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dhall6938

Is there an indicator or something, a scan criterion, that can be written into a scan that helps to identify stocks that tend to trend or are likely to move in one direction for at least a week and hopefully longer? As an example, stocks that are likely to stay above a 13 period moving average once they have closed above it, or the opposite, might tend to stay below the same MA for at least a week?

markd

The way to approach that problem I think would be to find some examples, past or present, of the kind of behaviors you are looking for. Then apply apply a variety of indicators, one at a time, to see if the indicators have some behaviors in common, and then scan for those.

Off the top of my head, I would think something like SCTR values recently crossing into the 90s would be promising.

Maybe something with Fast Stochastics staying above say 75 for some number of days or weeks.

You would need a constantly rotating list of candidates, since nothing goes up or down forever. Some stocks, like AAPL get into streaks, but that's relatively rare - although SCTRs would find those, I think.

Another way might be testing for MACD Hist above zero for some number of bars.

But, the longer something has been going up or down, the closer it is to reversing. There's just no easy way to tell when that is.

The class of stocks most likely to have persistent trends are consistent dividend payers with a large institutional following and a long string of improving quarterly earnings.

lmkwin

It's not exactly what you were asking for, as I can't think of a way to create a scan that would be able to quantify it, but Arthur Hill shared a scan a while back that looked for consistent uptrend tendencies.

https://stockcharts.com/members/articles/arthurhill/2019/06/systemtrader---scanning-for-consistent-uptrends-with-limited-pullbacks.html

https://stockcharts.com/articles/chartwatchers/2019/09/four-keys-to-finding-meaningfu-891.html

He shared a lot of "system trading" studies using various indicators. You may note links to other studies at the bottom of the blog articles.

You can also use the Search on StockCharts.com to find other articles and indicators and the like. When you use the Search the results page defaults to Support Articles. Click the dropdown and select Blog Articles to see what has been written by their "experts" about a topic.



Another thought, since you mentioned 13 periods, the Elder Impulse System uses 13 periods as one requirement to determine the color of the bars it shows.

https://stockcharts.com/articles/chartwatchers/2015/08/acting-on-impulse-with-elder-impulse-bars.html

dhall6938

Thank you. I may not be asking my question very well but I'll read what you suggest. FYI, I have tried to find an indicator by trying a variety of the one's I like to use such as MACD but I have not found one that I like because it either just doesn't work or it eliminates too many good ones. I might say that volatile stocks that gap a lot and often seem to be the worst for me.

dhall6938

GLD and SLV are perfect examples of two symbols that I can't hold very often. They both gap often and their daily price swings usually get back below my preferred stops most of the time.

lmkwin

Is 13 periods your min time frame to hold? Max time frame? Maybe scan for a weekly Elder Bar was Blue a week ago and now is Green.

In your ChartStyles dropdown in the SharpCharts workbench, there is a predefined style called Elder's Weekly. Check out some of your choices on that style and see if you note anything that can be of assistance. If looking at "trend", you probably want to start at a higher time frame for choosing options and then drill into the lower time frame, if desired, for action levels.




Looks like 7 'signals' in 32 months with 5 of them short term profitable.

dhall6938

Thank you again. I have not used Elder but I am familiar with setting it up and it's basic idea. I have been trying to trade a shorter TM, daily and hourly. May have to make the weekly my long term trend. Thanks

lmkwin

If looking at a specific time frame, it's often best to make sure that the longer term is in sync with your shorter term intentions. I'd say, just doing that, and following it, will improve your results as you can technically "see" the DNA of the security and gain confidence in your actions.

On GLD five out of seven points the Elder Bar changed from Blue to Green resulted in a profitable short term trade, but... two out of seven were not good on that weekly time frame. What do you notice about those 2? August/Sept 21 and August/Sept 22.

That's the beauty of charts. You can see what your methods have done, vs what you are actually doing.

dhall6938

Yes, thank you. My primary trading plan follows a weekly MACD for the longer-term trend. What I am trying to learn now is a much shorter TF trading plan. This is much harder, at least for me. Using an appropriate profit and stop plan can make or break a trade plan and this one or two days to one week trading is mind boggling. It doesn't appear to work well with anything that gaps often or will not consistently move in one direction or the other for at least a week. It's a big challenge

markd

See what you think of this:

[group is SP500]

and [min(10, MACD Hist(12,26,9)) > 0]

rank by SCTR.large

MACD Hist > 0 means MACD Line is above MACD Signal. If that happens for 10 days, the price action is more likely to be more consistent.

You can play with the min parameter and the MACD Hist parameters to see if you can improve the results. I think the shorter the parameters meeting the >0 condition, the smoother the price action should be.

So maybe you could try 6 and 13 (but keep 9).

lmkwin

I used to be a 'trader'. Afterall, all of the 'educational' material that one consumes when learning to buy and sell stock, for the most part, is written by traders, or people who teach trading. Each trade is made up of several decisions. The more decision you have to make the greater possibility that the decision will be either wrong or detrimental to overall results. If you can deal with that reality, then all's well. Maybe not profitable, but well.


@markd there are some names in the SP500 that don't have a SCTR.large. Those 5 returned by your scan are SCTR.mid's.

Here's a Fun Fact.
rank by SCTR.large returns values in the rank by column.
rank by SCTR.mid returns values in the rank by column.
rank by SCTR does not return any values.
rank by [SCTR] does return values.
At least on my computer.

markd

That's interesting. Maybe support should know so they can open a ticket on that. It would be low priority but they would get around to it eventually. Unless it's intentional. Maybe the documentation explains it somewhere.

In the meantime, it seem [SCTR] is the way to go.

dhall6938

A different subject. I have so many ideas that I'd like to try but Id don't think that I'll live long enough to try them all. Is this a decent way to ask for a 1% change from either the high or the low during the same day? [[Favorites List is 44] or [Favorites List is 23]]

and [Close < High *1.01]]

or [Close > Low *0.99]]]

lmkwin

In the Sample Scan library they give all sorts of examples of various popular scanning techniques
https://support.stockcharts.com/doku.php?id=scans:library:sample_scans

The "between" can be accomplished a lot of ways, with an example in the sample scans



Using OR in a scan requires special attention to make sure that the line statements are treated correctly. You need to enclose the lines that are looking at This OR That inside of additional set of brackets OR the scan will treat them as separate requirements, which may not be what you intended.



I'm not clear on what you are looking for.

It sounds like you want the close to be within a 1% change from the High or within a 1% change from the Low. Would that High be the current high or the period before's high. Same thing on the low. Would it be the current low or the period before's?

markd

Agree with lmkwin. You need to be more specific about what "change from high or low" means.

The final high or low that gets saved to the scan database at the end of the day is unknown during the day. The high at 10 am may not be the high 2 pm, which may not be the high at 4 pm.

The open is known at 9:30 (or there about) and never changes. The close is final only at or after 4 pm and so are the high and low.

dhall6938

GM, I am looking for a change from the today's high or today's low. I did find the examples you listed above in the scan library examples but was not sure how to write what I am looking for. As I imagine it in my mind, I would run my scan about every hour and if the price at that time is at least 1% below the last high, or at least 1% above the last low of the same day, it'd alert me. All of this is would occur today, the same day that I run the scan. Hope that helps. I am experimenting with it during the day

dhall6938

I probably should have said today's close is less than today's high or today's close is greater than today's low.

markd

So if the current intraday update daily time frame high is 10, you want an alert if the close in the same update is below 10 * .99 = 9.90 or more than 10 cents off the high. (100 - 1 per cent is 1.00 - .01 = .99)

Should be

and [close < high * .99]

for the low

and [close > low * 1.01]


You could also write it

and [close < high - [high * .01]]

for the low

and [close > low + [low * .01]]

dhall6938

Thanks again. I appreciate your help.

dhall6938

I just ran my scan and the return I got was so much smaller and that's good. Thanks