An interesting tool - StrategyDesk from Ameritrade

[benm]

I see on strategydesk that it is signalling a buy above the 80 stochastic line in the overbought position. I believe we should only be buying near the 20 line oversold position. Does anyone know how to fix the indicator?

[mscir]

Hello,

I'm new to Ameritrade and I was wondering if you happen to know the url of a complete programming reference for the technical indicators in StrategyDesk. I didn't see several of them in the help files.

Thanks,
Mike

[alindsley]

Originally Posted by dwperley

Rule #1 3 Tools Buy Formula:
---------------------------
Bar[Close,D] > MovingAverage[MA,Close,10,0,D]
AND
Stochastic[StocK,14,5,3,D] > Stochastic[StocD,14,5,3,D]
AND
MACD[Diff,Close,8,17,9,D] > 0

Rule #1 3 Tools Sell Formula:
---------------------------
Bar[Close,D] < MovingAverage[MA,Close,10,0,D]
AND
Stochastic[StocK,14,5,3,D] < Stochastic[StocD,14,5,3,D]
AND
MACD[Diff,Close,8,17,9,D] < 0

This is a great scan , however when I enter the buy formula into a screener the majority of the buy arrows took place a few days ago. I know nothing about programming at this point in my old age, so I am wondering if the Buy rule could be modified to show ONLY Today's Buy signals for the purpose of the screener?

I, also, am new to SD's power. Found and joined today via a google search. I want you to know how much I have enjoyed from what I have learned here today.

Art

[drace1]

As you can see from my previous posts, I have been playing with SD for quite some time. The last BUY/SELL short term trading (more than one day) formulas that I developed are listed below. Play with them at your own risk. The formulas appear to work ok for stocks that are trending up, but not down. So be careful how you use them.

I recently shifted to trading in the options market and have stopped trading stocks using SD. After many emails to the SD technical desk complaining about SD faults, I feel that SD may now be safe to use for automatic trading; but you must add safety nets.

One problem that remains is that you can not trade automatically during extended hours because some equations trigger only during normal market hours.

Short Term BUY Formula:

EntryDate < Bar[Date,D] --used to prevent buying on the same day the stock was sold—

AND DirectionalMovement[+DI,6,6,D,1] < DirectionalMovement[+DI,6,6,D] –the plus DI part of ADX must be going up—

AND DirectionalMovement[+DI,6,6,D] > DirectionalMovement[-DI,6,6,D] * .5 --the minus part of DI must be less than half the plus DI (this ensures that you catch the BUY early in the upswing)—

AND RSI[RSI,2,D,1] < RSI[RSI,2,D] --the 2 day RSI must be on the rise—

AND RSI[RSI,2,D] < 95 --and the RSI is less than 95 (since a SELL might have occurred at 99 and we don’t want to re-buy it too soon)--

AND AvgTrueRange[ATR,1,1] < 0.1 --this prevents “bad print” spikes in the price from triggering a buy—



Short Term SELL Formula:

Last <= Bar[Close,D,1] - (((EntryPrice * 1.2) - Bar[Close,D,1]) / 2) –this establishes an exit point at 20% gain or a sudden dip in the price after a nice gain—

AND EntryDate < Bar[Date,D] –don’t SELL on the same day you BUY—

OR (Last < EntryPrice * .9 –SELL if the price drops more than 10%--

AND EntryDate < Bar[Date,D]) –but not on the day you bought—

OR (RSI[RSI,2,D] >= 99 –SELL if the RSI exceeds 99—

AND Bar[Date,D] > EntryDate) --but not on the day you bought—

AND AvgTrueRange[ATR,1,1] < 0.1 --don’t sell if there is a “bad print” spike in the price—


HINT: Make each major equation into a SD chart study and see what they do. Don’t start automatic trading using the formula if the stock should have been bought earlier. In other words; start automatic trading after the formula says to sell.

I don’t expect to use these formulas in the near term (since the market is going down), but I’d be interested in any changes you make and how it works for you.

Good Luck!!

Dave

[alindsley]

Thanks Dave. As I pasted these scans into SD I did notice a couple ('s missing in the sell formula. Following is the finished product. As I am new to SD please correct me if I made a mistake from your creation

Last <= Bar[Close,D,1] - (((EntryPrice * 1.2) - Bar[Close,D,1]) / 2)
AND EntryDate < Bar[Date,D]
OR (Last < EntryPrice * 0.9)
AND (EntryDate < Bar[Date,D])
OR (RSI[RSI,2,D] >= 99)
************************************
From somewhere else (perhaps somewhere in here I'm not sure now) I gleaned a formula (called 3 Tools)that a trader was using for the MACD 8,17,9 and Stoch 14,10,5 along with price crossing 10dsma. I thought that was pretty cool

I was wondering how one might incorporate your scan along with his in a positive way (or would it be too much for SD to look at).

3 tools buy

Bar[Close,D] > MovingAverage[MA,Close,10,0,D]
AND
Stochastic[StocK,14,5,3,D] > Stochastic[StocD,14,5,3,D]
AND
MACD[Diff,Close,8,17,9,D] > 0

3 tools sell

Bar[Close,D] < MovingAverage[MA,Close,10,0,D]
AND
Stochastic[StocK,14,5,3,D] < Stochastic[StocD,14,5,3,D]
AND
MACD[Diff,Close,8,17,9,D] < 0

Thanks

Art

[alindsley]

Egads! Don't ever grow old. 3 Tools was dwperley's excellent scan. My apologies.

[drace1]

Here is my SELL formula without the notes:

Last <= Bar[Close,D,1] - (((EntryPrice * 1.2) - Bar[Close,D,1]) / 2)
AND EntryDate < Bar[Date,D]
OR (Last < EntryPrice * .9 AND EntryDate < Bar[Date,D])
OR (RSI[RSI,2,D] >= 99 AND Bar[Date,D] > EntryDate)
AND AvgTrueRange[ATR,1,1] < 0.1

You don't need the ('s that you added. The more I look at it I can see that I could have simplified the formula a bit more, but above is just how it came out as I added ideas. The intent is to test for approx 20% gain or 10% stop loss and sell; OR if the 99 RSI test is met sell; but none of these if the ATR is out of range (spike in data).

As for adding the other formula to mine all you should have to do is put ('s around both formulas and AND them together (formula 1) AND (formula 2). That will ensure that both formulas must be met before triggering a sell. You could also use an OR to trigger on either.

Dave

[drace1]

The 3 tools strategy appears to beat mine nicely on back-testing. The true test is to run the strategy real-time for a couple months. That is, have SD send the buy and sell orders to TDA's Saved Orders folder and watch the action there. This is where I found that I needed to prevent triggering on bad tape and trading more than once each day. You also might want to compare the trigger price from SD (found in their alerts.xml file) with what TDA uses in the Saved Order file. I don't know why but there is a price difference some times.

Dave

P.S. 11/02/08 - My first sentence above is incorrect. I have since run 1-year back-tests using 1-min bars instead of 1-day bars and my strategy does much better than the 3-tool approach.