Combining Multiple Signals in a Committee

There may be times when you want to combine the results of multiple fields into a single field. For example, you may have several entry/exit system signals and want to form a consensus signal. You may also have multiple prediction fields and want to combine those values into a single predicted value. Either of these tasks can be achieved using a committee field.

Creating a Committee Field

To create a committee field, open the Create a Field Wizard and select to create a new field to Combine values with a committee. This will begin the Create a Committee Wizard.

The Create a Committee Wizard begins with the Select Fields page, which allows you to select which fields will be used to form the committee. Any number of fields can be used in the committee. In addition, specific fields can be given multiple numbers of "votes" in order to shift the value in favor of a particular field.

Ä    Note: Committees basically take the average of the values of selected input fields. Fields with multiple votes are simply included in the average multiple times. Therefore, giving every field in the committee three votes will have the same effect as giving all of the fields one vote.

The wizard concludes with the Select Name page. TradingSolutions provides several suggestions for names for the new field based on the entry/exit system and inputs selected. Any of these names can be used directly from the combo box, or you can enter your own. The name of a field should be something meaningful so that you know what the values in the field are without having to see how they are calculated.

Creating a Committee of Signal Fields

When you create a committee of signal fields, some additional information is needed for determining how a signal field will vote. This is because many entry/exit signals tend to only be triggered on specific events, such as when one value line crosses another. If these signal values were combined directly into a committee, an entry or exit signal would only be produced when all of the signals were triggered at the exact same time.

To combine signal fields effectively, it is usually desirable to hold some portion of the signal value after it has been triggered. The concept behind this is that a signal indicates when it is a good time to act on the market and that that action will still be valid for a short time after it is generated. Therefore, when creating a committee of signal fields, you can indicate to hold or decay a portion of the signal value. This allows signals that are triggered at close to the same time to be combined into a consensus signal.

&  For help with the individual settings for these options, see the help for the Create a Committee Wizard.

&  For help with optimizing committees, see Optimizing Committees of Signals.

&  For more help with signals, see Creating and Analyzing Entry/Exit Signals.