Efficient Stock Scan by van Tharp

PKaluza

I am trying to run simple stock scan to check stock efficiency for last 60 days.
First I would like to identify all stock with change in price (closing price today subtract closing price 60 days ago) > $15 and have a ATR < 1. Also stock should have 60-day average volume greater than 200,000 shares per day.

Could you please help me to create user defined scan ?

Thanks in advance P

markd

It's great that you have thought about exactly what you want your scan to do. That is a skill in itself, and it's really the hardest part of writing a scan because that is where you do your real thinking. The rest is just getting to know how the Scan Builder tool works and a few simple rules of scanning grammar.

In a nutshell the basic rules are -

Every line in a scan begins with the word "and", except the first.

Every condition has brackets around it.

A condition has two terms, connected by an comparison operator, like >, <, =

A term can be an indicator, or an arithmetic operation.

So, for your scan, the first line, or lines, should describe the stocks you want to look at. Lets say

[group is sp500]

Note: It could be any other group from the Scan Builder drop downs (Indexes and ETFs or Chart Lists) or something you design yourself (from the Ticker Properties drop down).

Now, every line from here begins with "and". So you want to compare closes for a difference between them. It's pretty much like straightforward arithmetic, except it uses words to substitute for numbers (plus it needs the brackets around it).

and [close - 60 days ago close > 15]

"60 days ago" is a date offset. The options for date offsets are described here, about half way down the page:


stockcharts.com/docs/doku.php?id=scans:advanced_scan_workbench

The next two conditions you can add from the Scan Builder "Technical Indicator" drop down and then edit them.

First select "ATR" (about 2/3 down the list), click Insert, and edit the default value (>2.0) to <1.

Then select "SMA" (very first option) and edit for 60 and 200000.

Then hit "Check Syntax", fix any errors, and hit "Run Scan".

Let me know if you run into trouble.

PKaluza

Thank you for prompt reply markd.
I have tested what you have sugessted and it works ok. However is there a way to have result of simple arithmetic displayed as follow: [close - 60 day ago close] / divided by ATR =>15 ? So no matter what close less close is and what ATR is result of scan should display stocks with efficciency of 15 and more.

Can you help?

markd

You were very close. Just have to watch the brackets and the operators:


and [ [close - 60 days ago close] / ATR(14) >=15]

Sorry for the delay in answering. I didn't see your response pop to the top of the list as I think it is supposed to do.