Ultimate Guide to Speeding up your Analysis
Every second is critical in terms of time spent on technical analysis, especially during the trading day. I will explain two key ways to speed up your analysis giving you more time to trade and allowing you to spend more time away from your computer. Skip to...
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#1 - Scanning
Scanning for stocks can be the most daunting task from needing to code and the time it takes to sift through to find your favorite setups. This is no longer as TrendSpider offers a no-code, plug-and-play interface. If you can explain what you are looking for to a friend, you are more than likely to build it out on the platform. Let us walk through some of the steps 👇
Step 1: Building a Scan - Setting up the basics To build a scan you must select the scan button at the top right of the TrendSpider platform.
The scanning interface will appear on the bottom half portion of your screen. This is where you will begin to build your scans. A new scan will pop up to start or you can also select 'NEW SCANNER' at the bottom left of your screen. To begin you can name your scan directly above the criteria field where the previous picture says 'Electrified Chart Screener'. From here you can decide what you would like to scan through. TrendSpider has hundreds of lists including sectors, ARKK ETF holdings, S&P 500, Russell 2000, recently halted names, top trending on wall street bets, and tons of more options. For this, I typically scan through the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 though each requires a few different criteria to scan for the stocks I would be interested in trading. From here you can select 'ext. hours' which will scan for stocks during extended trading hours. You can also select 'current candle' which will scan for stocks with the same candle that appears on your chart last. This will include candles still being formed like a daily candle in the middle of a trading day. I almost always have this selected as I am most interested in what is happening now.
Lastly, select save so you do not lose any progress from internet connection issues.
Step 2: Building a Scan - Inputting your criteria For the purpose of my style, I will only go over using price and EMAs to scan though there are many options like 'news search' such as excluding 'FDA' or 'Biotech' in recent news articles. There a very few limitations.
All you are going to need to do is click 'add parameter here' and then you can start inputting all of the criteria you like. Below are two examples of my favorite scans called my 'Ultimate Bullish Weekly' scans.
These scans take a more macro-perspective as they are looking at the weekly timeframes. Essentially, any name that pulls up in this list is in a strong uptrend even if the price is below one or more of these EMAs. The bottom scan adds criteria of price being > 10 and an average volume of 500,000+ as I am not interested in playing penny stocks and illiquid names. You can start using these exact scans today by importing them into your TrendSpider account with the following links:
Ultimate Bullish Weekly - S&P 500: http://charts.trendspider.com/shared/62dd97a1b5b6f40015495369?t=1
Ultimate Bullish Weekly - Russell 2000: http://charts.trendspider.com/shared/62dd9820b5b6f4001549536a?t=1
Step 3: Scanning and Adding to Sidebar Widget
Now that you have your scan all set up, you can now scan in the market scanner or you can add the scan widget to your sidebar to scan as you scroll through charts. This will allow you to quickly sift through your scans and charts by just clicking the up and down keys on your keyboard.
For more questions on scanning, feel free to comment on my Twitter, send a message through my website, or reach out to hello@trendspider.com. We have a support team that is willing to host a free one-on-one demo of the platform.
#2 - Smart Checklist
Smart Checklists allow you to see if a stock meets your criteria the second you look at any chart. This is done by using the scripts option we have on the platform. This is the same process as building a scanner. For the use of this example, I use my favorite smart checklist which is essentially measuring stocks trends using the daily and weekly EMAs as shown below.
This criterion will now pop up on the ride side of my chart to let me know which conditions meet my trend analysis or not. As shown on the $SPY example below, you can see that currently, only the daily 8 EMA is greater than the 21 EMA whilst all other criteria is red meaning they are in a bearish trend.
Now we can look at a bullish example like $STNG to show the difference...
All criteria are now green meaning this stock is in a very strong trend on both the daily and weekly timeframes.
Smart Watchlists will allow you to go through watchlists, scans, and all charts quickly and efficiently. If you are someone who does not buy under the 200SMA for example, you can know whether you need to spend time on that chart or not within a second of loading it to your screen.
Hopefully, TrendSpider's market scanner and smart checklists will allow you to speed up your process as they have mine. If you have any questions feel free to shoot me a message on Twitter or email hello@trendspider.com. We have a team that offers a free one-on-one demo for anyone interested in joining the platform.
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