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Registered User
Joined: 3/31/2005
Posts: 29
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Is it possible to filter a Watchlist or apply a SubList with a "Not In" filter? I.e., one of the criteria for inclusion in the list would be that the symbols were "NOT IN" another WatchList of "bad symbols".
Here's the problem...
When you run a scan or a Sort By process to find a list of symbols you will typically get a lot fo false hits that need to be filtered out by further review (like on a chart). They may fail second-level criteria because of bad price action, volume doesn't support price, too much or too little volatility, etc. But your scan will probably pick these bad hits day after day.
For example, on Day 1, I run a scan and get MSFT, CSCO, IBM and AAPL and 100 others as hits. After reviewing their charts, I see that only MSFT and AAPL meet my criteria. CSCO and IBM are false hits. (Let's assume that CSCO has too much volatility and IBM has a bad trend.)
So next day, I run the scan again and I'll probably get the same four stocks again. The probablity that the CSCO's volatility and IBM's bad trend have changed in one day is miniscule. But I have to recheck them, because they scan picked them up. This is a major waste of time.
What I'd like to do is to load the "Bad" symbols to a WatchList to filter my scan list so that the "Bad" symbols are NOT included in the scan.
Is there a way to do this in TC?
Thanks and regards,
Dan.
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Worden Trainer
Joined: 10/7/2004
Posts: 65,138
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Probably the best way to do this would be to create a Personal Watchlist without the "bad symbols" and use it as the Watchlist to Scan in your EasyScan. The following videos cover creating Personal Watchlists and EasyScans:
How to create your own Personal WatchList
Using EasyScan to find stocks that meet your own criteria
-Bruce
Personal Criteria Formulas
TC2000 Support Articles
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Worden Trainer
Joined: 10/1/2004
Posts: 4,308
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Dan:
I'm not sure I know what you mean by bad hits. You mention scans that repeatedly pick up stocks that don't meet your scan conditions. I have never seen that happen in all of my experience with TeleChart.
Now, I may be looking for a particular pattern, and I get a stock showing up where the chart doesn't look anything like I expected, or what I was scanning for. However, when the math is done, that stock does indeed meet all of my conditions. Again, I've never seen an instance where a stock showed up in a scan when it did not meet all of my conditions.
Of course, if you experience a technical problem, weird results may be possible. But running normally, I don't quite grasp your concept of bad hits needing to be filtered out. Can you elaborate?
- Doug
Teaching Online!
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Registered User
Joined: 3/31/2005
Posts: 29
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Bruce, Doug,
Thanks for the feedback.
Regarding the scan itself, I expect that the scan will perform correctly. However, just because a symbols meets scan criteria does NOT mean that is a reasonable choice for trading.
If you have very "tight" criteria, you get fewer symbols, but you may exclude good quality symbols that are excluded because an ideosyncracy in the data . If your criteria are "loose", you have a better chance of including good quality symbols, but you will get more symbols that are "bad" overall. I.e., they meet criteria, but the chart looks horrible.
Regarding using a Personal Watchlist of "Good" symbols is that it would difficult to create and then difficult to maintain. Here's the problem...
For example, you are looking for symbols that meet two criteria: a) price has increased 10% in the last month and b) has a "good-looking" chart. The first criteria is easily scanable, while the second is much more difficult.
In my experience, when you run a scan, you will get three categories of results:
1) Symbols the meet all of your criteria nicely. They meet the criteria of the initial scan and then your visual chart review criteria. E.g., It's up 12% in the last month, trending up nicely, and bouncing off of it's trendline (or whatever).
2) Symbols that fail the first criteria. If a symbol's price has dropped 10% in the last month, it's pretty much irrelevant what the chart looks like.
3) Symbols that meet the initial scan, but fail your visual chart review criteria. E.g., Price has increased by 12%, BUT it has wild volatility.
The problem is that, on any given day, you might get 10-20 symbols in category 1, 7000 in category 2, and 80-100 in category 3. Category 1 symbols are fine. But category 2 and category 3 symbols are a big problem...
If I simply scan all symbols, I'll keep getting the "bad" 80-100 symbols over and over for several days. That's a waste of time.
I want to maintain a list of symbols that I do NOT want to trade. I do NOT want to waste time seeing a bunch of "bad" symbols included in my scan results when I have NO interest in trading them.
Regarding a separate "good" watchlist, it's a whole lot easier to maintain a list of say 200 or so "bad" symbols than to maintain a list of 7000 "good" symbols.
Let's say I scan for a 12 month high (Price > 3, Volume > 100,000). Right now that would return about 10 symbols. Some look good, but FORD and XPRT "Poor" to me. One because of overhead supply concerns and the other because of wild volatility.
But tomorrow, if I run the same scan, I'll may see the same symbols again. And I have to exclude them for the same reasons. That's a waste of time.
I hope I've explained this well.
Regards,
Dan.
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Worden Trainer
Joined: 10/1/2004
Posts: 4,308
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Dan:
I understand what you mean...and I suspected that's what you meant in your first post. However, in both posts, the inexperienced user of EasyScan could get the impression that the scans sometimes return bad results...in other words, stocks that shouldn't show up in the scan, but do anyway.
Let's just make it clear for the less experienced user, that EasyScan will always return only those stocks that meet the conditions that you have included in your scan. It won't mistakenly include stocks that do not meet the conditions you included in your scan.
Now that we've cleared that up for all to understand, let's see if I can help you with the issue you're grappling with.
What you are saying is that when a scan finds stocks that meet your scan conditions, a bunch of those stocks...for other reasons...may not be desireable for you. One solution, which you've noted, is to include more conditions in your scan. However, your objection to that is that if you make your scan too restrictive with many different conditions, you often miss some good looking charts.
One potential solution, Dan, is to use the sublist feature. Create a basic scan that weeds out the cats and the dogs. Maybe include price per share, a certain level of liquidity (volume), and perhaps limiting the volatility somewhat. You may even want to include some basic fundamental criterion like a minimum or maximum P/E ratio. Once you have this scan created, use it as your sublist to filter against any other scan you create. The sublist feature, when activated, will force your watchlist section to display only those stocks that are members of both your active watchlist (ie. the new scan you've created) AND the sublist you've selected.
For more information about using sublist, click the following link to a training video which demonstrates it:
Techniques for using the Sublist feature
- Doug
Teaching Online!
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Worden Trainer
Joined: 10/1/2004
Posts: 18,819
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Do you know what I do when a chart shows up in my EasyScan that I don't have an interest in?
I hit the spacebar and look at the next chart.
- Craig
Here to Help!
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Worden Trainer
Joined: 10/7/2004
Posts: 65,138
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It takes extra steps over having a list of "good stocks", but it is possible to create a list of "bad stocks" and use it as a secondary filter on an EasyScan. I've tried several ways to do this and the easiest way I've found so far, oddly enough, seems to be to use the "bad stocks" watchlist to re-create a "good stocks" watchlist each day.
Let's assume you are currently using All Stocks as the Watchlist to Scan in your EasyScans. Before you check your EasyScans:
Select Bad Stocks as the Active Watchlist
Select Watchlist | Unflag All in System
Select Watchlist | Flag | All Symbol in Watchlist
Select All Stocks as the Active Watchlist
Select Watchlist | Copy to other List | All Symbols | Good Stocks
Select Good Stocks as the Active Watchlist
Select Watchlist | Remove Symbols | Flagged
Now check your EasyScans as usual.
I'd still be tempted to just have a Good Stocks Watchlist and select Watchlist | Remove Symbol | Active Symbol whenever I encountered a "bad stock".
-Bruce
Personal Criteria Formulas
TC2000 Support Articles
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Registered User
Joined: 3/31/2005
Posts: 29
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Gents,
Thanks much for the great feedback. However, the winner is (drumroll)...
Bruce_L!
Bruce, that will do the trick.
Thanks and regards,
Dan.
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