AV - A Trading Lesson

Some readers wanted to know how I use QuoteTracker in my daily activities so given that a picture is worth a thousand words I present AV on the 15-minute charts.

I filtered AV out the other day on a new, simple minded filter called 12 to 18 and rising which is looking for stocks that fall in the 12 to 18 price range and are rising over time. It was a good trade and when I find a good trade I tend to watch them for several days afterward. As a result AV was in my queue this morning.

It opened gap down and then dropped for another 15 minutes or so. I have QuoteTracker (QT) set up to show the bar in purple when the RSI(2) is less than 2. This is a critical point and generally is followed by a rebound.

Instead of rebounding the stock price fell through Pivot Support Point 1 (green line on QT). At this point I switched to the 4-minute charts in order to catch the turn.


This shows the 2 hours that surrounded the turn - as you can see the price bounced off the S1 several times and at 10:14 printed a green stick.

The green stick signaled the time to buy the stock which I did. It then climbed up to the pivot point. If I were day trading this stock I would have sold it here - instead I wanted to swing trade it so I set my stop at 13.70 (S1) and held the trade through the close.

Going back to the first chart you can see that it rebound off of the pivot point and went back down. Then at 12:15 it printed yet another RSI(2) < 2 signal - and a cross over (light blue bar) on the next candle.

And that is how I use QT - the pivot points are extremely crucial to my trading and the ability to flag the candles when they meet certain conditions enables me to make informed trades.

QT Code for BOB and Cross Over

A new reader asked for some code so here it is - once more I make no representations of this information - you use it at your own risk. I provide no guarantees - this is NOT an invitation to speculate in the stock market.

BOB

If bar low[1] < bar low[2] AND volume[1] > volume[2] AND bar open[1] >= bar close[1] AND bar open[2] >= bar close[2] AND bar low >= bar low[1] AND bar close > bar open AND ema(8) < ema(21) set color to “choice”


Cross Over 1 (for signal on the cross over bar)

If bar open < ema(21) AND bar open < ema(8) AND bar open < ema(4) AND bar close > ema(4) AND bar close > ema(8) AND bar close > ema(21) AND bar close > bar open AND bar close[4] < ema(21) set color to “choice”

Cross Over 2 (for signal on the bar after the cross over bar)

If bar open[1] < ema(21) AND bar open[1] < ema(8) AND bar open[1] < ema(4) AND bar close[1] > ema(4) AND bar close[1] > ema(8) AND bar close[1] > ema(21) AND bar close[1] > bar open[1] AND bar close[4] < ema(21) set color to “choice”

I use two cross over indicators - one on the bar and one after the bar. You don't have to do that.

You do have to select your own colors however. That's easy enough.

And, yes, there are differences between this version of cross over and the one I use on the daily charts. Most notably the moving average requirements are missing - I don't always play stocks that are below the EMA(90) and neither should you. I just prefer to filter for them because they have a lot of room to run.

Four Charts

Wanted to show you this from yesterday morning - sometimes things come together in strange and mysterious ways. I think I mentioned once that I sometimes watch the 4-minute charts for turnarounds and I especially do that during the periods when the market is declining. I've noticed that I can occasionally scalp a pretty good return if I keep my eyes open for traders trying to sneak in some cheap buys. Anyway this set of charts was on my screen yesterday -



And they were sitting together just like you see them here. All of a sudden tweezer bottoms started coming up. And, as you can see - there were reversals occurring as a result.

These charts are from Quote Tracker - they don't know me over there so it doesn't make a difference to me if you sign up or not. I like the fact that I can customize the charts to any frequency and time span and that they lock together like this on the screen (takes up less space that way). Of course you can layer the charts on top of one another so only the most recent candles are visible. And then if one of your indicators lights up you can hit that chart with the cursor and see what is going on.

Again - only hardcore chart watchers need apply - if you don't have charts up all day long it probably isn't worth the time and effort to set it up.

Quote Tracker

As promised here is a review of Quote Tracker. If what you do all day is sit around watching a screen you can do far worse than Quote Tracker but not much better - especially when you like to "roll your own" as I do.

As I mentioned yesterday the interface takes a bit of getting used to and the help panels could be a little less detailed and a little bit more helpful (I think a deeper level of indexing would help) but the service department is quick to respond and although I managed to solve most of the problems on my own they did provide some help. (I don't think they are used to dealing with old folks so you kids shouldn't have too much trouble).

But once you are through the basics (which takes far less time than I'm making it out to be) it is a wonderful piece of software and for 60 bucks a year it's a bargain. And if you decide not to keep it they promise a refund of the unused value. There really isn't any reason not to try it.

So if you have a data stream that you already pay for either separately or through a brokerage account you won't have any problems getting up and running with their software. If you don't have a data stream it is easy enough to get one and the instructions are on their site.

Now I wouldn't recommend this for people who don't sit and watch charts because it really isn't necessary for the casual trader - but if you have nothing to do all day but trade - this might be a good application for you.



What I'm showing here is a chart that I use - this one is for QLGC. On this chart you can see that two of the candles have a little widget drawn underneath them - that is what I use to indicate a "dummy spot" and the 11:30 candle is colored purple - that's a completed BOB.

Quote Tracker also permits alarms to be set up but I haven't done that yet so that will be the subject of another post in the future - I'm just pretty pleased with my progress to date.