The tradesignal online Scanner is a tool for technical screening of stocks, currencies and other security types. The scanner, like the rest of tradesignal online, is focused on technical analysis and allows any of the 170 or so indicators found on tradesignal online to be used for screening securities, with any desired parameters.

Users who subscribe to the Premium Scanner service can even run scans using indicators that they have written by themselves using the Equilla formula language.

Getting Started

The quickest way to get screening stocks is to use one of the predefined scans that are always available for all users:

1. Click on the scanner tab on the main navigation.
2. In the section marked Scanner - Quick Scans, click on the link marked S&P 500 to display the results for the recent scan of the S&P 500 using a predefined collection of indicators.
3. On the Scanner Results page you will now see a table of the current prices for each security in the S&P 500 and the values for such indicators as the 10- and 50-day moving averages.
4. We can filter the displayed securities by moving the sliders at the top of the page to only see stocks with a percent change greater than 0.2%.
5. We can also detect moving average crossovers by doing the following:
   1. Next to the slider marked SMA click on the link Add Column Filter to display a filter picker.
   2. In the filter picker, click on the drop down button that shows a less-than symbol (<) and pick crosses over instead.
   3. In the filter picker, click on the drop down button that shows the word close and pick the item SMA2.
   4. We are done, the results grid now only shows those items that have a short term average crossing over a medium term average (and a percent change over 0.2%)

Quick Scans

The Quick Scans listed at the top of the main scanner page are a set of scans that are always available to all users. You will find predefined scans for the most popular security lists using the most common indicators. In general, the quick scans will be automatically updated regularly throughout the trading day.

User-Defined Scanners

The real power of the tradesignal online scanner becomes apparent when you create your own scanners. This can only be done if you are logged in, because the indicators that you pick and the analysis of the results are saved in your user account.

Each user can create one user defined scanner, and have one saved set of results. If you subscribe to the Premium Scanner service, up to five scanners can be saved, each keeping the results from the last five runs of the scanners. To create a user-defined scanner, do the following:

1. Click the link Create a custom scanner below the Quick Scans box, to display a new scanner specification.
2. Pick the security list that you want to scan (only subscribers of the Premium Scanner service can scan entire stock markets for a given exchange or country).
3. Pick up to six indicators to scan with by clicking on Add Indicators and then selecting an indicator from the list (the same indicator can be added multiple times).
4. Change the parameters of each indicator, by clicking on the indicator name in the list and then changing the properties in the displayed window.
5. Click start to start a scan, when it is finished you will automatically see the results.
6. Begin screening your results. Refer to the help pages for Scanner Results for a detailed user guide with examples.

Picking Indicators

To speed up finding indicators, you can type all or part of the indicators name or short code in the provided search box to quickly filter the indicator list.

Subscribers to the Premium Scanner service will also be able to pick indicators that they have created themselves in the chart tool.

Scanner Results

The results from a scan are displayed as a grid of data on their own page. Numerous mechanisms to filter and sort these results are available. Please refer to the Scanner Results help page for a detailed description of working with the results.

Scheduling Scans and Notification

Subscribers to the Premium Scanner service can be notified when a scanner will be automatically run (up to four times a day):

1. Under the options group of a scanner, pick a time for each of the Schedule 1 - 4 boxes.
2. Optionally pick a notification method to be used when the scan is complete:
   • None: Send no notification.
   • Board Mail: Send a notification to your tradesignal online message box.
   • E-Mail: Send an E-Mail to the address specified in your user profile.
3. Pick under which conditions the notification should be sent:
   • Finished: Always send a notification when the scan is completed.
   • Changed: Send a notification when the scan is completed, only if the list of securities is different from the last run of the scanner.

Generating Stock Alerts

Scheduled scans can also be used to generate stock alerts only when new stocks meeting your scan conditions are found.

To use this feature, for example to be notified of any S&P 500 stocks newly showing a percent change greater than 10%, do the following:

1. Create a new scanner and select the S&P 500.
2. Run a scan to display the result page, so we can define our filter conditions.
3. If the column for percent change is not visible, add it.
4. Add a column filter for the percent change column and select > and Const then enter the value 10. This will show any stocks currently meeting our criteria.
5. Return to the scanner page and for Notify select either E-Mail or Boardmail.
6. For the option Send when select Changed.
7. Pick some times to run the scan each day.

Now, at the times you have selected, if the list of stocks that meet the criteria has changed from the last time the scan was run, you will be sent a notification. If the results are the same, you will receive no notification.

Scan History

Subscribers to the Premium Scanner service are able to access the results from the last five times a scanner was run, for example representing the last five days of results. Simply click on one of the items listed under the group results to jump to the Scanner Results for that scan.

To remove an item from the results group, click on the cross (x) next to the result in the list.

Odds & Ends

Renaming a Scanner

To rename a scanner in the list, click on the title and edit the name and press enter.

Reordering Scanners

To change the position of scanners in the list, click the up/down buttons to the right of the scanners title.

Deleting Scanners

To delete a scanner and all the results, click the red X button in the top right corner of the scanner specification.

Automatic Filtering

Securities that have a last price of zero or that have not been traded for a significant period of time will not be included in the scanner results.

Historical Data Errors

Because some instuments require a significant amount of historical data in order to be calculated, the scanner results may show an error against securities where there is insufficent data (this is normally the case for non-liquid or recently IPO'd securities).