thoughts on how difficult this database would be to make?

I'm a newbie, and while I wouldn't mind learning access at some point,
for now I need it for one purpose, which takes precedence time-wise I
trade stocks (futures, actually), and would like to go back and track
how (we'll use stock for this purpose) behaved each day at the open.

Let me explain my purpose: A stock may "gap up" or "gap down", meaning
it's price opens at a price different from where it closed the day
before. Often that gap will be filled, meaning the price will go back
down (if it was a gap up) to the previous day's close. I want to track
how often it did that, how often it went only 1/2 way, how much it
went up before doing it, what day of the week it was, etc., with
several different criteria

I had started to compile it in excel, but quickly had an AHA moment
and realized this was a database I needed. Here are the categories I
have that I want to track, and then be able to search based on several
criteria. I imagine I want to creat several different tables, but it
seems to me the hardest part, and hardest to learn, is how I want it
organized. Which categories in which/how many tables. Is this more
daunting than I initially imagined (which was thinking it wouldn't
take long). Here are the categories:

DATE AMOUNT OF GAP UP DOWN % Filled Minutes it took
to Fill How Much Up before Filling, etc., etc.

I hope that's clear. TIA!

You aren't yet at the point where Access is the main consideration.
You need to do the front end steps first:

Problem Statement
What are the issues at hand? All of them. List all you can think
of so that you'll know you've considered them.

Solution Statement
List just those issues in the Problem Statement that will be
solved in the current release of your solution application. List them
as solved. This document doesn't even deal with the specific
strategies you'll use to provide each solution.

Those don't need to be large documents. They're there to help you
focus on what you're doing. You already have a good start with your
post. They will cause you to decide what you're doing in advance
rather than taking a swipe at building something and adding features
along the way. That last is called the Creeping Feature Syndrome.
It's a sure way to make a small project drag on for a long time.

Those documents are done well enough when you could hand them to a
competent software developer and s/he could use them to build an
application for you without continually referring back to you to fill
in gaps.

Once you have them in hand you're ready to create your functional
specification and preliminary design. Your choice of development
tools comes into play here.

I think that you're still wrestling with what you want it to do. If I
were working with you I'd surely be running some other ideas before
you for consideration even in the first release. How about trending,
charting of various things, etc.? I just imagine that you're trying
to identify where the best risk/reward ratios seem to be. You might
also want the same kinds of information for given stocks or futures
characterized over seasons or years.

If you want to have your solution right away then I recommend that you
have it done for you. The biggest issue is getting defined what you
want. Once that is done (best with the help of a developer) then what
might be a fairly simple piece of work for a competent developer could
be months of strain and pain for a newbie.

HTH
--
-Larry-
--

"Jack" wrote in message
...
I'm a newbie, and while I wouldn't mind learning access at some
point,
for now I need it for one purpose, which takes precedence time-wise
I
trade stocks (futures, actually), and would like to go back and
track
how (we'll use stock for this purpose) behaved each day at the open.

Let me explain my purpose: A stock may "gap up" or "gap down",
meaning
it's price opens at a price different from where it closed the day
before. Often that gap will be filled, meaning the price will go
back
down (if it was a gap up) to the previous day's close. I want to
track
how often it did that, how often it went only 1/2 way, how much it
went up before doing it, what day of the week it was, etc., with
several different criteria

I had started to compile it in excel, but quickly had an AHA moment
and realized this was a database I needed. Here are the categories I
have that I want to track, and then be able to search based on
several
criteria. I imagine I want to creat several different tables, but it
seems to me the hardest part, and hardest to learn, is how I want it
organized. Which categories in which/how many tables. Is this more
daunting than I initially imagined (which was thinking it wouldn't
take long). Here are the categories:

DATE AMOUNT OF GAP UP DOWN % Filled Minutes it took
to Fill How Much Up before Filling, etc., etc.

I hope that's clear. TIA!

Jack wrote:
I'm a newbie, and while I wouldn't mind learning access at some point,
for now I need it for one purpose, which takes precedence time-wise I
trade stocks (futures, actually), and would like to go back and track
how (we'll use stock for this purpose) behaved each day at the open.

Let me explain my purpose: A stock may "gap up" or "gap down", meaning
it's price opens at a price different from where it closed the day
before. Often that gap will be filled, meaning the price will go back
down (if it was a gap up) to the previous day's close. I want to track
how often it did that, how often it went only 1/2 way, how much it
went up before doing it, what day of the week it was, etc., with
several different criteria

I had started to compile it in excel, but quickly had an AHA moment
and realized this was a database I needed. Here are the categories I
have that I want to track, and then be able to search based on several
criteria. I imagine I want to creat several different tables, but it
seems to me the hardest part, and hardest to learn, is how I want it
organized. Which categories in which/how many tables. Is this more
daunting than I initially imagined (which was thinking it wouldn't
take long). Here are the categories:

DATE AMOUNT OF GAP UP DOWN % Filled Minutes it took
to Fill How Much Up before Filling, etc., etc.

I hope that's clear. TIA!

You're right - this is a natural application for Access, or any
"relational" database. The essential step is to get your tables right.
I'd guess one Stock could have many Gaps? A classic one-to-many
relationship, suggesting a table for Stocks, and a table for Gaps which
would contain a reference to a specific stock.

A bit of terminology: A table has a fixed number of fields (e.g. DATE)
and an arbitrary number of records.

You might like to watch a brief video I suggested here earlier (and
which apparently went down well):
http://www.lynda.com/home/Player.aspx?lpk4=13150
(I've no connection with this site, other than as a satisfied customer).

Suggest you think about what tables you might need, and post back.

Phil, London

Thanks for the great feedback. As I was creating the columns in excel
I realized what you're pointing out - the Creeping Feature Syndrome
had come upon me. There are a few other things I'm looking for that I
didn't include in my post, as I simply wanted some "for instances".
I was hoping there might be a template out there, to which I'd have to
simply add some fields or more tables, because as you say, knowing how
it all should be organized will be a big aspect, and that's where a
template - or ideally, a developer, would come into play. And I
imagine where some "how-to" articles on the net won't really cut it.

I'm actually not planning on this being as all-encompassing as you
might imagine. The intent is simply for one type of trade, a gap play,
wherein you "fade" the gap, but the liklihood of that occurring is
affected by several variables, which are the things I was planning on
including: size of gap, day of week, whether on options expiration or
not, first or last day of the month (those are all things that have
been identified by a previous study, but which is a few years old) and
I wanted to add in: how large of a stop one needs to allow for prior
to the gap filling (your risk-reward aspect), how its affected by what
type of day it was the day before, if the gap was caused by a news
announcement at 8:30AM, an hour before the open. And I was only
looking at using it on the DOW and S&P, no stocks. Just didn't know
what terminology to use here for possible non-traders. Wasn't
considering seasonality or trends, either. But your points are very
well-taken, and indeed, outside help may be the answer. Thanks again
for taking the time and effort in your response!

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:59:44 -0800, "Larry Daugherty"
wrote:

You aren't yet at the point where Access is the main consideration.
You need to do the front end steps first:

Problem Statement
What are the issues at hand? All of them. List all you can think
of so that you'll know you've considered them.

Solution Statement
List just those issues in the Problem Statement that will be
solved in the current release of your solution application. List them
as solved. This document doesn't even deal with the specific
strategies you'll use to provide each solution.

Those don't need to be large documents. They're there to help you
focus on what you're doing. You already have a good start with your
post. They will cause you to decide what you're doing in advance
rather than taking a swipe at building something and adding features
along the way. That last is called the Creeping Feature Syndrome.
It's a sure way to make a small project drag on for a long time.

Those documents are done well enough when you could hand them to a
competent software developer and s/he could use them to build an
application for you without continually referring back to you to fill
in gaps.

Once you have them in hand you're ready to create your functional
specification and preliminary design. Your choice of development
tools comes into play here.

I think that you're still wrestling with what you want it to do. If I
were working with you I'd surely be running some other ideas before
you for consideration even in the first release. How about trending,
charting of various things, etc.? I just imagine that you're trying
to identify where the best risk/reward ratios seem to be. You might
also want the same kinds of information for given stocks or futures
characterized over seasons or years.

If you want to have your solution right away then I recommend that you
have it done for you. The biggest issue is getting defined what you
want. Once that is done (best with the help of a developer) then what
might be a fairly simple piece of work for a competent developer could
be months of strain and pain for a newbie.

HTH
--
-Larry-

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:01:32 +0000, Philip Herlihy
wrote:

Jack wrote:
I'm a newbie, and while I wouldn't mind learning access at some point,
for now I need it for one purpose, which takes precedence time-wise I
trade stocks (futures, actually), and would like to go back and track
how (we'll use stock for this purpose) behaved each day at the open.

Let me explain my purpose: A stock may "gap up" or "gap down", meaning
it's price opens at a price different from where it closed the day
before. Often that gap will be filled, meaning the price will go back
down (if it was a gap up) to the previous day's close. I want to track
how often it did that, how often it went only 1/2 way, how much it
went up before doing it, what day of the week it was, etc., with
several different criteria

I had started to compile it in excel, but quickly had an AHA moment
and realized this was a database I needed. Here are the categories I
have that I want to track, and then be able to search based on several
criteria. I imagine I want to creat several different tables, but it
seems to me the hardest part, and hardest to learn, is how I want it
organized. Which categories in which/how many tables. Is this more
daunting than I initially imagined (which was thinking it wouldn't
take long). Here are the categories:

DATE AMOUNT OF GAP UP DOWN % Filled Minutes it took
to Fill How Much Up before Filling, etc., etc.

I hope that's clear. TIA!

You're right - this is a natural application for Access, or any
"relational" database. The essential step is to get your tables right.
I'd guess one Stock could have many Gaps? A classic one-to-many
relationship, suggesting a table for Stocks, and a table for Gaps which
would contain a reference to a specific stock.

A bit of terminology: A table has a fixed number of fields (e.g. DATE)
and an arbitrary number of records.

You might like to watch a brief video I suggested here earlier (and
which apparently went down well):
http://www.lynda.com/home/Player.aspx?lpk4=13150
(I've no connection with this site, other than as a satisfied customer).

Suggest you think about what tables you might need, and post back.

Phil, London
Thanks much for the response! Will check out the video, and together
with the other excellent response, will decide whether this is within
my scope or not. I was just planning on using this for one trade per
day, per instrument (actually the DOW and S&P futures, not any
stocks). So fairly narrow in application, but a lot of variables.
Thanks again!

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:04:05 -0500, Jack wrote:

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:01:32 +0000, Philip Herlihy
wrote:

Jack wrote:
I'm a newbie, and while I wouldn't mind learning access at some point,
for now I need it for one purpose, which takes precedence time-wise I
trade stocks (futures, actually), and would like to go back and track
how (we'll use stock for this purpose) behaved each day at the open.

Let me explain my purpose: A stock may "gap up" or "gap down", meaning
it's price opens at a price different from where it closed the day
before. Often that gap will be filled, meaning the price will go back
down (if it was a gap up) to the previous day's close. I want to track
how often it did that, how often it went only 1/2 way, how much it
went up before doing it, what day of the week it was, etc., with
several different criteria

I had started to compile it in excel, but quickly had an AHA moment
and realized this was a database I needed. Here are the categories I
have that I want to track, and then be able to search based on several
criteria. I imagine I want to creat several different tables, but it
seems to me the hardest part, and hardest to learn, is how I want it
organized. Which categories in which/how many tables. Is this more
daunting than I initially imagined (which was thinking it wouldn't
take long). Here are the categories:

DATE AMOUNT OF GAP UP DOWN % Filled Minutes it took
to Fill How Much Up before Filling, etc., etc.

I hope that's clear. TIA!

You're right - this is a natural application for Access, or any
"relational" database. The essential step is to get your tables right.
I'd guess one Stock could have many Gaps? A classic one-to-many
relationship, suggesting a table for Stocks, and a table for Gaps which
would contain a reference to a specific stock.

A bit of terminology: A table has a fixed number of fields (e.g. DATE)
and an arbitrary number of records.

You might like to watch a brief video I suggested here earlier (and
which apparently went down well):
http://www.lynda.com/home/Player.aspx?lpk4=13150
(I've no connection with this site, other than as a satisfied customer).

Suggest you think about what tables you might need, and post back.

Phil, London
Thanks much for the response! Will check out the video, and together
with the other excellent response, will decide whether this is within
my scope or not. I was just planning on using this for one trade per
day, per instrument (actually the DOW and S&P futures, not any
stocks). So fairly narrow in application, but a lot of variables.
Thanks again!
Fascinating video (boy, I bet THAT pegs me as a fun party guest!)
Okay, now I'm hooked on learning to do this. Either I'm
organizatinoally anal, or I'm just trying to avoid tradiing. Thanks
again, and will post back after I get further along.

Hello Jack,

If you need to build the database some time soon, I can help you. I provide
help with Access, Excel and Word applications for a reasonable fee. I could
work with you to create your database and get it up and running in a short
time. I'm sure your gains from the stock would easily cover my fees. If you
would like my help, contact me at .

Steve


"Jack" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:04:05 -0500, Jack wrote:

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:01:32 +0000, Philip Herlihy
wrote:

Jack wrote:
I'm a newbie, and while I wouldn't mind learning access at some point,
for now I need it for one purpose, which takes precedence time-wise I
trade stocks (futures, actually), and would like to go back and track
how (we'll use stock for this purpose) behaved each day at the open.

Let me explain my purpose: A stock may "gap up" or "gap down", meaning
it's price opens at a price different from where it closed the day
before. Often that gap will be filled, meaning the price will go back
down (if it was a gap up) to the previous day's close. I want to track
how often it did that, how often it went only 1/2 way, how much it
went up before doing it, what day of the week it was, etc., with
several different criteria

I had started to compile it in excel, but quickly had an AHA moment
and realized this was a database I needed. Here are the categories I
have that I want to track, and then be able to search based on several
criteria. I imagine I want to creat several different tables, but it
seems to me the hardest part, and hardest to learn, is how I want it
organized. Which categories in which/how many tables. Is this more
daunting than I initially imagined (which was thinking it wouldn't
take long). Here are the categories:

DATE AMOUNT OF GAP UP DOWN % Filled Minutes it took
to Fill How Much Up before Filling, etc., etc.

I hope that's clear. TIA!

You're right - this is a natural application for Access, or any
"relational" database. The essential step is to get your tables right.
I'd guess one Stock could have many Gaps? A classic one-to-many
relationship, suggesting a table for Stocks, and a table for Gaps which
would contain a reference to a specific stock.

A bit of terminology: A table has a fixed number of fields (e.g. DATE)
and an arbitrary number of records.

You might like to watch a brief video I suggested here earlier (and
which apparently went down well):
http://www.lynda.com/home/Player.aspx?lpk4=13150
(I've no connection with this site, other than as a satisfied customer).

Suggest you think about what tables you might need, and post back.

Phil, London
Thanks much for the response! Will check out the video, and together
with the other excellent response, will decide whether this is within
my scope or not. I was just planning on using this for one trade per
day, per instrument (actually the DOW and S&P futures, not any
stocks). So fairly narrow in application, but a lot of variables.
Thanks again!
Fascinating video (boy, I bet THAT pegs me as a fun party guest!)
Okay, now I'm hooked on learning to do this. Either I'm
organizatinoally anal, or I'm just trying to avoid tradiing. Thanks
again, and will post back after I get further along.

Please stop abusing these newsgroups, Steve.

--
Doug Steele, Microsoft Access MVP
http://I.Am/DougSteele
(no e-mails, please!)


"Steve" wrote in message
m...
Hello Jack,

If you need to build the database some time soon, I can help you. I
provide help with Access, Excel and Word applications for a reasonable
fee. I could work with you to create your database and get it up and
running in a short time. I'm sure your gains from the stock would easily
cover my fees. If you would like my help, contact me at .

Steve


"Jack" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:04:05 -0500, Jack wrote:

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:01:32 +0000, Philip Herlihy
wrote:

Jack wrote:
I'm a newbie, and while I wouldn't mind learning access at some point,
for now I need it for one purpose, which takes precedence time-wise I
trade stocks (futures, actually), and would like to go back and track
how (we'll use stock for this purpose) behaved each day at the open.

Let me explain my purpose: A stock may "gap up" or "gap down", meaning
it's price opens at a price different from where it closed the day
before. Often that gap will be filled, meaning the price will go back
down (if it was a gap up) to the previous day's close. I want to track
how often it did that, how often it went only 1/2 way, how much it
went up before doing it, what day of the week it was, etc., with
several different criteria

I had started to compile it in excel, but quickly had an AHA moment
and realized this was a database I needed. Here are the categories I
have that I want to track, and then be able to search based on several
criteria. I imagine I want to creat several different tables, but it
seems to me the hardest part, and hardest to learn, is how I want it
organized. Which categories in which/how many tables. Is this more
daunting than I initially imagined (which was thinking it wouldn't
take long). Here are the categories:

DATE AMOUNT OF GAP UP DOWN % Filled Minutes it took
to Fill How Much Up before Filling, etc., etc.

I hope that's clear. TIA!

You're right - this is a natural application for Access, or any
"relational" database. The essential step is to get your tables right.
I'd guess one Stock could have many Gaps? A classic one-to-many
relationship, suggesting a table for Stocks, and a table for Gaps which
would contain a reference to a specific stock.

A bit of terminology: A table has a fixed number of fields (e.g. DATE)
and an arbitrary number of records.

You might like to watch a brief video I suggested here earlier (and
which apparently went down well):
http://www.lynda.com/home/Player.aspx?lpk4=13150
(I've no connection with this site, other than as a satisfied customer).

Suggest you think about what tables you might need, and post back.

Phil, London
Thanks much for the response! Will check out the video, and together
with the other excellent response, will decide whether this is within
my scope or not. I was just planning on using this for one trade per
day, per instrument (actually the DOW and S&P futures, not any
stocks). So fairly narrow in application, but a lot of variables.
Thanks again!
Fascinating video (boy, I bet THAT pegs me as a fun party guest!)
Okay, now I'm hooked on learning to do this. Either I'm
organizatinoally anal, or I'm just trying to avoid tradiing. Thanks
again, and will post back after I get further along.

"Steve" wrote in message
m...
Hello Jack,

If you need to build the database some time soon, I can help you. I
provide help with Access, Excel and Word applications for a reasonable
fee. I could work with you to create your database and get it up and
running in a short time. I'm sure your gains from the stock would easily
cover my fees. If you would like my help, contact me at .

Steve


These newsgroups are provided by Microsoft for FREE peer to peer support.
There are many highly qualified professionals who gladly help for FREE.
Stevie is not one of them. He is not highly qualified, professional or
willing to help for free. If he was any good, his past customers would be
drowning him in repeat business, but it appears, for them, once was more
than enough.


John... Visio MVP

"Steve" wrote in message
m...

If you would like my help, contact me


But before you do that, read this:

http://home.tiscali.nl/arracom/whoissteve.html