As you may have noticed, we haven’t come out with a new version of eSignal since last year. So, let me give you an idea of what we’ve been doing and list a handful of features coming with the next version of eSignal, due out by the end of April.

As eSignal has evolved, we’ve focused on different areas of the application and on different segments of the trading population. Over the past nine months, we’ve been zeroing in on the interests of futures traders. Another version of eSignal due out in July will take into account the interests of our institutional base. We will describe those new features in a future article.

For futures traders, we’ve been working hard to integrate the FutureSource and eSignal technologies to improve both platforms. We’re leveraging the data sets and understanding of the futures market from the FutureSource side of our company and combining that with the architecture and data network of the eSignal side to build an infrastructure that will help take both product lines to the next level.

Later this month, we’ll be releasing the next version of the eSignal application. This will include a handful of new data elements in addition to continued improvements to the Market Profile window. We’ve also put more time into the spread engine to allow users more ability to control the formatting of the data when creating user-defined spreads.

The new data elements will be available in our Level I windows, such as Quote, Summary and Detail. The first new field is called Settlement. Many futures contracts send out a settlement price at the end of a trading session; however, they continue to send out updates. When this happens, the Last Price field will display the settlement price, as well as show an S in the Tic / Close / Settlement field to indicate that the contract has stopped trading.

Unfortunately, that settlement price is replaced by subsequent updates, and users have no way to go back and see that settlement price. This new field will display the settlement price and hold it there while the Last Price field continues to update.

Along with this, comes a second field called Settlement Date. This field will display the date of the settlement price, so there’s no confusion. As you get near the end of a day’s session, we want to make sure you have a way to tell if the settlement price is from the prior day’s session or from the current session. This will also become helpful for you to see which contracts have settled when you have multiple sessions.

We have also added an Electronic Volume field. Contracts that trade electronically have real-time volume associated with them even though the exchange’s official volume won’t come out until the following day. We’ll be able to display this electronically traded volume while the standard Volume field continues to display the prior day’s official volume with this new field.

We decided against merging the fields to avoid problems with backwards compatibility and to avoid creating problems for the many third party software applications that work with the eSignal datafeed. Because this is a volume field, it will be ordered in the fields list with the standard Volume field. The list is in alphabetical order, so it will be listed as Volume, Electronic.

New Settlement and Electronic Volume Fields in a Quote Window

Previously, we added the spread engine, which gave users the ability to create complex spreads and ratios. While we added the ability to control the decimal placement of the spread, it still left users unable to display the resulting symbol in some of the non-standard formats, such as with treasuries and grains.

The new additions to the spread engine allow a user to view data in these formats. If you don’t select one of the decimal formats and leave it set to default, the results will be displayed in the format of the first symbol in the spread. If you’re comparing two treasuries, the result will now show that same format, and you’ll be able to see it in 32nds instead of straight decimal.

When you are comparing two symbols of different formats, you will also have the ability to see the result in one of the root symbol formats instead of just in decimal form. This should give you a better look at the different symbol combinations you want to follow.

Nob (Treasury Spread) in Advanced Chart Using the New Spread Formatting

Although the number of new and updated features isn’t as large as some users may want, we’d like you to understand that most of the work that has been done is behind the scenes at our network and server level. These improvements will be dramatic because these features will be coupled with an even better set of data.

Look to this article in future issues of the Exchange for more updates that will describe improvements in the data, such as exchange-traded spreads, multi-session and composite symbols and deeper historical data of up to 30 years, in many cases.

Later this year, you’ll get a chance to see and experience these improvements, which will help you realize how all of this work will enhance your trading experience. In the meantime, please watch for the new release later this month.

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.