Looking to scan for a 30 day Bollinger Band squeeze and price breakout with abnormal volume

Brownie

I'm good with the abnormal volume portion but am having difficulty defining the low volatility 30 day Bol Band and price breakout. Thanks for any help

markd

I think for simplicity, I'd break the scan into two parts. First scan for the squeeze and put the results in a list. Then scan the list for volume breakouts.

I don't use BBs, so I'm not sure if the reference to "30 day" squeeze has some particular requirements. If not, I might do it something like this:

// Bands are narrowest in 30 days
and [BB Width(20,2) = min(30, BB Width(20,2))]

// Band width today is less that 25% of the widest bandwidth in 30 days)
and [BB Width(20,2) < max(30, BB Width(20,2) * .25]

You could play with any of the parameters to see what combination gives the best results.

Brownie

Thanks Mark. What do you use if you are looking for a basing pattern? Price channel, ATR?

Brownie

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=ATNM
This is very close to what I'm looking for

markd

I like to look for pull backs in an up trend, so I haven't really played with basing patterns.

You could try converging price channels - upper channel - lower channel < x days ago upper channel - x days ago lower channel. Or maybe UC - LC < (x ago UC - x ago LC) * .25, or something like that. Not sure what would be a good channel length, though.

RAClose

Markd last post is what I've been looking for, but I can't seem to write the scan correctly for a BB using (7,2).

markd

Post what you have and we'll tweak it.