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The Sample portfolio contains data for gold, oil, S&P 500, and 30 Yr T bonds; the data is not be current, but
if your data vendor supplies this data in CSI format, you will be able to directly update those files in the
Sample portfolio. You can also change the name of this Sample portfolio, add other data files to it, or delete
the entire portfolio and all of these files. The first data file in the Sample.txt portfolio file will be loaded first,
and will be seen at the top of this Data file grid, located right below the Portfolios Available grid. See the
Techsignal™ article Building Portfolios in Techsignal™ for more information on working with portfolios.
If you have built a favorite portfolio, this portfolio file of your favorite data symbols can be edited in a text
editor (Techsignal™ supplies a Notepad icon in the upper right corner of the graph analysis screen), and
allow you to change the portfolio name so that this favorite portfolio appears on the first line of the Portfolios
Available grid.
To select a specific data file, you must first double click on the portfolio with the desired data (Portfolios
Available grid), and the Date type grid below will be populated with the data symbols in that portfolio. Find
the data file you want (remember that only one data file at a time can be analyzed), and click on the file
name (i.e., highlight it), and the file will be ready to be analyzed.
You can also load an individual data file from the Windows menu without first having to create any portfolio.
Hit the File command and then choose the data type you wish to load. This process allows you to choose
one single file to load from your data source. No portfolio will be created.
One you have selected a specific file to load, there are five choices:
1) select or change data compression—daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly. In the financial markets,
these choices are apparent: in one year there are 252 trading days in a year (can vary slightly), 52.14
weeks, 12 months, and 4 quarters.
2) begin new analysis (starts a fresh Techsignal™ cyclic analysis);
3) load a previously saved analysis (check “Previous Analysis” under Types of Analysis on the upper right);
4) graph the data only (choice below Previous Analysis); and
5) single cycle analysis (you will be asked to input a cycle length of your own choosing, and Techsignal™
will analyze the validity of that cycle, and provide a statistical measure of its persistence and reliability).
Data Compression is changed by selecting the appropriate icon on the Toolbar at the top of the screen. Be
aware when changing the Data compress, especially the Quarterly and Yearly options, because rarely do
files contain enough data to run these options; no big deal, but you may have to reboot the Techsignal™
program. Data Compression can only be used from a daily data starting point.
There are a few other choices in selecting your data such as interpolation and transformations. For the
most part these parameters should remain default values until you are comfortable with the Techsignal™
program. Economic data are usually analyzed with a ROC transformation while most other data like stocks
use logs.
When data are missing in your data stream, due to a lack of data or a holiday or a vendor mistake, we
repeat the previous data point in the file where the missing data should have been. This process is called
interpolation. We strongly recommend the use of interpolation and the default is Yes. Again, these and any
other program defaults can be changed through the Program Defaults button on this Main Menu Data Input
screen.
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