In the past I have manually scanned charts (sometimes 1000s in one day) looking for strong upward movement. Does anybody have a reliable way of identifying these trends automatically?
If you scan for 52 week highs you end up with a manageable list and they're frequently in a nice uptrend channel. Stockcharts.com has a nice technical scanner and the free version does 52 week highs.
If you're looking for something free, you might also want to look here: http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/finder/customstocksdl.asp It's MSN's screener. I think that web-based will let you look for 52 week high? If not, download the deluxe version....it's free and I KNOW it has the 52 week high in there, along with quite a few other things. It's alright as a free screener.....I would advise you to download the deluxe so you can input some more specific criteria.
http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/SC.scan Would you guys also use/combine any other technical indicators or patterns for selecting strong stocks? Thanks!
How about this one: http://www.swing-trade-stocks.com/relative-strength.html Q Find Out if a Stock is Strong or Weak Relative strength refers to how strong a stock is relative to something else. This could be either how strong it is compared to the overall market or the industry group that it is in. If it is stronger, than then we say that it has relative strength. If it is weaker, than we say that it has relative weakness. Relative Strength To improve your odds of a successful trade, you want only want to trade stocks on the long side that are stronger than the market itself. One way to do this is to compare it to the S&P500. You can plot it on a chart: chart of relative strength Looking at the chart above we have the stock compared to the S&P500 (black line). In early May, you can see that the S&P 500 began to rally, as did the stock itself, but the stock was weaker than the S&P500. This stock had relative weakness. It eventually sold off. Now look at the chart below. In March, the S&P500 began to sell off but this stock went straight up. This stock had relative strength compared to the market and would have been a great trade (isnât hindsight a wonderful thing?!). chart of relative strength You can also compare stocks to the specific industry groups that they are in. On the long side, you want to be trading the strongest stocks that are showing relative strength compared their industry group. On the short side, you want to be selling stocks that are showing relative weakness compared their industry group. You can also compare different industry groups to each other! For example, on the long side, you can see on a chart which industries are leading the market. Then you can select those stocks in those industries. Ok, by now I think you get the point. You just want to find out how strong or weak a stock is BEFORE you trade it! But wait, is there an easy way to find all of this out? Yes! Finding Relative Strength or Weakness Wait until the stock market sells off hard for a few days. Now go through the stocks on your watch list. Which ones are up for the day that the market has sold off? Those stocks have relative strength and those are the ones that you should be trading. Why? Because these stocks will be the ones that will move first when the market recovers and will make the most significant gains. Also, look at charts for the various industry groups. Which ones are up on big down days in the market? Those industry groups have relative strength and those are the ones you want to be in. This is completely the opposite on the short side. On big up days in the market look for the industry groups and stocks that are down for the day. These are weakest and the ones that you should be focused on for shorting. Do not underestimate the simplicity of this technique! If you mainly trade on the long side of the market, use the down days in the market to go through your watch list. Find the stocks that are up for the day, showing relative strength. Then wait for the right time to enter the stock. I promise you that doing this one little thing will greatly improve your trading! UQ
Here is another one: Locating Strong Stocks http://www.bullcharts.com.au/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=561&title=locating-strong-stocks Q Once in a while I randomly pick a book from my bookshelf and read a random chapter to refresh my memory. It so happened that I recently picked up Leon Wilson's - Next Step to Share Trading, chapter 6. He talks about identifying strong stocks. He goes into much details about customised indicators to study such stocks (which frankly...for me was bit confusing). But overall I liked the 'message' of chapter which I interpreted as - find stocks which have been outperforming the index (RSC), have greater internal strength than index (RSI) and have greater rate of change than the index (ROC). in bullcharts, the first scan for RSC is straight forward. But how do we scan for RSI and ROC of a stock as compared to an index (e.g. XJO)? In the book, he has following search criterias tailored for Metastock: Internal strength comparison search COLUMN A Up:=if(close>ref(close,-1),close-ref(close,-1),0); Down:=if(ref(close,-1)>close,ref(close,-1)-close,0); VALUE:=100-(100/(1+(sum(up,21)/(sum(down+0.0000001,21))))); Mov(value,3,E); We use the "Indicator" reference in Metastock exploration feature to refrence the required index for the search comparison. This can be checked by refereing to the default RSC indicator COLUMN B Up:=if(INDICATOR>ref(INDICATOR,-1),INDICATOR-ref(INDICATOR,-1),0); Down:=if(ref(INDICATOR,-1)>INDICATOR,ref(INDICATOR,-1)-INDICATOR,0); VALUE:=100-(100/(1+(sum(up,21)/(sum(down+0.0000001,21))))); Mov(value,3,E); Filter colA>colB Momentum Comparison Column A Close Column B (((Close-ref(close,-21))/ref(close,-21))*100)-(((Indicator-ref(indicator,-21))/ref(indicator,-21))*100) Filter (((Close-ref(close,-21))/ref(close,-21))*100)-(((Indicator-ref(indicator,-21))/ref(indicator,-21))*100)>=0 UQ
Or simply: Q You have great ideas even if they are a random pick off the bookshelf An easy and effective trading system approach is to do a strength comparison scan of stocks versus the index. To compare stocks to an index you load the index symbol and apply the same indicator to both the stock and the index then you subtract them to find the difference or strength. Note: The RSI indicator formula doubles the value parameter it is given and subtracts 1. so the default value 28 is actually using a 55ema. Indicator 1: { RSC - ROC } period:= input("Period",300,1); symb := inputsymbol("Compare to", "XJO"); index:=LoadSymbol(symb,C); ROCrsc:=ROC(C,period,%) - ROC(index,period,%); ROCrsc; Indicator 2: { RSC - RSI } period:= input("Period",28,1); symb := inputsymbol("Compare to", "XJO"); index:=LoadSymbol(symb,C); RSIrsc:=RSI(C,period) - RSI(index,period); RSIrsc UQ
NinjaTrader 7 can do this. However, you need to have a broker that will work with ninjaTrader to make it work for intraday data. Otherwise the Free stuff only does daily data. Personally, I use infinity AT.