FIND STOCKS AT THEIR INTRADAY LOW

Paulie50

Hi I'm trying to write a simple scan to find stocks that are at their intraday low. Help would be most appreciated.

markd

The scan engine is not designed for intraday scanning. For instance, you can't scan for a MACD crossover on a 5 minute chart.

But, you can scan for daily (or higher time frame) prices and indicator values during market hours, which appears to be what you want to do.

The results will be valid for the latest update to the scan database, but it might not always look that way. The chart database and the scan database are separate, so chart data and scan data may not be perfectly synchronized. Also, since data is updated frequently ( I don't know the exact interval, but let's say every minute or two), by the time you inspect your scan results, prices may have moved on, so it may be a mystery why the scan selected some symbols since they no longer match the scan criteria. Also, if you have not paid for real-time chart data, that may affect whether your scan results and your charts agree.

All that said, you could try this scan:

and [close = low]

This should work because during market hours the scan engine considers the most recent update to be the closing data for the day, even though it isn't. So this scan says, select symbols where today's close equals today's low. I can't test it because the market is closed. Have a go with it Tuesday.

Keep in mind, though, if you are looking for long entries on your hits, that the "low" of the current update is only the low as of the most recent update. It is probably not the low for the entire session. In other words, the symbol may have more downside to go before it hits the final low for the day.

P.S.

Liquid (heavily traded) stocks in a fairly consistent short term up trend will usually make their lows in the first hour and a half (9:30 - 11:00 am eastern), if it's going to be an up day, and their highs between noon and 3 pm. This is just a generalization, not a rule. But if a stock doesn't break it's opening price before noon, after going lower from the open, it probably will close down or barely up. Most stocks won't make more than two or three strong up days without a down day or small range day to consolidate the gains (profit takers selling). Again, a generalization, not a rule.

Here's a scan to detect stocks probably beginning or in the middle of a short term up trend:

[group is sp500]
and [sma(5,close) > 5 days ago sma(5, close)]
and [Upper Price Chan(10) > 1 day ago Upper Price Chan(10)]

Look back over the history of the stock to see if it trades consistently (several up days in row when in an up trend) or erratically (up and down days, and wide and narrow ranges are more random).

Even if a stock tends to trend consistently, news like earnings, Fed announcements, monthly economic reports, or stock-specific events (drug approval/denial, plane crash, oil spill, etc.) can interrupt the trend, at least temporarily.