Macrobond 1.14

The new version can be installed directly via the Macrobond platform by clicking the yellow line which appears on the screen or by selecting Check for update on the Help menu. If you need assistance, a description of how to upgrade may be found here. You might need additional help from your IT-department.

Selection of new functionality

Horizontal and vertical lines in charts

The lines, called axis annotations, are associated with a value or date on the axis. There can be labels that are displayed either in the graph area or as axis value labels.

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There is an example in the chart library.

New user interface for the Smoothing analysis

You can now specify several methods per series. There are also a couple of new filter types: Baxter-King and Christiano-Fitzgerald band pass filters.

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There is an example in the chart library.

Added option to store snapshot of in-house series

The application can now store a snapshot of all in-house series in a document, which is useful when sharing documents.

This is enabled in the new Document properties dialog that can be found on the File menu,

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There is also a corresponding option when sending support messages. By including in-house data in the document, the support team can address your query more efficiently.

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Per document series

You can now define series that are available only in the current document. This is useful if you have some data that you will only use once. The “Paste document series…” button will paste the result of a copied document series or text consisting of one date and one value column

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Document keywords

You can specify one or more keywords for a document. These keywords can then be used when searching for documents in the File Open/Save dialog.

The keywords are specified in the Document properties dialog.

Seasonal adjustment using Census X-13

There is a new analysis that allows you to do seasonal adjustment using the Census X-13-ARIMA-SEATS program. This is a superset of the X-11 and X-12-ARIMA programs.

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There is an example in the chart library.

Principle components analysis

The Principle components analysis allows you to calculate a set of linearly uncorrelated series, or components, from a set of possibly correlated series. The calculated series are calculated using an orthogonal transform so that the first series captures the highest possible variance of the original set of series. Each successive series captures the highest possible remaining variance under the constraint that it is orthogonal to the preceding series.

The analysis also presents the eigenvectors, as a matrix, and the eigenvalues as a category series.

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There is an example in the chart library.

Multiple tabs in the Search activity

Sometimes it is convenient to retain the result from a previous search when doing a new search. Now you can do another search in a new tab.

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Specifying the window length unit in more places

We have added the option to specify the unit, such as year, in a number of places where a period length is specified:

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New formula functions

Some new formula functions have been added:

BkFilter, CfRandomWalkFilter, CfStationaryFilter, CorrelationBestLag, Drawdown, LowObs, HighObs, EndOfWeekAhead, StartOfWeek

Additional fields for series in the Excel add-in

You can select additional fields to be included when importing data into an Excel sheet. The set of fields will depend on the series that you have selected

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Multiple local document stores

You can now specify several local directories for documents that will be displayed in the File Open/Save dialog.

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Misc

  • Improved tooltips in Series browser tree to include information about the location in the tree.
  • A Search tab has been added when you browse for series in the EViews add-in. We have also added support for pasting a list of series names.
  • Lines in tree controls, such as the analysis tree, makes it easier to see the relations.
  • Keyboard navigation for Add/Insert analysis. You can type the beginning of the analysis name to select and then press enter to execute.
  • You can now duplicate a branch of the analysis tree by selecting Duplicate on Edit or context the menu or by pressing Ctrl+2.
  • You can duplicate a set of expressions in the Series list by selecting them and then select Duplicate on the Edit or context menu or by pressing Ctrl+2.
  • You can turn off the labels on the x and y axes in charts so that the text is not presented.
  • There are now settings for each graph to use the alternate scale setting in the graph layout dialog.

The Macrobond SQL Database Connector

Introduction

With the Macrobond SQL Database connector you can use the Macrobond application to read time series from a SQL database. Macrobond does not store your data located in SQL database.

Getting started

There is no standard way of storing time series in a SQL database. The Macrobond SQL connector can be configured to read data in most cases. Sometimes additional views or stored procedures are needed and in rare cases additional tables can be helpful.

The configuration of the Macrobond application consists primarily of a set of SQL queries that the application will use to retrieve data.

There are some requirements on the database imposed by the Macrobond application:

  • Each time series must have a unique identifier that can be used for retrieving the time series values and metadata. Any lower-case characters except double quote and colon are allowed, but it is best if the identifier begins with a-z and continues with a-z, 0-9 or underscore since such identifiers can be used unquoted in the Macrobond application.
  • A time series cannot start before year 1600 or end after year 2499.
  • The time series frequencies are limited to the periodicities of day, week, month, quarter, 4 months, half year and year.
  • There must be a query that given a time series identifier, returns a table where there is an observation on each row and where there is one column of dates and one column of values.
  • There must be a query that given a time series identifier, returns a table of metadata that contains at least the frequency and the description of the time series. The table may contain other metadata such as the region, currency, and scale.
  • There must be a .NET Framework 4.x Data Provider installed that can be used to read data from the data source. .NET comes with a connector for Microsoft SQL Server, ODBC and OLE DB. There are also providers available from other vendors, such as Oracle. On 64-bit Windows you should make sure to install both 32 and 64-bit versions of the provider.

Configuration file

For the Macrobond application to be able to read data from the database, it must be configured with some information on how to retrieve the data. This is done using a configuration file in the form of an XML file.

You specify the configuration file in the Configuration > Settings dialog (for MB pre-1.28: Edit > Settings) in the Macrobond application by adding a new data source of type SQL as in this example.

The prefix will be used as part of the series identifier, and you probably want to keep this short. If more than one user has access to the same database, the configuration file can be placed in a shared location on file server. You should take care to use the same prefix for all users since this will make it possible to share documents.

The file uses schema http://schemas.mbnd.eu/2011/sqlseriesprovider and has root element of the configuration file is called SqlSeriesProvider. There is a schema file available that can be used for validation here:
https://schemas.macrobond.com/SqlSeriesProvider.xsd.

The configuration file consists of five sections: information on how to connect to the database, information how to retrieve tables containing the values and metadata of time series, information how to interpret the metadata, information about the browse tree and information about text searching.

In many places '{n}' (where n is a number) will be replaced by a parameter as explained below. In such cases, the characters '{' and '}' are reserved and must be written as '{{' and '}}' if used for other purposes.

DataProvider

Name

The name of the provider to use. This refers to the name of the provider in Microsoft .NET Framework. It is typically one of the following:

System.Data.SqlClient

For all variants of MS SQL Server (on-prem or in Azure).

System.Data.OleDb

Can be used for Microsoft SQL Server 7 and later.

System.Data.Odbc

In most cases it is best to use a native .NET provider. Microsoft only provides a driver for Microsoft SQL Server, but there are for instance drivers for Oracle and MySql provided by the vendor. If there is no native provider, the OleDb provider is the best option. ODBC should be used only as a last resort.

For MySQL you need to download the provider from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/ and then use this name: MySql.Data.MySqlClient

ConnectionString

The connection string is unique to each provider. You may be able to find a hint here: https://www.dofactory.com/connection-strings

You can use the placeholders {0} and {1} for the username and password specified in the settings dialog. This is convenient if you do not want the same authentication for all users.

Example:
<sql:ConnectionString>
Data Source=MyServer;Initial Catalog=Series; User Id={0}; Password={1};
</sql:ConnectionString>

SQL In-house - connection strings provides more examples.

Series

Values

A SQL query or stored procedure that returns a table of all the values in the time series.

The following attributes can be used:

Attribute Default Comment
Command (required) Specifies either a query or stored procedure.
IsStoredProcedure false Specifies that the command is a stored procedure. In this case you must also specify ParameterName. You probably want to set MultipleIdentifiers to false in this case.
ParameterName The name of the parameter to be used in the command that contains the series identifier. Exactly how you use this name in a command, is provider specific, but almost all SQL providers use @ followed by the parameter name. Oracle is known for using : in some cases.

If no name is specified, you should use {0} as a placeholder for the identifier in the command. In this mode, you are limited to identifiers containing a-z, 0-9 and underscore. The benefit with this mode is that you can use MultipleIdentifiers. This mode also uses the attributes Separator and Quote.

MultipleIdentifiers true Multiple identifiers can be sent to the command. If set to false, multiple commands will be used instead, which is less efficient. You probably want to set this to false if you use stored procedures, since it might be difficult to handle a list of identifiers in this case.
Separator , The separator to use when multiple identifiers are sent. The separator is used to form a list like this: ‘usgdp’,’segdp’,’dkgdp’.
Quote The character used as quotes around the identifier when no ParameterName is used.
InterpretSkippedDateAsMissingValue false By default, dates that are not included, will be excluded from the series calendar. By setting this attribute to true, missing dates will instead be interpreted as missing values.

If the command is a query, the query text should include the text {0}. This will be replaced with the requested identifier or identifiers.

Identifier If MultipleIdentifiers is true, this column must be present and contain the series identifier specified in the command.
SeriesDate If this column is not included in the table, the StartDate metadata value must be specified for the series.
The SQL provider must be able to convert this to the .NET data type System.DateTime. If two dates refer to the same time period, the last value will be used. If there are no dates corresponding to a time period, that period will be skipped in the time series calendar.
SeriesValue A numerical value or null. A null value will be represented as a missing value in the time series.
The SQL provider must be able to convert this to the .NET data type System.Int, System.Float or System.Double.

A configuration for using a query can typically look like this when no parameter name is used:

<sql:Values sql:Command="SELECT Identifier, SeriesDate, SeriesValue FROM SeriesValues WHERE Identifier IN ({0})"/>

When the ParameterName attribute is specified, it could look like this

<sql:Values sql:ParameterName="series" sql:MultipleIdentifiers="false"  sql:Command="SELECT Identifier, SeriesDate, SeriesValue FROM SeriesValues WHERE Identifier = @series"/>

Metadata

The metadata contain information about the series in addition to the series values.

The Macrobond application will ask for metadata by using a query in a similar way to how it asks for time series values. Each piece of metadata consists of a metadata name and a metadata value.

You can specify default values and conversions for metadata. This is done in the Metadata section as explained later.

The metadata names are the names of the sections in the XML files and the name of records or columns in the table of metadata returned by the SQL command described below.

Attribute Default Comment
Command (required) Specifies either a query or stored procedure.
IsStoredProcedure false Specifies that the command is a stored procedure. In this case you must also specify ParameterName. You probably want to set MultipleIdentifiers to false in this case.
ParameterName The name of the parameter to be used in the command that contains the series identifier. Exactly how you use this name in a command, is provider specific, but almost all SQL providers use @ followed by the parameter name.

If no name is specified, you should use {0} as a placeholder for the identifier in the command. In this mode, you are limited to identifiers containing a-z, 0-9 and underscore. The benefit with this mode is that you can use MultipleIdentifiers. This mode also uses the attributes Separator and Quote.

MultipleIdentifiers true Multiple identifiers can be sent to the command. If set to false, multiple commands will be used instead, which is less efficient. You probably want to set this to false if you use stored procedures, since it might be difficult to handle a list of identifiers in this case.
Separator , The separator to use when multiple identifiers are sent. The separator is used to form a list like this: ‘usgdp’,’segdp’,’dkgdp’.
Quote The character used as quotes around the identifier when no ParameterName is used.
Layout Row Row or Column

If Layout is Row, the resulting table must contain the columns MetadataName and MetadataValue. The columns should be of a string type.

If Layout is Column, the column names should match the metadata names as described in the section about the Metadata element. The columns can then either be strings or the same type as the metadata. A null value will be interpreted as if the metadata is not specified, and the default value will be used.

If MultipleIdentifiers is true, the table must also contain a column called Identifier.

A configuration for using a query can typically look like this when no parameter name is used:

<sql:Metadata sql:Command="SELECT Identifier, MetadataName, MetadataValue FROM SeriesMetadata WHERE Identifier IN ({0})"/>

When the ParameterName attribute is specified, it could look like this.

<sql:Metadata sql:ParameterName="series" sql:MultipleIdentifiers="false" sql:Command="SELECT Identifier, MetadataName, MetadataValue FROM SeriesMetadata WHERE Identifier = @series"/>

Metadata

Most of the metadata attributes are optional and have default values. You can also specify default values in the configuration file that should be used if no value is returned from the query. In the configuration file you can also specify if metadata names, and values returned from the query should be translated.

Description

The metadata attribute called Description is a string that describes the series. The application will automatically combine the description with the Region to form a full description of the series. If you use the Region attribute, you typically do not want to include the region in the description.

Attribute Default Comment
Name Description The name of the record or column in the table.

Frequency

Can be any of the following values: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, BiMonthly, Quarterly, QuadMonthly, SemiAnnual, Annual

This attribute is not optional and must be specified in either the configuration file, in the table or both.

Attribute Default Comment
Name Frequency The default frequency.
Default (required) The default frequency.

Conversion

Specify one or more conversion elements if the values in the table does not correspond to the values used by Macrobond.

Attribute Comment
From The value in the table.
To One of the frequency values used by Macrobond.
Example:
<sql:Frequency sql:Name="Freq" sql:Default="Monthly">
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="Yearly" sql:To="Annual" />
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="2*Months" sql:To="BiMonthly" />
</sql:Frequency>

DayMask

A string that specifies what days of the week that are used for daily time series. It is a list that contains one or more of the following values: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Attribute Default Comment
Name DayMask The name of the record or column in the table.
Default Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday The default set of weekdays.

Conversion

Specify one or more conversion elements if the values in the table does not correspond to the values used by Macrobond.

Attribute Comment
From The value in the table.
To One of the frequency values used by Macrobond.
Example:
<sql:DayMask sql:Name="WeekDays" >
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="work" sql:To="Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday" />
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="full" sql:To="Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday" />
</sql:DayMask>

Class

The class is a string with one of the values Stock or Flow. This determines how the automatic frequency conversion in Macrobond works. If the value is Flow, the data will be aggregated when converted to a lower frequency and distributed over the period when converted to a higher frequency.

Attribute Default Comment
Name Class The name of the record or column in the table.
Default Stock The default class.

StartDate

The start date of a series can optionally be specified as part of the metadata. This attribute is not specified in either the configuration file or in the table, there must be a column called SeriesDate in the response from the Values query as explained in the section about the Series element.

Attribute Default Comment
Name StartDate The name of the record or column in the table.
Default (required) The default start date.

LastModifiedTimeStamp

This optional date can be accessed through APIs and displayed as dynamic text in presentations.

Attribute Default Comment
Name LastModifiedTimeStamp The name of the record or column in the table.
Default (none) The default date.

LastValueDate

This optional date is displayed in the Macrobond application as an optional column when searching for time series and browsing the database. This is used as an information for the user only in that context and is not used for determining the end of the time series.

Attribute Default Comment
Name LastValueDate The name of the record or column in the table.
Default (none) The default date of the last value.

LastValue

This optional value is displayed in the Macrobond application as an optional column when searching for time series and browsing the database. This is used as an information for the user only in that context and is not used for or checked against the time series values.

Attribute Default Comment
Name LastValue The name of the record or column in the table.
Default (none) The default value of the last value.

PreviousLastValue

This optional value is displayed in the Macrobond application as an optional column with the rate of change when searching for time series and browsing the database. This is used as an information for the user only in that context and is not used for or checked against the time series values.

Attribute Default Comment
Name PreviousLastValue The name of the record or column in the table.
Default (none) The default value of the previous last value.

Currency

The currency of the values in the time series expressed as a three letter ISO 4217 code such as USD and GDP. This will be used by the application to perform currency conversion. You can get a list of the supported countries at https://www.macrobond.com/go/currencyList/.

Attribute Default Comment
Name Currency The name of the record or column in the table.
Default (none) The default currency.

Conversion

Specify one or more conversion elements if the values in the table does not correspond to the values used by Macrobond.

Attribute Comment
From The value in the table.
To One of the frequency values used by Macrobond.
Example:
<sql:Currency>
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="XEU" sql:To="EUR" />
</sql:Currency>

Region

Specifies what region or country that the series refers to. The region codes used in Macrobond are based on the two letter ISO 3166 codes. For example US, GB, DE, and SE. You can find a complete list of the supported regions at https://www.macrobond.com/go/regionList.

The region, if present, will be included in the title of the series.

Attribute Default Comment
Name Region The name of the record or column in the table.
Default (none) The default region.

Conversion

Specify one or more conversion elements if the values in the table does not correspond to the values used by Macrobond.

Attribute Comment
From The value in the table.
To One of the currency codes used by Macrobond.
Example:
<sql:Region sql:Name="Ctry">
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="UK" sql:To="GB" />
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="USA" sql:To="US" />
</sql:Region>

Scale

The scale is an integer number that determines the scale as the power of ten

Attribute Default Comment
Name Scale The name of the record or column in the table.
Default 0 The default scale.

Conversion

Specify one or more conversion elements if the values in the table does not correspond to the values used by Macrobond.

Attribute Comment
From The value in the table.
To One of the currency codes used by Macrobond.
Example:
<sql:Scale sql:Name="Magnitude">
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="1" sql:To="0" />
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="1000" sql:To="3" />
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="1000000" sql:To="6" />
</sql:Scale>

ForecastCutoffDate

All observation at this date and later will flagged as forecasts. The date must not be before the start or after the end of the series.

Attribute Default Comment
Name ForecastCutoffDate The name of the record or column in the table.
Example:
<sql:ForecastCutoffDate sql:Name="FDate" /

MaturityDate

Some analyses, such as the Yield curve analysis, can use this information to automatically configure the maturity length. If you set this value, you should also set RateMethod but not set the MaturityDays value.

Attribute Default Comment
Name MaturityDate The name of the record or column in the table.
Example:
<sql:MaturityDate sql:Name="MatDate" />

MaturityDays

This value is a positive integer that some analyses, such as the Yield curve analysis, can use this information to automatically configure the maturity length. If you set this value, you should also set RateMethod but not set the MaturityDate value. 1 week is 7 days, 1 month is 30 days and one year is 360 days.

Attribute Default Comment
Name MaturityDays The name of the record or column in the table.
Default (none) The default maturity length for all series.

Conversion

Specify one or more conversion elements if the values in the table does not correspond to the values used by Macrobond.

Attribute Comment
From The value in the table.
To The maturity length used by Macrobond.
Example:
<sql:MaturityDays sql:Name="MatLen">
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="1M" sql:To="30" />
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="3M" sql:To="90" />
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="1Y" sql:To="360" />
</sql:MaturityDays>

RateMethod

This value should be either Simple or Effective that some analyses, such as the Yield curve analysis, can use this information for automatically configuration. If you set this value, you should also set one of the MaturityDate or MaturityLength values.

Attribute Default Comment
Name RateMethod The name of the record or column in the table.
Default (none) The default rate method.

Conversion

Specify one or more conversion elements if the values in the table does not correspond to the values used by Macrobond.

Attribute Comment
From The value in the table.
To The rate method used by Macrobond.
Example:
<sql:RateMethod sql:Name="MatLen">
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="1M" sql:To="Simple" />
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="3M" sql:To="Simple" />
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="1Y" sql:To="Effective" />
 <sql:Conversion sql:From="3Y" sql:To="Effective" />
</sql:RateMethod>

DisplayUnit

Specify the text that should be used as the unit.

Attribute Default Comment
Name DisplayUnit The name of the record or column in the table.
Default (none) The default unit.

EntityState

This value should be either 0 (active) or 4 (discontinued). Users will get warnings in the application when using discontinued series.

Attribute Default Comment
Name EntityState The name of the record or column in the table.
Default 0 The default state is "active"

Conversion

Specify one or more conversion elements if the values in the table does not correspond to the values used by Macrobond.

Attribute Comment
From The value in the table.
To The state used by Macrobond.
Example:
<sql:EntityState sql:Name=”state”>
   <sql:Conversion sql:From=”ok” sql:To=”0” />
   <sql:Conversion sql:From=”dead” sql:To=”4” />
</sql:EntityState>

Comment

In the Macrobond application, the comment can be viewed in the Time series information report for a time series.

Attribute Default Comment
Name Comment The name of the record or column in the table.
Default (none) The default comment.

BrowseTree

In the Macrobond application, the user can browse for data in a tree structure. When the user clicks on a leaf in the tree, a list of time series is presented. Here is an example from the Macrobond main database:

The BrowseTree element makes it possible to define such a tree structure for a SQL database. The element is optional.

There are three types of nodes that can be nested in order to build the tree: Static, Dynamic and Output. The first level of the tree must be either Dynamic or one or more Static elements.

The 'most nested' level is called a 'leaf' and must be an Output element.

Static

This element defines a static node in the tree. More than one Static element can be defined at each level, which is the most common case when this element is used. Each element will form a node in the tree.

Attribute Comment
Name The node name displayed in the application.
Example:
<sql:BrowseTree>
 <sql:Static sql:Name="Industrial">
  … other nested tree nodes…
 </sql:Static>
 <sql:Static sql:Name="Agriculture">
  … other nested tree nodes…
 </sql:Static>
</sql:BrowseTree>

Dynamic

This element is used when the nodes in the tree is defined by a SQL query.

Attribute Default Comment
Command (required) Specifies either a query or stored procedure.
IsStoredProcedure False Specifies that the command is a stored procedure.
Id (required) The identifier to be used for this level in the tree. This can be used as the name of the parameter in nested commands.

The result should be a table with two or three columns. There must always be two columns called IdValue and Description. The first column is the identifier value that can be used in nested commands and the second column is used as the node description that is presented to the user. A third field called IsLeaf is optional and is described below in the section Trees of varying depth.

You can refer to identifier values from levels higher up in the tree by using the SQL parameter syntax, which is typically @ followed by the parameter name.

This example shows a list of countries, and each country contains a number of categories:

<sql:BrowseTree>
 <sql:Dynamic sql:Id="CountryId" sql:Command="SELECT DISTINCT CountryCode AS IdValue, CountryDescription AS Description FROM OurSeries">
  <sql:Dynamic sql:Id="CategoryId" sql:Command="SELECT DISTINCT CategoryCode AS IdValue, CategoryDescription AS Description FROM OurSeries WHERE Country=@CountryId">
  … other nested tree nodes…
  <sql:Dynamic>
 <sql:Dynamic>
</sql:BrowseTree>

Trees of varying depth

If the Description is empty or null, then the node will not be added to the current level. Instead the children of that node will be added and in effect a level will be skipped in the visual presentation.

Another way of creating a tree of varying depth is to return a third field called IsLeaf. If this value is True, all nested levels will be skipped. The parameters associated with skipped levels will be null.

There must be no Static sub nodes when this feature is used.

In addition to the Boolean data type, null will be interpreted as False. A numerical value will be interpreted as True it is not equal to zero. If it is a string, it will be interpreted as True if it is the string “true" and False if it is “false". The string comparison is not case sensitive.

Output

This element is used as the last level in the tree. When the user selects such a node in the tree, a query is sent to the server which should return a list of time series that is presented to the user.

Attribute Default Comment
Command (required) Specifies either a query or stored procedure.
IsStoredProcedure False Specifies that the command is a stored procedure.
Layout Row Row or Column

You can refer to identifier values from levels higher up in the tree by using the SQL parameter syntax, which is typically @ followed by the parameter name. Please note that the parameter value can be null if the IsLeaf attribute of the Dynamic node is used.

The table must also contain a column called Identifier that identifies the time series.

If Layout is Row, the resulting table must contain the columns MetadataName and MetadataValue. The columns should be a string type.

If Layout is Column, the column names should match the metadata names. The columns can then either be strings or the same type as the metadata.

The metadata values are described in the section about the Metadata element.

The metadata called Description must be present. In addition to that the result may optionally contain Frequency, StartDate and Currency. The user can select to show this information as columns in the application.

Search

This element defines how and if text searching is done in the database.

Attribute Default Comment
Command (required) Specifies either a query or stored procedure.
IsStoredProcedure False Specifies that the command is a stored procedure.
ParameterName (required) The name of the parameter.
Layout Row Row or Column

The keywords entered by the user are passed as a parameter in the command.

The SQL syntax for full-text search differs a lot between database types and often it has to be configured for specific columns in the table.

The table must also contain a column called Identifier that identifies the time series.

If Layout is Row, the resulting table must contain the columns MetadataName and MetadataValue. The columns should be a string type.

If Layout is Column, the column names should match the metadata names. The columns can then either be strings or the same type as the metadata.

The metadata values are described in the section about the Metadata element.

The metadata called Description must be present. In addition to that the result may optionally contain Frequency, StartDate and Currency. The user can select to show this information as columns in the application.

Example:
<sql:Search sql:ParameterName="SearchWords" sql:Layout="Column" sql:Command="SELECT Identifier, Description, Frequency FROM SeriesTable WHERE FREETEXT(*, @SearchWords)"/>

Sample configuration

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<sql:SqlSeriesProvider xmlns:sql="http://schemas.mbnd.eu/2011/sqlseriesprovider">
 <sql:DataProvider>
  <sql:Name>System.Data.SQL</sql:Name>
  <sql:ConnectionString>Data Source=MyServer;Initial Catalog=Series; Integrated Security=SSPI</sql:ConnectionString>
 </sql:DataProvider>
 <sql:Series>
  <sql:Values sql:Command="SELECT Identifier, SeriesDate, SeriesValue FROM SeriesValues WHERE Identifier IN ({0})"/>
  <sql:Metadata sql:Command="SELECT Identifier, MetadataName, MetadataValue FROM SeriesMetadata WHERE Identifier IN ({0})"/>
  </sql:Series>
  <sql:Metadata>
   <sql:Description sql:Name="Descr"/>
   <sql:Class sql:Default="Stock"/>
   <sql:Currency sql:Default="SEK"/>
   <sql:Frequency sql:Default="Daily"/>
   <sql:DayMask sql:Default="Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday"/>
  </sql:Metadata>
  <sql:BrowseTree>
   <sql:Static sql:Name="Countries">
    <sql:Dynamic sql:Id="Country" sql:Command="SELECT DISTINCT MetadataValue, MetadataValue FROM SeriesMetadata WHERE MetadataName='Country'">
   <sql:Output sql:Command="SELECT Identifier, MetadataName,MetadataValue FROM SeriesMetadata
     WHERE Identifier IN (
      SELECT Identifier FROM SeriesMetadata WHERE
      MetadataName='Country' AND MetadataValue=@Country)"/>
   </sql:Dynamic>
  </sql:Static>
 </sql:BrowseTree>
</sql:SqlSeriesProvider>

More examples

SQL In-house – examples provides a reference implementation.

Troubleshooting

You can enable logging for the SQL Database Connector in the Macrobond application on the Configuration > Settings dialog (for MB pre-1.28: Edit > Settings):

This will cause a log window to be displayed as soon as there is any communication with the SQL server. The log contains information about what queries that are sent, what the response is and some diagnostic messages that can be helpful for troubleshooting problems with the configuration file.

The .xml configuration file defining SQL In-house is loaded during each startup of the Macrobond application. The configuration file can be also re-loaded by clicking the refresh button in the time series tree for given data source.

Brief testing instructions for the Macrobond application

This document describes how you can test Macrobond application and make sure is working properly

Start menu

Check if Macrobond is available in the start menu. By default it is found in 'Macrobond Financial/Macrobond'.

Start Macrobond

Start Macrobond from the Start menu.

If no user account has been configured, which is typically the case during a new installation, you will be prompted for a username and password. Fill in the username and password.

Please note that if you enter a username and password and successfully log in, that user account will be associated with the current Windows user profile on the computer. You then need to contact Macrobond support to use that user account with another user profile or on another computer.

When a correct username and password has been configured and the application can log on to the Macrobond server, the main screen will be displayed and will look like this:

See here pre-1.28 version view

 

If you come this far without any errors, it means that you have access to the Macrobond servers and that your credentials are correct.

The first time the application is started, it will download something called the 'attribute database', and this may take 10-60s depending on your internet connection. During this time you will see a text at the status bar of the bottom of the application. During this time you will get an 'hourglass' if you try to access some functions in the application.

Create a chart

In order to create a chart, click on the tab Browse to the left of the application. Then select Overview, Major Countries and click on Denmark.

You will then see that the list of Actions at the top of the application is updated. Click on the Action 'CPI'.

On the right-hand side of the application, you will now see a chart:

Save the chart to the Local computer and then open

Create test document, save it locally and make sure the Macrobond file type is correctly registered.

  1. With the chart open, select File > Save as Analytics document. Select 'My computer' and enter a document name. The chart will now be saved to your local computer.
  2. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to 'My Documents/Macrobond'. The name of the folder 'My documents' may vary depending on the language of your Windows installation.
  3. You should find the file that you saved in this folder.
  4. Double click on the file and it should open in Macrobond.

Copy chart to Microsoft Office

Test if OLE integration with Office works properly.

  1. Open the chart that you have created from File > Recent documents in the application
  2. Right click on the chart and select Copy
  3. Open Microsoft Word
  4. Select Paste (Ctrl+V)
  5. You should now see the chart in your Word document
  6. Leave Word running, but close the Macrobond application
  7. Double click on the chart in Word
  8. The Macrobond application should now be started and should show the chart that you double clicked on in your Word document
  9. Select different line color for the chart in Macrobond:
  10. Close the document in Macrobond:
  11. Switch to Word and verify that the line was also changed in the Word document
  12. Verify that there is a menu/ribbon tab called Macrobond in Word where you can find the command 'Refresh charts'

Access the Help portal

Select Help > Getting started in the Macrobond application. This should bring up your web browser to the Macrobond 'Getting started' web page. This verifies that you have access to Macrobond web server.

Checking for program updates

Select Help > Check for update. This will check if you have the latest version. You should either get a message that tells you that you have the latest version or tell you that there is a later version. You should not get any error messages. This verifies that the application has access to access to the web server www.macrobond.com.

The Excel add-in

  1. Start Microsoft Excel
  2. There should be a Macrobond tab or menu (older versions of Office).
  3. Select the 'Macrobond > All series' command. This will bring up the dialog 'Create time series data set'.
  4. Switch to Text search tab, enter 'Germany car sales' and press Enter:
  5. This will search for such series in the database.
  6. Add the series 'Production Sales, Turnover (...) X-12 ARIMA' to the data set by pressing the red '+' button.
  7. The selected series should be added to the list at the bottom right. Press the 'Add' button:The dialog should now be closed, and the data should be imported into the sheet together with a red 'Macrobond Data set' object:

Bloomberg as data source

The Macrobond application can communicate with the Bloomberg Terminal if it is installed and running on the same computer and retrieve historical time series. Please note that Bloomberg Anywhere cannot be used for this purpose.

Start by enabling support for Bloomberg data in the Macrobond application. This is done on the Configuration (in upper menu) > Settings > tab 'My series' (for MB pre-1.28: Edit > Settings > tab 'My series'):

Then go to the Analytics Activity by clicking on the tab Analytics on the tab strip to the left of the application. Create a new document by selecting File > New in the menu. In the list of data sources you should now find a source called Bloomberg as shown in the picture below. Enter the Bloomberg symbol "ibm us" and press Enter.

You should now see 'International Business Machines Corp' in the list. Click on the red '+' next to the title and you should see a line added to the graph in the document to the right.

Technical information

Installation Guides

To install the Macrobond (MB Core, main application), please go here.

To install the Macrobond Viewer, please follow this link.

We also have online feature for viewing charts under macrobond.net. You don't need to download anything for it.

APIs/Feeds/Connectors Documentation

All documentation can be found here.

Data security

Macrobond 1.13

The new version can be installed directly via the Macrobond platform by clicking the yellow line that appears on the screen or by selecting “Check for update” on the Help menu. If you need assistance, a description of how to upgrade may be found here. You might need additional help from your IT-department.

Selection of new functionality

Dynamic text

All texts in charts can now use Dynamic text in order to reference values and metadata of time series.

For instance, you can have a textbox with a text like “The last value is 2.33“, where the number 2.33 comes from a time series and is automatically updated.

The part of the text that is dynamic is written within curly brackets. The example above might have been written like “The last value is “. The text within the brackets will be processed and replaced with the result in the output.

You can have any number of dynamic text elements in a text. For example: “The value at is “, which could result in something like “The value at 2009 Q2 is -4.09”

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You may also reference metadata, such as the region. In this example, the default legend text is set to “”:

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In order to make it easier to enter Dynamic text as part of the text, we have introduced a new text editor dialog that is used when you edit any text in a chart. There are also two new shortcuts for this dialog: double click on a chart element that is associated with a text or select it and then press Ctrl+E.

The editor presents lists of available dynamic text properties, gives you syntax highlighting, useful tooltips and suggestions of dynamic text properties as you type.

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You can read much more about Dynamic text on the help site.

Axis value labels

We have added a new type of labels called Axis value labels. These labels are always presented to the right of the chart and are primarily intended to show the last value:

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The text can be customized and by using Dynamic text you can, for instance, include the region and unit of each time series:

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New standard style sheets

The default Macrobond style sheet has been updated with a new look. You will also find that the location of the default style sheet has been changed so that it is found in a specific location called Macrobond. Macrobond can now provide more than one style sheet and there are currently two variations available:

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The new Statics analysis allows you to add several statistics for each series. You can specify the estimation sample range for each calculation and also determine if the resulting time series should cover the whole range or only the estimation range.

Links to documents, series folders and series

You can create links to documents, series folders and series that you can click on to open them in the Macrobond application. For instance, here is a link to a Macrobond document:

Macrobond chart library : Examples/Financial/Investment strategy

You can create such a link by selecting Copy for a document in the File Open/Save dialog. You can then paste the link into an Office document or e-mail.

This is a link to a folder:

Economics – by country > United States > Prices > Consumer Price Index > All Urban Consumers > Totals

Links to series folders can be created by selecting Copy for a folder in the Series browser.

Here is a link to a series:

United States, Consumer Price Index, All Urban Consumers, All Items

Links to series can be created by selecting Copy for a series in the Series browser.

This is a link to a Release:

Japan, Corporate Goods Price Index

It can be created by selecting Copy for an item in the list of releases in the Release Activity.

New buttons for adding/inserting analyses

We have improved the user interface for adding/inserting analyses. There are now two buttons, called Add and Insert that will show a structured menu of the analyses:

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New setting in the Scalar analysis: One series per input

Traditionally the Scalar analysis produces one series per calculation. We have now introduced a new option, called “One series per input”, that will produce one series per input series where each series contains all the calculations. This can be used to produce a chart like this:

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Pin favorite colors

You can pin colors to the list of recently used colors so that they are always presented at the top:

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Selection of series in Cross section analysis per calculation

In the Cross section analysis you can now specify a description of each calculation and the selection of what series to include is also per calculation.

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The list of most recently used documents is per account

If you use the same Macrobond account on several computers you will notice that list of most recently used documents, which you can find in the Start activity and on the File menu, is synchronized between your devices.

Delete from the list of most recently used documents

You can remove an item from the list of most recently used documents by selecting “Remove from recent documents” from the context menu (right click) on an item in the Start activity:

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Rolling regression

With the Rolling regression analysis you can calculate how the result from a linear regression model varies over time.

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Data range for graphs in scatter charts

When selecting a graph in a scatter chart, you can limit the data range to include in the chart:

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Select a graph via the menu

Usually you select a graph by clicking on it with the mouse. There are cases when this is difficult though. Such as if you have made the graph completely transparent or selected a display range that does not include any values. For this purpose you can now select a graph from the Chart menu:

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Search for related series

We have started to add hierarchical relationships to some of our series. You can see this as new Search Actions for series such as US GDP:

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New formula functions

There are some new formula functions:

NextGreaterOrEqual, NextLessOrEqual, PreviousGreaterOrEqual, PreviousLessOrEqual, FirstGreaterOrEqual, LastGreaterOrEqual, RunLength

Here is an example that uses the PreviousGreaterOrEqual function:

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Macrobond 1.12

The new version can be installed directly via the Macrobond platform by clicking the yellow line that appears on the screen or by selecting “Check for update” from the Help menu. If you need assistance, a description of how to upgrade is provided by the IT-department, which may be found here.

Selection of new functionality

Support for 64-bit add-ins

The major new feature of 1.12 is that Macrobond now supports 64-bit versions of Microsoft Office, EViews and MATLAB.

There are now two installation packages:

  • The 32-bit installation package contains only the 32-bit versions of the add-ins. You have to install this package if you run on 32-bit versions of Windows.
  • The new 64-bit installation package contains both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the add-ins and we recommend that you always use this package on 64-bit versions of Windows.

If you use the automatic upgrade functionality, you will always continue to use the same type of installation as before. To switch from the 32-bit to the 64-bit installation package, you need to run Setup as described on https://redir.macrobond.com/go/installation.

Note of important series

There is a new column in the lists of series results called “Notes” that shows an exclamation mark for important series.

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You can move it or turn it off in the “Edit|Select columns” dialog.

New way to group in the Scalar analysis

We have added a new way of grouping series in the Scalar analysis called “Partition into”. There is also a new column called “Group” in the list of input series that illustrates which group each series goes into.

The new Statics analysis allows you to add several statistics for each series. You can specify the estimation sample range for each calculation and also determine if the resulting time series should cover the whole range or only the estimation range.

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Disable month initials on chart x-axis

There is a new setting that controls if month initials, such as J, F and M, can be used when showing month labels on the x-axis:

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Log change in Rate of change

There is a new setting in the Rate of change analysis for calculating the logarithmic change:

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This calculates 100 x (Ln(xi)-Ln(xi-t))

Information about 5% tail in Histogram report

We have added another section to the report from the Histogram analysis containing not only the 1% but also the 5% tail expectations. This can be used to estimate Value at Risk (VaR) and Expected shortfall (ES).

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No intercept in the Regression analysis

There is a new setting in the Regression analysis called “No intercept”. When this option is selected, the model is solved without a constant.

Macrobond 1.11

The new version can be installed directly via the Macrobond platform by clicking the yellow line which appears on the screen or by selecting Check for update on the Help menu. If you need assistance, a description of how to upgrade is provided by our IT-department, which may be found here.

Selection of new functionality

MATLAB API

You can now download as well as upload Macrobond time series in MATLAB.

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There is documentation with examples and requirements on our website.

Enhancements in the Regression analysis

The Regression analysis now supports the creation of several models within one instance of the analysis. Each model has separate settings.

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The report will contain information about all the models.

The covariance matrix has been moved from the report and can be viewed by using the Matrix presentation. This also makes it possible to copy a Macrobond Excel Data set with the matrix data. The matrix is calculated only for the first model.

There is a new option for adding residuals for forecasted values to the series of residuals. The Standard error of the forecasts is presented in the report.

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Chart enhancements

You can select the position of the legend to be below, above, on the sides or floating. When not floating, the alignment can be set. There is a new setting for the margin around the text of the legend.

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In the chart above we have also made use of the new settings for the margin between columns , hi-lo-close and stripe graphs. For column charts, you can also set the relative size between groups which emphasises what columns that go together.

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We have also introduced a setting for the margin between panes .

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Another new type of margin that you can set is an extra end margin called “End margin”. This will add some extra margin to the right of the x-axis when you are at the end of the time series.

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You can see what this looks like in the chart below. This margin will only be applied when no end date has been set for the display margin.

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In the chart above, you can also see that the years are written without the century. This is accomplished by changing the new setting called “Include century”:

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As you can see from the same settings panel, you can now turn off the automatic step length logic for the time axis and specify your own step length. In the example below, the step length has been set to 5 years.

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In this chart you might also notice that the tick marks are inside the graph area . This is accomplished by the new setting called “Tick position”, which is available for both x and y axes.

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The last new chart setting we have introduced in this version is called “Include new series automatically”. It is turned on by default. By turning it off, new series will not be automatically added to the chart. You can still add them in the Graph layout dialog (Ctrl+L).

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Sort analysis

With the new Sort analysis, you can sort values in either an ascending or descending order. The most common usage is to sort the values after the Scalar analysis, which can be seen in the example below.

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Histogram analysis

The Histogram analysis can calculate the empirical distribution of a series as the density or cumulative distribution. There are two kernels to choose from. This can then be presented in a chart as a histogram. You can compare with a normal distribution as shown in the chart below.

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The report contains common statistics such as skewness and kurtosis.

You can find comprehensive documentation on our website.

New calculations

We have added functions for calculating the mean value of the upper and lower tails to the Scalar analysis, Cross section analysis and also as formula functions.

The method Average absolute correlation has been added to the Cross section analysis as a complement to the Average correlation method.

Some new formula functions have been added: DateAtOrAfter, Kurtosis, Skewness, LowerTailMean and UpperTailMean. There is also a new version of the PercentRank function that takes a window length.

Recent searches

When entering text in the search field, you now get suggestions based on earlier searches. You can select among the previous searches by using the arrow down key and enter or clicking using the mouse.

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Forecast editor supporting scale

You can now set the scale when you enter the forecasts:

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Enhancements in the Excel add-in

When importing time series you can set the default output options:

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When importing the result from a Macrobond document in a Macrobond Excel Data set, there is a new setting for the analysis description text:

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Selection of new content

Consensus estimates from Consensus Economics

Minor additions

  • Basic macro coverage initiated for Middle Eastern countries
  • Australian surveys from the Melbourne Institute
  • NBER Macro History database
  • The Conference Board TED database
  • Chinese property data from SouFun-CREIS

Soon to be released

Property indices for Scandinavia and the U.K. from IPD as an add-on database.

Macrobond 1.10

The new version can be installed directly via the Macrobond platform by clicking the yellow line that appears on the screen or by selecting Check for update on the Help menu. If you need assistance, a description of how to upgrade is provided by the IT-department, which may be found here. Simply click Upgrade for further instructions.

Selection of new functionality

Multiple chart panes

Charts can now have multiple panes. Each pane has a separate y-axis, but a shared x-axis.

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You can add and remove panes in the Graph layout dialog.

Calculated series

You can now take any time series calculated in a Macrobond document and define an in-house series based on those calculations. When you use the time series in a document, the observations will be calculated based on the current data.

To create a calculated time series, select a series in a Time table and chose “Save calculation as in-house series…” from the Edit or context menu. The calculations will be stored as a special copy of the document.

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When you edit a calculated time series, you will see the document where the series is defined. You can then make changes to the document and also define several time series to be published from the same document.

New Statistics and Detrend analyses

We have renamed the analysis formerly known as “Statistics” to “Statistics (old)”, which you might still find in old documents, and replaced it with two new analyses: Statistics and Detrend.

The new Statics analysis allows you to add several statistics for each series. You can specify the estimation sample range for each calculation and also determine if the resulting time series should cover the whole range or only the estimation range.

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There is also a new method in Statistics where you can draw a line between two points on a graph.

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The Detrend analysis can remove components such as the linear trend, exponential trend and the mean.

The new Cross variance analysis

With the Cross variance analysis you can calculate one of three matrices: Covariance, Correlation or Regression slope. The elements of the matrix are the pairwise calculation of the selected method.

In the Matrix presentation, you can highlight the lowest and highest values. You can also reorder the rows and columns.

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Search for similar series in other regions

There is a new Action that can be used to search for corresponding series in other regions. This works for series that are identified as region key series in our database.

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Change regions

When you use series that are identified as region key series in our database, there is a new feature that helps you replace the series in a document with the corresponding series for another region.

The command “Change region…” on the File menu will bring up a dialog where you can change to another region.

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Additional modes in the Yield curve analysis

With the option called “Rates at a future time” we calculate forward rates that start at the point of the maturity length that you provide. This will, in essence, give you a view of the yield curve at a future point in time relative the observations.

For instance, this chart shows what the yield curve of January 2013 looked like in January 2011, 2012 and 2013.

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The second option allows you to calculate the forward rates between the instruments.

Improved relative points in time

In earlier versions you could specify a relative point in time like -36, which is interpreted as 36 observations before the end. The drawback is that the actual length is then dependent on the frequency.

We have now added support for writing expressions such as: -3y, -3q, -3m, -3w and -3d. There is also a new user interface to help you out.

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Select columns visibility, order and formatting in the Table presentation

In the new “Change table layout” dialog, you can select what columns that should be visible, in what order to show them and how numbers are formatted.

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Warning about discontinued series

Discontinued series are now marked with red in the Series list and formula editor. The tooltip contains information that it is discontinued.

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When a document contains one or more series that have become discontinued, there will be a yellow stripe notification. You can dismiss this warning by clicking on it. If more series becomes discontinued in the document, the warning will be displayed again.

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Specify the DPI when exporting a chart image

When exporting a chart bitmap image (PNG) you can specify another DPI than 96, which is what is used on the screen. By using a higher DPI you get an image with higher resolution, which might make it look better when scaled or printed. The drawback is that the image file will be larger.

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Excel UDF functions

We have added three functions that can be used in Excel spreadsheet formulas: MbndGet, MbndDate and MbndMeta. These can be used when you want to get a few values from a time series, such as the last value. For example, to retrieve the last value or the “eur” time series, you can use this expression in Excel:

=MbndGet(“eur”)

If you want to download large parts of a time series, you should use the Macrobond Data sets as before.

For more details, see the Getting started document.

Source, Unit and Region as optional data in Excel

You can now select to include information about the source, region and unit when downloading data in Excel.

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Selection of new content

World Oil data from JODI

JODI Oil consists of data from more than 90 countries or regions and the members of the six pioneer organizations (APEC, EUROSTAT, IEA, OLADE, OPEC and UNSD) that participate represent over 90% of global oil supply and demand. For more information about JODI please visit http://www.jodidata.org

The database consists of:

  • Ten product categories: Crude Oil, NGL, LPG, Naphtha, Gasoline, Kerosene, Kerosene Type Jet Fuel, Diesel Oil, Fuel Oil and Total Oil
  • Seven flows: Production, Demand, Refinery Intake, Imports, Exports and Closing Stock Levels
  • Data in three different units: barrels, barrels per day and tons
  • Data for more than 90 participating countries
  • Data from January 2002

The series have been integrated in the existing Tree structure for each country under for instance Foreign Trade or Stock Levels/Inventories. It is also available in: Economics – by source > JODI (Joint Organizations Data Initiative).

Financial Instruments from ICAP

World class data for the G7 countries and the Nordic region available in our new ICAP add-on database. The database covers a multitude of OTC interest rate instruments, with an emphasis on interest rate swaps, denominated in eight currencies and priced in several different geographical locations as well as other types of data like FX spot and FX forwards. The almost 35 000 available daily frequency time series have extensive history and are updated throughout the day as different markets closes.

The database includes:

  • Bonds – corporate, sovereign and US agency
  • Currency spot and forward rates
  • Deposit rates, FRAs and repos
  • Basis swaps and cross currency basis swaps
  • Inflation swaps
  • Interest rate swaps
  • Swaptions, straddles and cap/floor
  • Overnight indexed swaps
  • Swap spreads

Minor additions

Increased coverage for Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Georgia and Colombia. Added Milwaukee PMI, selected items from the ECB SAFE Survey, BIS private credit data, the CFTC TFF report and increased coverage of investment fund balance sheet data from ECB.

Soon to be released

Consensus estimates from Consensus Economics as an add-on database.

Macrobond 1.9

The new version can be installed directly via the Macrobond platform by clicking the yellow line that appears on the screen or by selecting Check for update on the Help menu. If you need assistance, a description of how to upgrade is provided by the IT-department, which may be found here. Simply click Upgrade for further instructions.

Selection of new functionality

Web publish

The purpose of the Web publish feature is to simplify the process of publishing Macrobond charts in on-line publications, such as a blog, a content management system (CMS) on your intranet or on the Internet or when using social services such as Facebook and Twitter.

Improvements in analyses

  • We have implemented a one-sided HP filter in the Smoothing analysis and as a formula function.
  • It is now possible to define a range for the “Performance since” operation in the Scalar analysis.
  • You input which date you want to look at.
  • The following analyses now supports category series: Aggregate, Correlation, Covariation, Rate of change, Smoothing and Statistics. This means that they can be used after analyses such as Slice and Scalar.
  • You can now specify a maturity date instead of a maturity length for an instrument in the Scalar analysis.

More ways to search for related series

We have added some new Actions that make it easier to find other series that belong to the same Index, Source, Security or Release:

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Action for navigating directly to the Release

There is now an action for going directly to the information in the Release Activity for a time series:

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Go back to a previously selected entity for Actions

There is a new list of what entities that were previously used in the Action bar and you can navigate back to a previous selection:

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Thumbnails for the most recently opened documents

You will now find thumbnails for the documents in the list of most recently opened documents in the Start Activity:

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Information about creation date and creator of a document

In the File Open/Save dialog, we have added information about when and by whom a document was created. The name of the creator is only available for documents created since 2013.

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Performance improvements

We have improved the performance in many places. The most visible changes are:

  • Faster Table presentation when you have a large sets of series.
  • Faster copy/move in the File Open/Save dialog when many folders or documents are selected.
  • Faster display of the list of documents in the File Open/Save dialog when there are a lot of documents.
  • Snappier operation when expanding folders in the File Open/Save dialog and in the database Browser.
  • Faster Average correlation calculation in the Cross section analysis.
  • Faster application start since some non-critical things are delayed and done in the background when the application is idle.

Additional metadata in the SQL DB Connector

There are a few more pieces of metadata that can be specified in the Macrobond SQL DB Connector: ForecastCutoffDate, MaturityDate, MaturityDays and RateMethod.

There is more information in the documentation.

Selection of new content

Foreign Direct Investment data from UNCTAD

Data for inward and outward flows and stocks for countries and regions has been added and is available here:

Economics – by region > World > Foreign Finance > Foreign Direct Investment

Economics – by source > UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade & Development > UNCTAD Foreign Direct Investment.

OECD Long Term Baseline Projections

The OECD Long Term Baseline analyzes the major economic trends beyond the OECD short-term projections. For all OECD economies, and the major non-OECD economies, it provides coverage of components of potential growth, fiscal balances and debt accumulation, domestic saving and investment balances, and external balances (through the current account). It also includes interest rates consistent with those projections.

The database contains annual data to 2060. Variables are defined in such a way that they are as homogenous as possible for the countries covered. Breaks in underlying series are corrected as far as possible. Sources for the historical data are publications of national statistical agencies and OECD statistical publications such as the Annual National Accounts, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, and Eurostat.

The series are available in: Economics – by country major > (country name) > Forecasts > OECD Economic Outlook > Long-Term Baseline Projections

IMF’s Fiscal Monitor

The IMF Fiscal Monitor contains estimates for items such as government expenditure, revenues, balance and debt in relation to GDP. Current estimates go to 2017 and are available for a wide selection of countries and regions.

The data can be found here:

Economics – by source > International Monetary Fund (IMF) > IMF Fiscal Monitor

It is also available under forecasts for individual countries in the by country tree.

Unrevised data

Over 1 million time series from the St. Louis Fed ALFRED database added. It allows you to retrieve vintage versions of economic data that were available on specific dates in history.

It contains primarily U.S. data but also some international items. Note that some U.S. data is available under international data and that the more specific U.S. items have their own categories in the ALFRED tree.

The data is presented in three ways:

Initial release – The data is presented as a normal time series but does only contain the first released data for each time period.

By vintage – The time series is presented like it looked at a specific point in time, the vintage date, which is the date included in the series title.

For reference period – This allows you to see the revisions over time for a specific reference period, like Q4-2012, which is the date included in the series title. Unlike the two variants above the series observation date is the date it was revised.

Macrobond 1.8

The new version can be installed directly via the Macrobond platform by clicking the yellow line that appears on the screen or by selecting Check for update on the Help menu. If you need assistance, a description of how to upgrade is provided by the IT-department, which may be found here. Simply click Upgrade for further instructions.

Selection of new functionality

Yield curve analysis

With the Yield curve analysis you can produce charts showing yield curves, where one axis shows the maturity length and the other the yield.

It works like this:

  1. As input it takes a number of series with interest rates of different maturity lengths.
  2. You input the maturity lengths and type of rate (simple or effective). For some series there might be information in the database about this and it will then be filled in automatically. Right now, very few series have this information, but we are working on that.
  3. You input which date you want to look at.
  4. The analysis will produce two time series for each yield curve: one series which contains the maturity lengths expressed as years and one series with the interest rate at the specified point in time for the corresponding maturity.
  5. If you plot these two series in a scatter chart and combine the dots with lines, you will get a yield curve with “years” on one axis and “%” in the other.
  6. In the analysis you can select to combine the lines with a natural cubic spline, which will give you a smooth yield curve. When this setting is turned on, a rate will be calculated for each month.

You can calculate several curves at the same time. Either at different dates or with different settings or selection of series. If you select the special date called “Latest”, the last date where there are observations for the majority of the series is used.

A tip is to add two curves, where one calculates splines and one does not. You can then configure the chart to draw one of them as lines, without labels and the other as just markers, but including labels. It will then look something like this:

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Here is an example showing several yield curves at different points in time:

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Frequency conversion analysis

The Frequency conversion analysis can perform the same frequency conversions as in the Series list, but since it is an analysis, the conversion can be done after other calculations.

The analysis also lets you specify a list of date ranges to include in the calendar. This can be used to include or exclude certain time periods from the series. In the chart below, 2006-2007 has been excluded.

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Analysis comments

You can now enter a comment for each analysis in a document.

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The comment field can be expanded/collapsed by the small arrow in the lower right corner. The arrow will be highlight in yellow if there is a comment in the field. There are some options for controlling when the comment field should be visible in the menu at “View|Analysis comment”.

Thumbnails and comments in File Open/Save dialog

When a document is saved to any of the accounts, a small-scale version of the current chart is saved together with the comment. You can view the thumbnail and comment in the dialog when opening a document. Currently this does not work with documents save to My computer.

The File Open/Save dialog now has three modes:

  • Basic list – this shows a list of documents with the columns Title, Last modified and Modified by. The tooltip shows the thumbnail and comment.
  • Thumbnails – Show the documents as thumbnails with a title below. The tooltip shows further details such as the comment.
  • Details – Show the thumbnail and details of the selected document.
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Bloomberg “overrides”

Bloomberg has a concept called “overrides” which is a parameter you can pass to data requests that influences the data. There is now support for specifying such “overrides” in Macrobond by adding a colon followed by “override=value” in the series name. For instance “ih:bl:nky Index:BEST_PE_RATIO:eqy_consolidated=N”.

Average correlation

There is a new method in the Cross section analysis called Average correlation. It calculates the average of the pairwise correlations between the series. It only includes the off-diagonal elements of the correlation matrix.

New formula functions

There are two new formula functions:

  • PercentRank(series, value) – Returns the rank of a value in a series as a percentage (0..100) of the values in the series.
  • Round(value, decimals) – The value is rounded to the closest value with the specified number of decimals. If the value is exactly in between two values, it is rounded to the value that ends with an even digit

SQL DB Connector with dynamic depth of trees

The SQL DB Connector now supports browse trees of varying depth. See the section “Trees of varying depths” in the documentation at https://redir.macrobond.com/go/technicalInfo.

Selection of new content

Colombia and Morocco

Two new countries have been added recently to Macrobond: Colombia and Morocco. The primary sourced data is available in the Economics view in Macrobond.

The Penn World Table

The Penn World Table (PWT) is a national accounts economic time series, with annual frequency, covering majority of countries. Its expenditure entries are denominated in a common set of prices and common currency so that real quantity comparisons can be made, both between countries and over time. The database also provides information on relative prices within and between countries, as well as demographic data and capital stock estimates.

The Penn World Table can be found directly in the Penn World Table view in Macrobond.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Market Surveys

Addition of Market Surveys published by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors– RICS Rural Market, Commercial Market, Construction and Residential Market surveys so now Macrobond carries a complete RICS data suite. All the newly-added surveys together with UK Housing Market Survey analyze the UK economy whereas Portuguese Housing Market Survey, prepared in partnership with Confidencial Imobiliário (a Portuguese real estate information publisher), is Portugal oriented.

The series are available in the Economics – by country major > United Kingdom > Business Surveys > RICS, or Economics – by country major > Portugal > Business Surveys > RICS

Expansion of Eurostat data – MIP Scoreboard, Demography > Population projections

Macrobond continues to expand its data coverage from Eurostat. Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure Scoreboard, Demography > Population projections sections have been recently integrated with our database.

Data can be found under:

Eurostat > Select area > Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure Scoreboard

Eurostat > Select area > Population

Additional indices from EuroMTS

We have increased our coverage of Euro Area bond indices from EuroMTS.

The data is available under: Economics – by country major > Euro Area > Interest > Exchange Rates > Fixed Income Indices

The Conference Board U.S. Business Cycle indicators

Addition of the U.S. Business Cycle Indicators provided by the Conference Board. U.S. BCI database includes the full history for each series, including revisions, along with the latest data. The historical data series goes back as far as 1945, most start in the late 1950s.

These series are available in the Economics – by country major > United States > Leading Indicators > Conference Board

Canada – CANSIM

Major methodological change for Canadian index-based indicators within National Accounts and Balance of Payments, following recent switch to 2007 base year introduced by CANSIM. As a result approx. 1000 further new series will be introduced by the end of this week.