This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

I closed a few trades today that I took from my NR7 scan lately. As always, Red is stop, Orange is entry, Green is target (if it ever comes into view–my targets are too optimistic!) Here they are:

CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CF)

CF flopped around my entry point, and I didn’t want to wait another day or so to get a 1R loss. I lowered my stop to the high of yesterday when it hadn’t proven itself correct by moving decidedly in my favor (like AGP did below–you can see that I gave it much more room than CF). It actually moved a bit more in my favor after I was out, but I need to rate my trading by whether the decision was good at the time, not by the outcome. My “Trade Grade” system, while tongue-in-cheek, is bad in that I’m rating my success by the profit or loss. I’ll probably change it so that I can earn top marks even with a 1R loss if I follow my plan. That’s the real grade of a trade.

Trade Summary:

CF Short 22 Shares
Entry: $40.23, Stop: $41.50, Target: $38.20
R: $27.94, Exit: $40.66
P/L: -0.34R, or ($9.46)

Trade Grade:

AMERIGROUP Corporation (NYSE: AGP)

Stopped out as I trailed the stop to protect the profit. I aggressively protected it to make sure that my May stays in the black. My win/loss rate for May stands at 57% / 43%, and my May Expectancy is only 0.15, so a few 1R losers could easily swing me to the red. I feel that I need to keep May a good month to protect my psyche after my last few months and the big mistakes I have made.

Trade Summary:

AGP Short 64 Shares
Entry: $26.78, Stop: $27.32, Target: $24.00
R: $34.56, Exit: $25.83
P/L: 1.76R, or $60.80 (At one point I was up $85, over 2R)

Trade Grade:

Also, VG spiked and DRL collapsed today, and both were recent NR7 picks. There’s some good stuff getting found, I’m just picking some of the wrong ones so far. Look for some more changes to the scan plan, or at least my trading tactics for how I manage the trades.

Stocks Mentioned In This Article
Stock	Links
CF	| |
AGP	| |

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

Here’s the results of the NR7 Scan for today:

ROCM, SMSI, and ONT.

From now on, instead of spamming MTM proper with my scan candidates, I’ll post them on a dedicated page daily. You can find the link to them on my author profile.

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

Here’s the watchlist for today: EPCT, HMA (looks bogus to me), AKAM, ANO, CF (from yesterday’s list as well), and MNST.

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

I closed out my long trade in ZRAN for a 0.5R loss to apply my capital to more candidates today. Turned out to be the right move:

I entered TRN short, only to get stopped out on the other side of the NR7:

I also entered CHB short, and I bailed on my own as price stalled out in negative territory:

I entered CF short also, but it’s currently underwater from my entry:

If it doesn’t open lower, then I’ll most likely cut it like I did ZRAN to free up the capital.

On the plus side, I’m still holding AGP short from 5/7 @ $26.78, and I’m about 1.6R in the black. My target was $24, which would get me 5R. My tactics aren’t very polished, so any suggestions on how to enter and manage the NR7 trades is appreciated!

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

I posted my Stockfetcher code to a page under my Author Profile. I’ll keep my most recent version there, so anyone who cares can find it there.

Here’s the NR7’s for today, 5/8/2007:

HLIT, CHB, TRN, CF

I’ll be watching for the High / Low to be breached by the bid/ask spread plus two ticks, with a nearby support / resistance as the target.

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

I took three trades today: 1 daytrade and two NR7 swings from my watchlist. The whole HANS saga unfolded in real time on Wallstreak. Read the rest of this entry »

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

I spent some time this weekend trying to understand exactly what I was looking for with my NR7 scan. Jamie pointed out an article by Alan Farley that also helped. I want to see a stock that is unusually active, with a big range expansion, that contracts as narrowly as possible on declining volume, making the coiled spring. I made a refinement to my filters to narrow down the NR7’s from 100 to about 5-10 on average. Read the rest of this entry »

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

Here’s the results from the NR7 Scan for tomorrow, sorted by volume:

MAR, CMI, JAH, GGG, CHIC, GDI, LNET, CCMP, HTI

These are not recommendations, but NR7’s that might be of interest to put on your watchlist for tomorrow. I’ll be watching for these stocks to break the high or the low of today by a few ticks, with the stop on the opposite side of the candle, like I did for MCGC and CAH. I’d also look at the daily charts to get a feeling of longer term bias, whether long or short, which could influence me to bypass an entry signal if it was in the “wrong” direction. I’d pick a target based on recent support or resistance, and I wouldn’t enter unless that risk:reward is about 3 or better.

Any comments on how to improve the system are appreciated!

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

Here’s a couple trades I have taken from my NR7 scan lately. Red diamond denotes NR7, Orange line is entry, Red is stop, Green is target, exit noted with arrow:

MCGC: Swing Trade 4/30/07 to 5/1/07

Trade Summary:

MCGC Short 100 Shares
Entry: $17.97, Stop: $18.17, Target: $17.00
R: $20.50, Exit: $17.60
P/L: 1.78R, or $36.50

Trade Grade:

CAH: Swing Trade 5/1/07 to 5/1/07

Trade Summary:

CAH Short 22 Shares
Entry: $70.02, Stop: $70.68, Target: $68.00
R: $14.52, Exit: $70.07
P/L: -0.08R, or ($1.10)

Trade Grade:

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

I’ve traded a couple of NR7 breakouts so far, and they have been a bit mixed in their success. I’ve gone long or short based on which way the NR7 breaks out. Since I’ve been testing, I’m on hiatus from regularly posting my trades. I should be back to posting my trades when I get the system nailed down to where I like it. Here’s the candidates for 5/1/2007: Read the rest of this entry »

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

Jamie gave me a suggestion last night that I should focus on stocks that gap on high volume and then over the next few days print an NR7. I modified my Stockfetcher code to look for recent high volume movers that print an NR7: Read the rest of this entry »

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com

I’ve been working on a swing trade system that buys breakouts of NR7 candlesticks on a daily chart. The entry would be a break of the high plus a tick or two, and the stop a bit below the low of the NR7 candle. Jamie has been providing his trading expertise, and I have provided some mathe-magic. I use the fabulous stock scanner Stockfetcher to find the candidates. It’s easy to use and very easy to program it to search for what you want. The 2.0 version has a great interface.

This is what I’ve got so far in my Stockfetcher code:

Show stocks where close is above 1.00
and average volume(30) is greater than 200000
and volume is greater than 50000
and average day point range(1) reached a new 7 day low
and average volume(3) has been decreasing for the last 5 days
and volume is more than 30% below volume 1 day ago
and volume is more than 30% below average volume(3)
and draw ema(5) and draw ema(30)
and date offset is 0

Most of those things are self explanatory. Average day point range(1) gives the range of the day in a clean way, and finding a 7 day low gives you an NR7. Stockfetcher can also do percentage range, but I’m not sure whether points or percentages are better to use. The volume statements are there to look for a volume contraction along with the range contraction. I used an average volume to allow for a bit of wiggling, though the volume trend will be right. I picked the different volume numbers and the 30% volume reduction to narrow the number of candidates. Date offset lets you see scan results from the past–an offset of 2 gives results from 2 days ago and so forth.

Looking back, the following symbols were results of a scan on Monday, 4/23:

SAI, ATHR, PIR, UTIW, WLT, ICFI, DLIA

Out of those, SAI, ATHR were triggered and were up today. The others didn’t trigger an entry, so no losers on that day. In my examinations on other days, some candidates have triggered an entry and then dropped to stop you out. The system and the scan still need work in that regard.

Running the scan today, I get the following stocks as NR7’s at the close:

JDSA JSDA, JASO, IMAX, ILE, AIXD

We’ll see how they do tomorrow. Please offer any suggestions to improve the system or the scan!

EDIT: Per the comments, here’s the new code that yields tons of results:

Show stocks where close is above 1.00
and average volume(30) is greater than 200000
and volume is greater than 50000
and average day point range(1) reached a new 7 day low
and volume is more than 30% below volume 1 day ago
and date offset is 0
/*Lines below are just for chart formatting*/
and draw ema(5) and draw ema(30)
and draw average day point range(1) 7 day high
and do not draw average volume(30)

This post was contributed by a guest author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Richard or MovetheMarkets.com