If you do purchase a charting program, such as MetaStock, you will require a data supplier to provide you with the price and volume figures for all shares on the ASX each day. Your charting program will then add this data to its ongoing history and convert it into charts for you to view.
Data is the key component and the most important part of charting. There are a lot of data providers available, but not all of these are good quality. To be able to make accurate trading decisions in the market, you must ensure that you have a quality data supplier. If your data includes gaps, incorrect prices and does not adjust share prices when shares split in price, then you have bad data. Find a supplier that will guarantee clean and accurate data on a daily basis.
Make sure your data provider has a good history of error-free data and also provides custom folders. Custom folders are very important and not all data providers offer them. The benefit of having custom folders is that you can actually run a scan on a set selection of stocks (such as the S&P/ASX 200 or 300), or a selected market sector, and so on.
I use custom folders for all my MetaStock scans. I run my weekly trading system scans on the ASX 300 folder of shares and my daily system scans over my CFD providers folder of CFD shares. You can find out more about my trading systems by click here.
I personally use DataHQ and you can find out more information about this supplier by visiting www.smarttradingdata.com.au.
DataHQ has a good reputation for accurate data and it offers custom folders. Also, DataHQ is the only data supplier I am aware of that offers monthly subscriptions and you can upgrade and downgrade your subscription as required. Most suppliers offer annual packages.
Be aware that your data provider will most likely offer you a range of data packages. You will be asked which stock exchange you want to receive data for and how often you want to receive that data - intraday, end-of-day or next day.
Having intraday data usually means that you can download the data hourly. End-of-day data is delivered at the end of each trading day and next-day data arrives the following day. Obviously, next-day data is much cheaper than intraday data, but your choice will depend on what style of trader you are. I use intraday data because I make all my trading decisions at 3.30 pm, half an hour before the market closes. If you work full-time and only get a chance to check the market in the evening, then end-of-day data may suffice. If you are a long-term investor and are only interested in checking the charts every few days, then next-day data would be suitable.
When you set yourself up with a data provider you actually have to download the data provider's downloader program and each day you open this program to download your data. Your charting program will then read this data and convert it into charts.
You will also need to purchase the 10 year data history file (which is a one off cost) and download it.
Then once you have the data history and downloader program set-up. Open the downloader program and update the data to the most current date.
Then open your charting program and locate the data by opening a chart. If you have DataHQ data all the data is located under your local C drive in a folder called 'Trading Data'.
Watch the videos below to assist you with the data set-up process.
This video will show you how to set-up your DataHQ account and use the updater program.
Tip: If your connection is slow just hit the pause button and wait a minute for the video to load (the red line next to the play button moves across the screen), then press play again.
This video will show you how to use the data updater program and set-up custom folders so you can run a Metastock scan over a specific list of shares such as the ASX 300.
