Contract months definition for CL... only 52 months?

[Trader_55]

I notice in NT that CL is defined for 52 contract months, back to about september 08. Other instruments also have approximately the same number of months defined, however because they roll over less frequently than crude, they actually go back in general to about 2005.

Two questions:

1. Why are there only a certain number of contract months defined? Each monthly chart that I try to plot only goes back to about '05, and I'd like to have the ability to show more data than that using NT, maybe back about 10 years. Currently I can't seem to do that, and I am forced to use another program for those charts.

2. When deciding how many months to define for NT, shouldn't you decide on an overall time frame (for example X number of years), and then figure out how many contract months to define for each instrument based on that? The way you have it, CL doesn't seem to show data back past '08 whereas other instruments are showing twice the data because 52 months for CL don't go back as far as 40 months for GC, for example.

Can this be fixed in a future version? If I am wrong about how this all works, please correct me.

Thanks!

[NinjaTrader_Joydeep]

Hello Trader_55,
Thanks for your post and I am happy to assist you.

The available data also depends on how much data your connectivity provider provides.

I will forward your suggestion to development for future enhancement.

Please let me know if I can assist you any further.

[Trader_55]

Originally Posted by NinjaTrader_Joydeep

Hello Trader_55,
Thanks for your post and I am happy to assist you.

The available data also depends on how much data your connectivity provider provides.

I will forward your suggestion to development for future enhancement.

Please let me know if I can assist you any further.

Thanks, please do... IQFeed for example provides plenty of data for all contracts - I can show back up to 15 years or so using another program, so I know that the data is there. If you think about it, having the software artificially limit a contract like crude oil to only go back about 3.5 years is really a disadvantage for you when you're being compared to other vendors... since other programs can go much further back, you should probably just add those definitions in, it can't be that hard. Thanks a lot!

[Radical]

It would be a real pain to do since it sounds like you'd need to add a lot of months, but you can manually define more months in the instrument manager.

[Trader_55]

Originally Posted by Radical

It would be a real pain to do since it sounds like you'd need to add a lot of months, but you can manually define more months in the instrument manager.

Yeah, that would be a real pain... I'd just prefer if they included it standard with NT. Is there some way to know the exact rollover dates for each month in the past, or does it really matter if you're just using a monthly chart anyways?

[NinjaTrader_Joydeep]

Hello Trader_55,
Development has assigned tracker id #1717 for your feature request.

Please let me know if I can assist you any further.