A Big Change to Alerts / Scans...

November 27, 2017

You may notice today that you're seeing more alerts listed for a stock than before.  That's because I've made a pretty significant change to some things behind the scenes.  By sort of an accident of evolution (let's call it), there have always been two classes of alerts (scans / signals) on the site.  Old timers will remember that they were listed separately. They used to be called "Individual Pattern Scans" and "Advanced Scans".  

The difference between those two categories of scans was largely aftificial.  When I dreamed up the site I first thought of making alerts for things like candlestick patterns, Bollinger Band Squeezes or Cup & Handle patterns.  Those are things which (as far as I knew) needed to be processed / calculated and then stored in order to be queried quickly & efficiently. 

Later I wanted the system to tell me other things, like which stocks have risen 5 days in a row or have made an Inside Day, etc.  I realized with some of those I could have my database tell me the answer "on the fly" -- so I didn't have to pre-calculate them and store them. 

So that led me to put certain slerts in one of those two classes.  However, there was another difference.  The ones that tended to need that pre-calculation were, in my mind, more critical or primary signals.  It's those signals which would appear in the "alerts" listings on each stock's main page and in watchlists and portfolios.  As time went on though, I realized that the primary / secondary distinction wasn't accurate in all situations. 

This is where the change comes in -- as of yesterday, you'll now see signals from both categories displayed in those alerts listings.  (There are some which still won't be displayed though.  See the list below.)  For example, in the photo below the alerts with red arrows would not have appeared there before this change.  

So before today, the only way to know if a stock made an outside day was to go to the outside day scan and see if it appeared in the scan results.  Now you'll see "Outside Day" in more places.  As of today this change is only in effect on the main stock pages and the "older signals for" (alert history) pages.  Some time this week that change will also take effect on the watchlists and portfolios.

I've wanterd to make this change for a long time but some recent conversations I've had made me push this to the front of my to-do list.  Over the last couple of weeks I've had a few people ask me (and this never happened before) "why didn't you process XYZ today... I don't see any alerts for today".  I'd tell them that it was processed and that not every stock does something alert worthy every day.  So this change is partially a response to those questions/complaints.  The system did "know interesting things" that were hidden - unless you ran one of those "on the fly" scans..

However, I've always been concerned about information overload and this change certainly borders on exactly that.  So I'm also going to allow people to configure which signals appear in their watchlists and portfolios.  So if you don't care about the "Down 5 Days in a Row" alert, you can turn it off.

Note that the "on the fly" signals still will not be counted in scans such as "Most Alerts", "Most Bullish Alerts" and "Most Bearish Alerts".

In case you're wondering, here are all *new* alerts which you'll see:

• Above Upper BB
• BB Squeeze Ended
• BB Squeeze + Lower Band Touch
• BB Squeeze Started
• BB Squeeze + Upper Band Touch
• Below Lower BB
• Down 3 Days in a Row
• Down 4 Days in a Row
• Down 5 Days in a Row
• Earnings Movers
• Gapped Down
• Gapped Up
• Inside Day
• Lower Bollinger Band Touch
• Multiple of Ten Bearish
• Multiple of Ten Bullish
• Outside Day
• Overbought Stochastic
• Oversold Stochastic
• Strong but Oversold
• Strong, Oversold and Reversal Signs
• Up 3 Days in a Row
• Up 4 Days in a Row
• Up 5 Days in a Row
• Upper Bollinger Band Touch
• Weak + Overbought
• Weak, Overbought and Reversal Signs
• Wide Bands

These are the others which will not be displayed (you'll have to run the scans to see matchig stocks):

• Grade Fell To
• Grade Rose To
• IPOs & New Listings
• Most Alerts
• Most Bearish Alerts
• Most Bullish Alerts
• Percentage Change - Historical
• STB 50 Bearish
• STB 50 Bullish
• Timeframe Trends
• Top % Gainers
• Top % Losers

After writing that list, I'm reconsidering also showing the STB Bull & Bear stocks in more places...

And here are the ones which have always been displayed:

• 1,2,3 Pullback Bullish
• 1,2,3 Retracement Bearish
• 180 Bearish Setup
• 180 Bullish Setup
• 200 DMA Resistance
• 200 DMA Support
• 50 DMA Resistance
• 50 DMA Support
• Bearish Engulfing
• Bollinger Band Squeeze
• Boomer Buy Setup
• Boomer Sell Setup
• Bullish Engulfing
• Calm After Storm
• Crossed Above 50 DMA
• Cup with Handle
• Death Cross
• Doji - Bearish?
• Doji - Bullish?
• Downside 200 DMA Break
• Evening Star
• Expansion Breakdown
• Expansion Breakout
• Expansion Pivot Buy Setup
• Expansion Pivot Sell Setup
• Fell Below 50 DMA
• Gilligan's Island Buy Setup
• Gilligan's Island Sell Setup
• Golden Cross
• Hammer Candlestick
• Hot IPO Pullback
• Jack-in-the-Box Bearish
• Jack-in-the-Box Bullish
• Lizard Bearish
• Lizard Bullish
• Lower Bollinger Band Walk
• MACD Bearish Centerline Cross
• MACD Bearish Signal Line Cross
• MACD Bullish Centerline Cross
• MACD Bullish Signal Line Cross
• Morning Star
• Narrow Range Bar
• New 52 Week Closing High
• New 52 Week Closing Low
• New 52 Week High
• New 52 Week Low
• New Downtrend
• New Uptrend
• Non-ADX 1,2,3,4 Bearish
• Non-ADX 1,2,3,4 Bullish
• NR7
• NR7-2
• Reversal New Highs Setup
• Reversal New Lows Setup
• Shooting Star Candlestick
• Slingshot Bearish
• Slingshot Bullish
• Spinning Top
• Stochastic Buy Signal
• Stochastic Reached Overbought
• Stochastic Reached Oversold
• Stochastic Sell Signal
• Three Weeks Tight
• Upper Bollinger Band Walk
• Upside 200 DMA Break
• Volume Surge
• Wide Range Bar