PnF Chart scanner.

ratbhatt

Any reason or explanation why this pattern was not caught in the inbuilt PnF Bullish Triangle? How can I catch these pattern formations?

markd

It looks to me like the low at 144 in March made a lower low on the P&F chart that interrupted the lower portion of the triangle. Whoever or whatever drew the pattern on your bar chart example chose to ignore that.

As far as I know, there are no rigorous rules for defining bar chart patterns, so programmers are left to make up their own rules. I would guess ten different software applications would recognize three or four different patterns, or maybe no pattern, in the same data.

To answer your question, how can you find patterns, I would recommend you stay with P&F charts, as the rules for pattern recognition are much more objective and more consistently applied.

If you want to scan for P&F patterns with Stockcharts, you have to accept the Stockcharts definition of the pattern that is built into the scan, which implies the price interval that constitutes a box, and the reversal count necessary to start a new column.

If you want to define your own P&F charts, then you have to scan them by eye.

ratbhatt

Hello @markd , you are right. There is no holygrail system which will catch everything. What I was wondering is if this could be done programatically? I mean instead of running P&F scan, can I run a moving average scan to get a list of stocks and then I look at pattern formations? That way I will have a bigger list to scan and also will add possibilities of getting more better stocks. Thank you once again for your kind advise. It really helps for newbies like us who are trying to build their own setup.

markd

A simple moving average scan will give you too many hits to review. On the other hand, writing a scan to capture bar chart patterns is a matter of trial and error. You have to figure out how to define the pattern in terms of the available indicators and/or overlays. I would repeat my advice to use the P&F scans if you are interested in patterns.

ratbhatt

Okay @markd sir. I will stick to that. I hope I am not bothering you as I am in my learning phase and tinkering with too many things. Thanks a lot once again.

markd

@ratbhatt Well, I certainly don't want to discourage you from trying if it's something you enjoy and want to do. But from a trading perspective, for the return you get for your efforts, simpler is usually better.