I've looked through the archives on scanning and backtesting software and there are quite alot of possibilities. But what I'm looking for doesn't need to be very complicated, so I was hoping someone could point me to something cost effective and reliable. Without giving away too many secrets, I've come up with a simple, yet profitable system using just bollinger bands and the MACD histogram. More specifically, I'd like to scan stocks that are either at the upper end, lower end or middle of the bollinger band and for a certain level on the MACD histogram. I tried TC 2000, but they don't have this type of feature. And I've heard negative things about using Tradestation (maybe its exaggerated). Also, I'd like to run it in real time during the afternoon looking for the days candidates to buy at the close. Waiting until the market closes and buying the next day at the open seems to be slightly worse. Thanks.
there are a number of charting systems that will give you some of this.. reading other threads should give you some ideas.. for myself so far the best combo I have found is using qcharts feed to run erlangerqote (used to be ravenquote) altho expensive solution.. stockwatchpro is cheaper add on and may be useful enough for you. what I like about either of those add on progs is you can do real time scans using any formula you could imagine to find any stocks by any parameters really.. for example, I am able to search and find any stock within a certain proximity to a pivot res/support whilst having a set range for the day so far and volume and price within my targets.. you could also have an alert eg if one ma crossed another.. whatever really.. Neil
JB I used to use the screening software at silicon investor www.siliconinvestor.com it is free and allows you to screen for multiple criteria of a technical nature. Just send me 1% of 1% of your trading profits and we'll call it strait.
Although, the scanner is not real time, www.stockcharts.com has a scanner that allows you to customize your scans. There isn't a large choice of tech indicators but Bbands & MACD is included. You can specify between the upper and lower bands as well as the MACD line, signal, and histogram.
It has formula driven scans and if you want, you can program more complex stuff in VBscript, etc. It works with QCharts, eSignals, MyTrack etc.