The Analyst - WinStock Software



Analyst: Price scanner module - SCAN+

The object of the scanner is to identify profitable investments by highlighting companies whose share prices are performing according to specified criteria.

Scans can be designed around price, moving average, stop loss, RSI, MACD and OBOS. Combinations of these criteria within a single scan can be saved and recalled for future use, and give you a powerful tool to search the price database.

The scan+ upgrade has added further scans based on ADX, volatility, meisels, momuntum and stochastics. It has also added new scanning methods. In addition to looking for the indicator being above, below or either side of a trigger level it can also check whether the indicator is rising or falling or has peaked or troughed over a given period of time.

Scans can now be based on island and key patterns occuring at the top or bottom of a trend. These are good indicators of a change in direction of a trend, or turning points.

For example, a simple scan could allow you to display a list of all companies whose share price has risen by 50% over the last 6 months.

A more complex scan could combine price change and RSI to display companies whose share price has risen by 75% over the last 6 months and whose 35 day RSI is below 45 and rising.

In other words the share price is performing well but has suffered a recent setback.

Other scans may be used to determine traditional buy or sell signals, such as, the 20 day moving average has risen above the 55 day moving average in the last 10 days. This could be narrowed down to exclude all companies with a price below 100p, say.

The various tasks that can be performed by the scanner are listed below. Any number of these tasks can be combined into a single scan. This scan description can then be saved and recalled for future use. Scans are designed to be appplied to groups of shares eg. Prestel, teletext3000, your own portfolio. The result of a scan can be displayed alphabetically or sorted by any element of the scan such as price, RSI, MA etc.

Scanner tasks

The latest closing price is [greater or less] than [x](pence).

Example: The closing price is greater than 99p

The price change over the last [n] days is [greater or less] than [p]% .

Example: The price change over the past 200 days is greater than 65%

The [highest or lowest] price in the last [n] days has occurred in the last [m] days.

Example: The highest price over the past 100 days has occurred in the last 7 days.

Moving average: the [n] day ma has [risen above or fallen below] the [m] day ma in the last [p] days.

Example: The 20 day moving average has fallen below the 55 day ma in the last 10 days.

Moving average: the [n] day ma has [remained above or remained below] the [m] day ma for the last [p] days.

Example: The 90 day moving average has remained above the 200 day ma during the last 50 days.

RSI: the [n] day RSI is [above, below or either side of] a given value [t] and is [rising, falling or either].

Example: The 35 day RSI is above 70 and rising

MACD the [n,m] day MACD is [above or below] a given value [t] and is [rising, falling or either].

Example: The 35,55 day MACD is above zero and falling

Stop loss: the [p]% stop loss [long or short] starting on a given date [d], [has or has not] been breached in the last [n] days.

Example: The 10% stop loss (starting from 1st January 1998) has not been breached in the past 40 days.

OBOS the [n] day OBOS is [above, below or either side of] a given value [t] and [rising, falling or either].

Example: The 15 day OBOS is below -5 and falling

Scanner Operation

The scanner can be used to look through all the shares in any portfolio to find potential trading opportunities. Applying this to a system portfolio lets you scan the entire market in one operation.

A scan file can hold any number of criteria, each of which can be based on price, moving average, stop loss, RSI, MACD or OBOS. Scan files can be created, saved, retrieved and deleted. Scan criteria can be added, deleted and edited.

To define a scan, right-click on any share in the portfolio and select scanner / setup from the drop-down menu. The following dialog box will be displayed.

To start scanning, right-click on any share in the portfolio and select scanner / go from the drop-down menu.

To retrieve an existing scan, click on the down arrow next to the "name" box and select from the list.

To create a new scan, click on the "new" button, type a filename into the name box and a descriptive comment into the "comment" box.

To delete the current scan file, click on the "delete" button.

To save the current scan file, click on the "save" button.

To add a new scan criterion click on the "add a scan line" button. The dialog box shown below will be displayed.

To edit the current scan criterion click on the "add a scan line" button. The dialog box shown below will be displayed.

To delete the current scan criterion click on the "delete current line" button.

These three functions are also available by clicking on a scan line and using the popup menu.

To design the scan, click on one of the buttons: price, moving average, stop loss, RSI, MACD or OBOS. Enter the variables requested. If you wish the value of this criterion to be displayed in the resulting list, click on "display and sort". Only one of the criteria in a scan file can be displayed and the result will be sorted accordingly.

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