I had an interesting day today- As an after hours struggling swing trader that only makes 15-20 trades a month-last year+ - I recently started looking at ways to try to improve my stock selection- besides the technicals, I wanted to look into adding some fundamental criteria, so I'd do a stockcharts scan and then tried to use a fundamental 'qualifier' by checking the charts with a msn screener for a decent/improving fundamental rating- say an 8 or above. Well, since I have limited time in the pm, and no computor time/access during trading hours, I recently sought to improve my time by looking at different approaches- Two things happened today: A friend has sent me his copy of Metastock 8.0- it arrived today...he hasn't used it, and I am not very "programming savvy" -actually I'm totally ignorant and somewhat intimidated by the process. and I caught the Review by Rickshaw on the meta program and sent him a pm-hope he can shed some light-on some of the attributes, as he is testing the new offer....I hope to learn a lot more about such programs. I'm a small account -after hours- swingtrader that has essentially struggled to learn to trade in the past year + I would like to find a decent program that doesn't cost an arm and a leg that will allow for basic fundamental criteria screens mixed with the technicals. I want to find a program that can apply both fundamental criteria, sector analysis (improving/declining/) and technical analysis along with some candlestick charting programs. Obviously i'm looking only for EOD criteria and don't require real time quotes. (I use IB ) The other interesting part of my day, is that I spent this AM at a meeting of a brand new group of Investools initiates- This had been presented to me as a program that incorporated both fundamental and technical info. While I had not seen the investools program before, it essentially screens stocks and includes an approach that looks at fundamental criteria, sector strength, TA on stochastics, Macd, and RSI (you can add indicators), and then the program continues on to Options trading etc. There are multiple levels- To "acquire a PHD" costs between 20k-23k That's the pinnacle and gives a lot of personal coaching time. I believe it also includes Options training, and the programm is automated to where it limits position sizing and Risk automatically. What I found to be amazing, is that virtually all of the program's participants had been in the program less than 60 days- None had made any real trades- and mosty had put out more than 9k-20k based on a 2 day "seminar' they had attended. The base course was 3K-it gave you 5 DVD's , access to the on line site for 6 months ($50 per month), and a short basic training- opportunity to upsell- weekend program. The basic program includes a "buy" signal when the stochastic, MACD, and RSI are properly aligned and the sector group strength is improving- Similar to the IBD screener I expect. The other thing almost all of these folks had in common was they were professionals, had little or no prior trading experience- The woman that sat next to me was 55+ (my age) , had signed up for the "masters" program, over 15K, and as she left she expressed how she needed to be able to prove the cost of the course to her retired husband- She was trying to find a way to not have to work until she was 70+ The program seems to put all of the necessary criteria at your fingertips- fundamentals and technicals- rolled into one package=-along with guidelines for position sizing and risk. What truly "bothered" me was the level of inexperience of the group. It seemed that somebody showed them an intro to TA 101 and they were sucked in. HOWEVER-One of the 2 month participants -Has had great paper trading success with OPTIONS. The self-serving part of this post is that I am seeking additional information on metastock and/or other screening programs that are capable of including fundamental info with some robust technical signals. On the cheap of course- Thanks in advance, SD
A few months ago I was doing the exact same thing you are doing. Looking for some EOD software that wasn't a ridiculous amount of money. I looked at investools and didn't really like it. It seemed to be too easy. I wanted more. I went with metastock, which maybe was a little more money but I donât regret it. Metastock is way more advanced and has the option to program your own screens and indicators. But they do have hundreds of indicators and screens (they call them explorations) that scan for buy and sell signals based on fundamentals and technicals. Obviously I don't buy just anything that comes up on the screen, but it definitely helps weed out a lot of the crappy stocks. Because there are so many explorations, it took me about a month to find one exploration that I liked and had consistent results over the years. I screen for stocks for my price range and the volume that I want in optionsxpress, then I add them all to the metastock exploration. (To screen through every stock on metastock takes way too long on my slow computer.) It screens those for buy/sell signals. I open the charts for all the buy signals for that day and through further analysis, if I like one or two, I trade. If I don't like any, I don't trade. I have been profitable these past couple months. Hope this helps.
I know those who use Investools, master level, and what I've concluded so far is that those who really have a chance to make money are those who are dedicated and willing to pay the additional $7000 after the initial $3000 for the next course (master level) and I believe get access to more powerful tools. The Investools instructors will tell you, once you get into their advanced courses (they call them Master or PHD level courses) that most of the people that only paid the $3000 will never make any money. Why? Because most don't have the skills, nor the time and discipline to learn the skills on their own, needed to make money, and don't have access to the better tools. Going a step further, paying an additional $7000 or more for each additional course, there are even more powerful skills and tools for trading, stock screening, charting, etc. All those people you see on their Infomercials are a small percentage of the people paying the initial $3000 (and monthly access fee), and many of them took the advanced course. So bottom line, as with anything, if you want to make money there's no easy way. You need to be deadly serious about learning how to trade, have some money (the more the better), pay for the advanced courses, and practice, practice, practice! All the advanced courses and tools will do for you is help you obtain and enhance your trading skills and make you much more efficient using those skills and their tools, and therefore more successful at trading, compared to learning on your own using free or low cost tools. But as I said you have to be deadly serious (and competent) or youâre just throwing your money away! Investools is good, but theyâre in this to make money and theyâre going to sugar coat everything they do for mass consumption. Theyâre not going to kick you in the ass and weed you out like the Marine Corp. They want your money first! Haven't looked into Metastock yet, but I suspect there's a similar story there.