look up the telephone number of Wandsworth Trading Standards, just in case. I am not expecting a battle.

The software will be excellent once it is all working, it's just taking too long for me to bother with anymore. I will be one of the first to buy it once it has been demonstrated to work. The Updata staff are all very professional, but they have lacked adequate testing and quality control in my opinion and in any event Updata has done itself a great disfavour in releasing software with so many problems.

Obviously the above is my own personal opinion based on my experiences, others may well have drawn different conclusions from the same experience.

Sad, but it's hit my stop loss and must go,
Regards and very good luck
Joe

 

[Joe]

Hi Uncle,

John, once again I find myself agreeing with you.
LOL

Joe

 

[Uncle]

Joe, the wise old owls will always stick together !!!!

John

 

[Burney]

Continuing the Saga

Hi Guys,
Ref Trader II-I am loath to say this in case it all comes tumbling down on top of me-but things seem to be working OK (although not tried all features yet). I had some problems with the data mining and charts but that was due to me not setting things up properly -helpdesk got it going.Portfolio is a mess but I use Fairshares so not such a bother although it should work as we are paying for it.Like Joe I think that it will be an excellent programme when it is as stable as Trader pro was-but since I am not having as many porbs I will stick with it for now.Issue for Updata is that in future I will be waiting for a good while before I trade up agan to any new progs.Hope things get better for you guys.Overall I think they have a great package in the making but have not done themselves any favours in the short term