Hello valuelive, Just the actual data should be preferred. Not necessary to pad for dates prior to the symbol first trading on the exchange.
Moreover, if you wish; AmiBroker can pad/unpad temporarily with reference to your MASTER SYMBOL (May be a Market Index as per your choice) with previous close value etc. Go through the manual and use the program, there will be many pleasant surprises. Valuelive, having own databases generally requires more than one sttempt at setting up the things. The time taken and distance with target results keeps on going down exponentailly with each attempt. I find it really rare to have someone maintaining own database. Please see if the cost of time and effort matches the benefit you get out of it. Although some of the benefits/edges may just be priceless. These days, not many TA programs enable the user to maintain/use own databases; Amibroker seems to be one of the rare ones that make many things easier in this area. Good luck in your efforts. With regards Sanjiv Bansal --- In amibroker@yahoogroups.com, "valuelive" <valuem...@...> wrote: > > Hi All > > I am in the process of setting up my first AB database. Is it necessary (or > preferable) for all symbols to contain data over the same period of time? > > If so, should I pad symbols with zero and price and volume data for non > trading weekdays and for dates prior to the symbol first trading on the > exchange? > > If not, then presumably it is ok (or even preferable)that the amount of data > for each symbol within a database is variable (i.e. no padding with zero > data). > > Assuming that AB does not itself place any data length consistency > requirements to perform correctly, what are the pros and cons of each > approach from a technical analysis point of view? > > kind regards > valuelive >
