MakerMovers

Stocks Down for the Day: A Great Pattern for Your Scanner

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:28 GMT

A very common question we get is,

"How do i find stocks that are down for the day? I only see 'up' filters."

A new video shows how to find stocks that are up or down for the day, using our "up from the close" filters. Thank you Marissa for explaining that so clearly.

A related question is,

"Why don't you add a down for the day filter?"

The short answer is that you only have one column in your market view showing this information. You wouldn't create an up for the day column and a separate down for the day column. That would be a waste of space on the market view, and it would be a waste of space on our config window. The video shows the relationship between the filters and the fields in the market view. It's all the same data!

Another question in this theme is

"Wouldn't it be easier to have a down for the day filter?"

I admit that I used to have these same thoughts. Sometimes negative numbers are confusing. But once I started to work through some examples, I realized the power of negative numbers. I would not want to type in something like:

Show me stocks where: The price was up from the previous close.
Also show me stocks where: The price was flat from the previous close.
Also show me stocks where: The price was down no more than 0.5% from the previous close.
Also show me stocks where: The price was down at least 1.5% from the previous close.

It is much more concise to enter just two values into the filter. http://www.trade-ideas.com/MinMaxNegative/?min=-0.5&x=-1.5&filter_name=FCP

I started from the video. The market as a whole was down about 1%. I'm looking for stocks that did not move the same was as the rest of the market. But then I started making some changes. What if the market is down by only 1/4%? Or up by 1/4%? By expressing these values only as numbers, it was easy to move the range around as I needed it. And by using the our new filter visualization tool, I could really see what was going on.

Good luck modeling? Call us or contact us with any questions or help you need building your patterns.

Scan for Pattern Rotations, In Addition to Sectors

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:05 GMT

Many traders and educators talk about catching sector rotations - when money moves from one industry to another. Capitalizing on this kind of capital movement can make for great trades. Sometimes it's difficult to ascertain what is moving. Additionally industry leaders may indeed begin moving, but laggards may not.

Another way to think of rotations is to consider not the stocks in the same industry moving, but stocks in the same pattern moving: Pattern Rotations.

Consider $GLD and $SLV: Both seem interesting to the long side recently. Rather than consider the entire metals sector as a destination for your capital, think of the pattern these stocks and others in any sector are sharing. It's possible with a tool like Trade-Ideas' Stocks Like This. Trading ETFs like $XLF and XHB? The same logic applies: find stocks that mirror the same pattern as the sector ETF.

It works like this: given the filter and alert characteristics of $GLD during a recent day in the market (from today to at least a week back), then find me other stocks like it - right now.

Simply indicate which filter characteristics and alert trigger(s) that we reported for $GLD by putting a check in the box and copying the chosen indicators into a new strategy that we already name for you: "Stocks Like $GLD".

We think it's a great on-ramp to the Trade-Ideas superhighway and its a great way to reverse engineer into a strategy given a stock you know you want to emulate.

Stock Alerts and Filters Help You Read The Market

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 11:16 GMT

Stock alerts can help you see where real opportunities are hiding. It is easy to be scared when you see the market going down over 200 points two days in a row. However, even on days like yesterday and the day before there are pockets of strength that a good trader simply has be aware of in order to get a better feel of where the higher percentage opportunities exist. Stock alerts from a real-time stock scanner at Trade-Ideas filter the market in such a way so that you won't be be overwhelmed by the negativity. As the market is making new lows, take look at the attached picture showing you the pockets of strength that you need to be aware of in order to catch the high percentage moves up. This window was set up by using a simple, yet powerful combination of stock alerts and filters, specifically new highs for stocks no greater than 10 that are up 50 cents or more from the close on unusually high volume.

Click here to see a free 20 minute delayed version of this exact set up. This delayed version is a great way to familiarize yourself with the most powerful real time stock scanner on the market today.

Once you have separated yourself from the madness it is much easier to focus on trading opportunities that others are not seeing because they are toocaught up in the negativity of the moment.

Stock Market Scanner, Why You Need One Now!

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:10 GMT

Today's market is not the type of market where knowing a couple of stocks well can make for a profitable trading year. You have to be able to get out of your comfort zone and trade the set up. Why is that the case? The answer is competition. When you are trading the likes of $AAPL and $GS you can certainly find a big move, but volatility and having thousands of others in the exact same trade make it difficult to stay in a position with any kind of stop loss.

The solution is to be able to find the set up you are looking for across a lot of different stocks. When a trader uses a stock alerts market scanner like Trade Ideas they open themselves to new opportunities which are not being exploited by the masses. Here is a great example that applies to today. Let's say you want to find stocks that are acting like $GOOG is acting today. Simply put in the symbol into the Trade Ideas stocks scanner "Stocks Like This" section. Right away, our servers go to work scanning all stocks on all exchanges looking for trading patterns that are similar to Google, Apple, or any other stock you select. The result gives you other stock names to track in real-time that have acted in much the same way today as the stock that you selected.

It is for this reason alone, that using a stock scanner can be the difference between chasing the crowd and getting in first.

Don't get Mad, Scan the market with ease!

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:20 GMT

It can be frustrating, trying to scan the market on your own to find that set up you saw while you were trading. That is where it helps to have market scanning software that can also be your trading set up search engine. We listened to our customers and as a result we have a new web based search tool that helps you find other stocks that are doing the exact same thing.

Let's take a look. The tool is called "Stocks Like This" and it works as follows. Simply type in the symbol for a stock that you saw setting up. Tell our software the time that the move happened, and our stock market scanner will show you all of the internal data that we registered for that stock during the move. Then simply export the filters that you deem the most relevant and immediately our stock alerts scanner will report all other stocks that match the filter criteria for the symbol that you inserted.

If you are still having any trouble, just sign up for a complimentary training session and one of our customer service representatives will walk you through the whole process, at no cost.

There is no need to get frustrated and mad. Scan the market on your terms!

Trade-Ideas Version of Gainers & Losers: Latest from Support Forum

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 18:48 GMT

Some recent posts in the Trade-Ideas Unofficial Support Forum contain interesting strategies - this one asks about Gainers & Losers.

REQUEST: How to set to get top Gainers and Losers alert for stocks with, min price$5, max price$20,daily average volume is 1.000.000 and min current volume is 250.000

SET-UP: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=44601712

We also delivered several new features recently to the capabilities of Trade-Ideas:

New Bid/Ask ratio that looks for stacked sides in the inside market: http://www.trade-ideas.com/Help.html#WSF_MinBAR
Reverse engineer a new set-up from a symbol that's in the pattern you want to model: Stocks Like This
A helpful tool for understanding our use of negative numbers in Min/Max filters: http://www.trade-ideas.com/MinMaxNegative/

Take the Name out of the Game

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 11:24 GMT

Why is trading so difficult for so many people? For myself and the millions of others who engage in the market the quest to be a good trader is an elusive one. Countless books could be dedicated to answering this first sentence. To get to the point consider other professions where you can make millions of dollars. In sports for example, you are competing all the time and only the best of the best get to the ranks of professional. It is similar with medicine and other accounting and law. You have to get qualified before you are paid for your services.

In trading that is not the case. If you have capital you can play. That is the lure as well as a pitfall. Something so attractive brings with it all of the psychological baggage that professional traders know all too well. The fear and greed. We are all afraid to lose and at the same time afraid to miss the move.

Unlike in other professions like sports where you specialize in offense or defense, or law where you are a prosecutor or contract specialist in trading people often have no idea what they are or why they are in the trade and simply become swept up by the excitement.

We buy Apple and all of a sudden decide we are an Apple investor. Trading and investing are completely different animals. You have to be able to distance yourself from the affection you feel for any company if you are to be a good trader. There ample opportunities to trade Apple on the long and short side.

So one of the best exercises I can show you in becoming a successful trader is as follows. Next time when you are in a few positions simply shrink the "symbol" column so you cannot see the name of the stock. Don't trade the name, just trade the money. This is one of the best ways to get yourself into the trading zone.

A Thousand Paper Cuts

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:22 GMT

Winning is not easy. It is not easy in professional sports and it certainly is not easy as a professional or active trader. When you hear people telling you that they have no losing trades this year, you should be careful.

In trading winning is process of managing losses. When we use our software to help us trade, we know that just because we see all of these great set ups, does not necessarily mean that we are going to make money.

In order to make money a trader has to learn how to lose. You have to learn how to lose and how to lose well. The problem with losing well is that it is very difficult. You can lose poorly in obvious ways like getting into a trade long or short and then just letting the trade go against you. That is the easy way to lose poorly, but the scientific way to lose poorly and something that we see happen to smart people all the time is the dreaded death by a thousand paper cuts.

Notice the wide angle wedges on the daily chart of the SPY. What that mean is that any technical trader that is trading this is easily prone to getting stopped out in either direction. It is a very tricky type of trading environment. The best advice to avoid the dreaded death by a thousand paper cuts is to divide your positions into 3's if you are trading 300 shares separate it out into 3 lots of 100 and slowly scale in. Often time you have to do the opposite of what is termed correct technical trading.

Using the OddsMaker we know that right now the strategy is to fade the high volume spikes, especially on the downside. There is good money to be made in either direction, just don't put all of your eggs in one basket let the market show you the path of least resistance!