Downtrending stock that bases and then breakouts

treborGo

What would be a good approach to scan for as stock that has been down trending for a period of time, could be 5 days or longer than a few weeks. The stock then bases for some time, not moving much outside of a pretty narrow range and finally the stock breaks out higher on both price and volume?

markd

That's a complicated scan. It's not that it can't be done, but you have to narrow the scope, meaning you have to make some decisions about the pattern you are looking for. The same scan is not going to find a stock that has been down trending for a few days and another for a few weeks. You have choose some reasonable period and go with it. Same for the basing period - choose some reasonable range. For instance, falling for at least six months and in a range for the last six weeks.

You could try doing it with Price Channels - for instance the 200 day mid price channel is at its lowest (min() )in 6 months, and the difference between the upper and lower channel is 50 per cent less than the same difference six months and the lower price channel is the same as it was 2 months ago ago and today's close crossed above the upper price channel on 3 times average volume.

That's just a starting point. It would need a lot of refinement, which you would work out from trial and error.

No matter what decisions you make, your scan will miss some cases that you would choose by eye, and catch some you weren't looking for. For instance, if all your conditions are met, but price crosses on 2.9 x average volume, the scan will miss it.

treborGo

Thank you, markd. I will experiment with your suggestions and reply to this thread if I have more questions about this scan.