The D2MX scanning tools allow you to scan for shares that meet the criteria you set. You can use these tools to quickly find trading opportunities, and they can save you a lot of time each day.
There are three different ways you can run scans using the D2MX Trade Tools: real time, historical or long term. In this article I will explain how you can use each of these different approaches.
The D2MX Analyser allows you to run scans on the latest price information. In previous versions of the Analyser the scan would be run on yesterday’s close, but now the it runs on the last traded price at the time the scan is run. You can run a scan before the market opens and it will look at yesterday’s close price. You can then run the scan again any time during the trading day to find shares that meet your criteria. You might want to see if the market open triggers an entry signal, or check before the market close allowing you to place your order before the market shuts for the day.
To run scans in real time based on the latest price, click on the D2MX Trade Tools menu, then click Analyser. This will load the Analyser window. In this window you can choose from a wide variety of different indicators by selecting the Analysis Formula that you want to use. Once you have selected an indicator you can then adjust the parameters, before running the scan.
It’s possible to combine more than one indicator using the D2MX Analyser Wizard. This allows you to scan on multiple indicators at once, for example you could specify that a share must be above its moving average and oversold on a stochastic indicator. Create your indicator in the D2MX Analyser Wizard and you will then be able to run a scan in the D2MX Analyser as it will appear at the very bottom of the indicator list.
Before running your scan select the watchlist you want to analyse from the among the System Watchlists or from your own set of User Watchlists. (A future enhancement will provide you with the ability to scan the whole ASX market without creating a special watchlist to do this.) Click on Calculate to run the scan. The scan will look at the last traded price to determine whether your criteria have been met. A scan run at 9am could be different from a scan run at 11am, 1pm or 3pm.
If you click on Filter Settings you can narrow down the list by specifying a price range or volume criteria to filter out shares you are not interested in. Note that the price format here is in dollars, not cents as it is in the rest of the platform. Once you have entered your parameters click Calculate again to find the filtered list of shares.
You can also save this list of shares as a new watchlist. Highlight all the shares in the results, by clicking on the first share in the list, then scroll to the bottom, hold down the Shift key and click on the last share. Hold down the Ctrl key and push C on the keyboard. This will copy the shares to your clipboard. Click on Quote, click Clear and click Import to paste the information into your new watchlist. Click Save As to save the watchlist.
You can scroll through the Analyser results in a D2MX chart using the black buttons at the top of the chart, next to the blue watchlist scroll buttons. You can quickly look through the results using any of the chart templates you have created.
To run an end-of-day scan you can simply run the D2MX Analyser when the market is closed, but there is another alternative as well. You can use the D2MX Trading System to run a back test based on historical data, and yesterday’s information is now considered history once the market starts trading today. The D2MX Trading System allows you to set both entry and exit criteria and test a complete strategy. For now we will focus on the entry side only.
Click Create to create a new system and click OK. Select the entry criteria you want from the list of indicators that are available to you. This list is the same list as that contained in the Analyser. You can set a Time stop to exit one day after entry, as the exit point is not particularly relevant here. Choose your watchlist on the right and click Save. Type in a name and click OK. You can now run a scan on any day you choose.
Click Run Strategy and you can specify the date you want to run the strategy from and to. To run on a specific day use the same date as the Period From and the Period To. Click on the Standard Report List to find the list of shares that met your criteria on the date you specified.
You can also use the D2MX Trading System to run a scan on weekly data or even monthly data. The D2MX Analyser scan runs on daily data only, while the Trading System allows you to specify a weekly or monthly scan.
When you select your parameters for the indicator on the Build Strategy tab, you can choose the Data Interval you wish to use. This can be daily, weekly or monthly. One thing to be aware of is that running a weekly scan on Tuesday will include a week from Tuesday. If you want to run a scan related to a market week, run the weekly scan on the weekend. Set all your other parameters as if you were running a daily scan and you can view the results in the Standard Report List.
However you want to scan the market you can use the D2MX Trade Tools to find the opportunities you are looking for.
Jeff Cartridge
Education Manager
