Calendar Feature Help

Gregory

Does the calendar feature allow you to select a date range? For example I would like to select March 1st through March 31st and run my scan to see if any stocks meet the criteria during that date range. The only thing I can do right now is select a start date and the end date is always the current day of the current month.

markd

The scan will always run as of the market close of the date you select.

The scan results charts will always use your default chart style. After you save the results to a list, you can choose to apply different chart styles.

So, to find all the symbols in March that meet your scan criteria, you have to run the scan for each trading day in March. You could save the scan results for each day to separate lists, or merge them all into one or several lists.

If your default chart style includes March, you should be able to verify your results, assuming your chart style includes the indicators (if any) that you specified in your scan.

If your default chart style is not satisfactory, you can modify it as needed and save it as a new style.

Alternatively, you could use the "select start/end" feature to modify the length of any chart (for instance, so that it begins six months before your scan date and ends on the scan date). This feature also allows you to "step through" a chart bar by bar, if that would be useful.

Gregory

Thanks markd.

lmkwin

You can also create, what I call, a nested scan. Depending on the complexity of the scan code, it can be easy or harder.

simplistic nested idea

and [
[Close x 5 and RSI greater than 50]
or [1 days ago close x 50 and 1 days ago RSI greater than 50]
or [2 days ago close x 50 and 2 days ago RSI greater than 50]
or [3 days ago close x 50 and 3 days ago RSI greater than 50]
or [4 days ago close x 50 and 4 days ago RSI greater than 50]
or [5 days ago close x 50 and 5 days ago RSI greater than 50]
or [6 days ago close x 50 and 6 days ago RSI greater than 50]
or [7 days ago close x 50 and 7 days ago RSI greater than 50]
or [8 days ago close x 50 and 8 days ago RSI greater than 50]
or [9 days ago close x 50 and 9 days ago RSI greater than 50]
or [10 days ago close x 50 and 10 days ago RSI greater than 50]
or [11 days ago close x 50 and 11 days ago RSI greater than 50]
or [12 days ago close x 50 and 12 days ago RSI greater than 50]
or [13 days ago close x 50 and 13 days ago RSI greater than 50]
or [14 days ago close x 50 and 14 days ago RSI greater than 50]
]

would give a hit for something that occurred in the last 15 days based on daily activity. You could change the date function on the workbench and run that 15 days ago to get the hits in the 15-30 days ago period.

Or you could shorten it to weeks or lengthen it to a month. Be it Scans or Alerts, Nesting allows you to capture more than just 1day when looking for something.

markd

There are a few trade-offs to consider when building a scan.

If you want it to cover a wide range of time, does it make more sense to write to a write a shorter scan that looks at just one bar, and run it multiple times with the calendar tool, or a longer scan and run it just once, or twice?

The answer might depend on how often you intend to run the scan if you like it.

If you plan to run scans nightly, it makes sense to write a scan that looks at just the most recent bar. If you write a scan that looks back, say 10 days, but you run it nightly, you may get some new hits each night, but you will also get the same hits you have already seen multiple times, until they age out (for instance, let's say the first time you run a 10 day look back scan, you get a hit 6 days ago; you will also get it the next day, at 7 days ago, then 8 days ago, and so on, until the hit is 11 days ago).

But if you plan to run scans only on the weekend, then a scan that covers five days might be the way to go. You would spend more time writing and testing the scan, but once its developed and proven, you would run it only once every weekend.

A second thing to consider when writing a look-back scan is the results. When you write a one-bar scan, the last bar on the chart is always the "hit" bar - the one that fits your condition. On look-back results, the hit bar could be any one of the bars in the look back period. If the scan is simple - like an MA crossover - the hit bar would be easy to spot. If the scan is more complicated, it might not be.

lmkwin

Very important to understand the trade-offs and limitations. Also something else to consider is a new addition to the StockCharts environment, the Scheduled Scan.

A Scheduled Scan is another way to use your existing Scan(s) and have them automatically run daily. You can set Scheduled Scan to create a new Chartlist, or update an existing Chartlist.

If you set it to create a new Chartlist, it seems to take the Rank By into consideration. An update of an existing list will not consider the rank by when adding new names.

Something to keep in mind on creating new chartlists with the Scheduled Scan is that the lists will build up in total. You are limited to 250 lists at the EXTRA membership level, so if you have one or several Scheduled Scans creating new lists daily, it can add up quickly.

One way I use a Scheduled Scan is to create one list. Another Scheduled Scan looks at that list and updates an existing 2nd list. Another Scheduled Scan looks at that 2nd list and updates a 3rd existing list. I run Alert(s) against that 3rd list.

Another nice thing about the Scheduled Scan, similar to Alerts, is that you can get an email sent to you showing the list results and a link to that list.

Gregory

Thanks Imkwin.