Tradestation Continuous Contract

[draz]

Can someone explain to me the diffrence between @c.c and cn08. I see a diffrence between pricing and charting. I've been using cno8 because that's what i'm ultimately trading. Is there a reason i should be charting @c.c and executing trades using cn08? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[Tasuki]

	Quote:	draz
	Can someone explain to me the diffrence between @c.c and cn08. I see a diffrence between pricing and charting. I've been using cno8 because that's what i'm ultimately trading. Is there a reason i should be charting @c.c and executing trades using cn08? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Sad to say, my efforts to correct Tradestation's egregious errors in this regard have gone completely unheeded (I've been harassing them for years). As it turns out, there are different calculations that data providers use to transition the data from an old contract to the new contract, and Tradestation, in its infinite stupidity, has chosen a calculation that almost nobody else uses. As a result, their continuous contract price data, at least for agriculturals, is almost useless. I would strongly advise against using the @c.c price data. Instead, use the symbol for the month you're trading, which in this case is cn08, I gather. Better yet, don't trade agriculturals with Tradestation. The continuous contracts for oil and bonds I've also found to be wildly inaccurate, especially as you get into the weekly and monthly data. Strangely, the continuous contracts for the emini index futures (e.g. @ES, @ER2, @NQ, etc.) are NOT inaccurate. If you had been paying attention to Tradestation World about a year or two ago, there was one instance when a contract in the emini index futures rolled over and Tradestation's continuous contract data was inaccurate---there was a veritable firestorm of protest on TSWorld, and TS wisely corrected the problem and it's never happened again. Why on earth do they screw up so badly with less-frequently traded commodiites? Precisely because they are less frequently traded, and nobody raises a stink (nobody but me, that is). Where can you get accurate data for agriculturals, bonds, oil, etc.? Well, the best source is ESignal, but there are other data providers. If you're swing trading and you don't need intraday charts, the following link may help:
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/menu.html

Hope this helps, Taz