Getting Started At StockMonitor.com
Contents
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Creating and organizing watch lists. Using charts and saving settings with profiles. Filtering stocks and saving custom scans. Adding filters to charts, saving as custom and setting alerts. Basic back testing.
Thank you for taking the time to trial Stock Monitor. This is our quick start guide. To get the best from your trial period, we recommend you spend five minutes browsing this document. Afterwards, you’ll be ready to test our features and realize how fast monitoring your investments can be. This document covers the basic use of the platform. As you browse inside it will soon become apparent there is so much you can do with StockMonitor.com. We have deliberately kept our platform simple to use and easy to navigate, but if you’d like to build something complex, there’s more capability and power than first meets the eye. Visit https://www.stockmonitor.com/ for full information or to access your trial. Make sure you read our blog for further articles on using filters, and ideas for trading chart patterns. https://www.stockmonitor.com/blog/
Creating And Organizing Watch Lists.
Being organized from the start is good practice. The scans inside Stock Monitor will begin to pull up a lot of new and interesting stocks. Inserting them into watch lists in an organized way will save you huge amounts of time moving forward. For instance, you might create watch lists based on Energy sectors, Metals, Financials and Technologies or maybe based around an indicator/scan that you use. First, we recommend you put your current investments into their own watch list. Maybe name it “Current Buys”. This will give a quick and easy place to perform analysis on the charts by selecting stocks in this list, or monitor them on the main dashboard.
From the main menu click on “More” and open watch lists. Name your first watch list, and select stocks by typing in the search box. Then click “Save”. Congratulations your watch list is ready. The watch list is ready and active. You can add and remove stocks easy by selecting it from the list of watch lists. When you navigate to the dashboard (see below), you get the streaming watch list alongside all other market statistics we provide. It works great on desktop, tablet and mobile.
To view a chart for a stock in your watch list, click the chart icon at the end of the row. To switch between watch lists, simply select from the menu box above the main window. Or instantly add a new symbol in the provided box. In the technical chart area, you can quickly select stocks from a watch list to speed up your analysis.
This feature becomes especially useful once you begin to save chart settings and profiles. It means you can add the same indicator template to each stock instantly.
Using Charts and Saving Settings With Profiles Above our main technical chart there are some menu buttons. Most are self-explanatory but here’s the basic run down.
From left to right, change symbol box (type symbol). Select stock from watch list menu box. Change chart time frame. Change display (line/candle/bar). Draw trend lines / Fibonacci / Support. Add indicators. Select candle patterns to display. Add filters as indicators. Select and save chart settings / profiles. Last is shift chart left (creates white space at current bar). Adding indicators is easy. Click the menu, select from the list, and close the menu. You’ll see on the chart a small cog icon, this is where you can change indicator settings and colors. The cross icon will remove the indicator. Selecting candle patterns will highlight any candles where the selected pattern happens.
Adding filters will highlight the bars where our platform has detected the current filter conditions. This is a powerful feature and allows you to combine filters, build your own on a combination of price action or indicators and view them on a chart for easy analysis.
Saving chart settings and profiles. This is a real time saver combined with your watch lists. Once you have set up your chart with your favorite indicators or filters, click on profiles and enter the profile name, then save.
Now each time you visit the chart, simply click on the profile name and the chart is instantly changed back to these settings. You can now select any stock from your watch list menu above the chart and view with your favorite indicators.
Drawing Tools - To add a trend lines, simply select it from the menu above the chart, then click one point on the chart and drag the line to the next. When you click a 2 nd time, the line will be placed in the position. To remove the line, hover over it on the chart, right click and select “remove� (see below).
Filtering Stocks and Saving Custom Scans The filter is the backbone of StockMonitor.com. It’s the place where you will discover tons of new investment candidates. Using the filter with the preset scans is easy. Simply select one from the menu and the charts below will populate with stocks that meet the rules. Here is a screen shot of the main filter window, and below is a basic explanation of each numbered point.
Point 1. Click each menu to view the preset scans in each category. Point 2. Any custom built scans you make and save will be found here, for fast access. Point 3. Change exchange, index for scans. Point 4. See if this scan produced candidates yesterday, 2 days ago, 3 days ago etc. Useful for seeing how price reacts after a scan is detected over the short term history. Point 5. If you have combined a few scans together, you can save this as custom scan. Point 6. Set an email alert when this current scan detects conditions met in your watch lists.
Point 7. Switch between chart view and list view for the results below. Point 8. If there are too many results, pages of “more” will be accessed from here. Point 9. Click eye icon to add this to a watch list. Click expand to view the technical chart.
Clone and Modify A Scan To Custom – Next to each filter you select in the menu boxes, once selected you will see a small edit icon.
If you would like to adjust the parameters of the scan, and save it as your own version, click and you go to this window.
Point 1. Give the custom scan a custom name to find easy. Point 2. Change indicator, price level, or other criteria. Point 3. Parameters box. Adjust as needed.
Point 4. Add criteria. Add more indicators, or price levels in this scan. Point 5. Logical text, so you can check if the scan is making sense in real terms. Once you have adjusted, click “save” below the box and the scan will appear in the custom filters box on the main page. You can now also add this to a technical chart, and back test.
Adding Filters To Charts and Setting Alerts One of the most powerful features is the ability to add any custom scan / filter you make, or any of our presets, to charts just like indicators. It gives you a really quick view of whether it works or not, and if it’s worth pursuing further. In the main chart, select Filters and add any to the chart. The blue bars are where the filter rules were detected. You can remove by clicking the cross next to the filter name in chart window.
Setting Alerts – Click alerts in the top menu, and create new. In this window you can select filters to send alerts when we detect them on your watch list. Please keep in mind that selecting more than one filter per alert saved, will only send you a mail when ALL filters are passed in the same day. Example. Break of 30 day high and Break of 30 Day low, will probably never send you an email, as this will never happen in a single day.
Example. Break of 30 Day High and RSI Cross above 50 may happen more often, and you should get emails when both these conditions are met. If you want a simple alert for one simple parameter, like gap down more than 5%, save it as an individual alert. Then save next filter as another alert.
Basic Back Testing To get started with back testing any filters / scans you build, follow the points below, and also check out how results are presented. Click “Back Test� in main menu and hit create new strategy button. You will see this screen.
Point 1. Name the back test for next time you visit. Point 2. The amount of cash balance for this strategy. Point 3. Any broker fee to take into account per trade. Point 4. How much in dollars you would like to risk per trade in this strategy. Point 5. Long or Short trades. (Buy or Sell). Point 6. Select which filter you want to use as the entry point.
Point 7. Prioritize results displayed and should this strategy override your cash balance? Point 8. You can create a custom filter, or use a preset as an exit signal. Point 9. Use a stop loss, trailing stop loss for protection. Point 10. Use take profit percentage as exit. Point 11. Select date ranges for this back test to run on. Click “Save” or “Backtest” at the foot of the table. You can also choose which index or set of stocks to run the test on. Once the test is complete a statistic window will appear, with numerical data and table of each trade. If you click on the chart icon in the table view (as below) the bar is colored where the trade took place.
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