Do You Want a SwingTradeBot Mobile App?

I just had a conversation with somebody who asked me if SwingTradeBot has a mobile (iOS or Android) app.  That's a question I've gotten a lot.  I understand why people want an app. -- as an iPhone user, I like the convenience & ease of an app and the (hopefully) faster & better interface.  

Finding Parabolic Stocks (to Short)

I've been thinking a lot about stocks which have undergone parabolic rises based on (what I consider) a lot of hype and little substance.  That's been fueled by where the bulk of my trading profits have come from over the last few months -- shorting those type of parabolic moves. (Some call those stocks "flying pigs".)

For example, I've shorted VERI 3 times after the crash through 60:

HMNY:

 OSTK 4 times (breaking even on the first 3 attempts but a nice winner on the 4th)

XNET:

XNET was the biggest short-term winner I've had this year...

Thanks $XNET! I only wish I'd doubled down on my short at $24 like I considered. pic.twitter.com/m5TUHO9B5W

— Michael Seneadza (@TraderMike) November 29, 2017

So after that XNET success I really started thinking "I need a way to find these kind of movers quickly." So I'm thinking about adding a "Gone Parabolic" scan.  I have some ideas on how to do it.  Some criteria:

• Must be above the Upper Bollinger Band
• Must be trending up very strongly (can use ADX and Directional Movement for that determination)
• Must be up over 70% in the last few months
• Must have Overbought Stochastic (almost a certainty if the above are all present)

I'll be playing around with that over the weekend to see what I can come up with.  But in the mean time, a pretty good approximation is to use the Percentage Gainers scan, looking at the last 90 days and checking the charts of those stocks which are up more than 70% over that period.

Of course with any of these scans, you'd want to investigate why the stock has been rallying and then decide a course of action.

*** Note that shorting these kind of moves is not for the faint of heart!  You can get slaughtered if you jump in too early.  So if you want to wade into these waters, be sure to have a well thought out plan and control your risk (scaling in may help).

SwingTradeBot's Smart Portfolios as a Google Finance Portfolio Tracker Replacement

I was shocked to see the news that Google just revamped Google Finance and dropped their portfolio tracking tool.  I see on Twitter that a lot of people are looking for a replacement portfolio tracker.  Well I have a great solution for those folks -- SwingTradeBot's portfolios!

Now Accepting PayPal for Annual Subscriptions

Recently I've had an increase in people asking me if they could pay for a subscription with PayPal. These requests have increased since I started the non-USA versions of the site and folks from around the world are subscribing.  In some cases people don't feel comfortable entering their credit card info and in other cases their banks won't allow them to pay in USD. 

So to address those concerns I've decided to start accepting PayPal for annual subscriptions.  It's just annual subscriptions for now because this will be a manual process until I can get some time to fully integrate PayPal with the automated subscription handling built into the site.  Instructions for paying via PayPal are on the subscriptions pricing page.

P.S.  I've also started rolling out plans priced in local currencies (and currencies other than USD).  Those plans will allow people to use the site's Stripe credit card form to subscribe and they'll be charged in the currency of their preference.  I'll write more about those plans in the next several days.

A Big Change to Alerts / Scans...

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".  

Introducing Routines: A Better Way to Bookmark / Save Scans

I've just released a new feature called "Routines".  Routines will allow you to organize your scanning & stock research workflow.  They are essentially to-do lists.  These lists can contain saved scans, URLs or plain text notes.   

Each item in a routine has a checkbox to indicate whether it's been completed.  You can simply click the boxes to toggle them between completed and incomplete. Each trading day, in the morning, the system will reset all of your items to incomplete.

Here are some situations in which these routines may be helpful:

Site Updates from the Last Several Months

Here's are several changes I've made to the site over the last several months:

A New Dashboard Page

I've added a dashboard page, where you can get a quick overview of what your stocks have done.  You can reach that page via the "My Stocks" menu.  I'll be adding more sections to the dashboard in the coming weeks.   Please let me know if you have ideas for things you'd like to see there.

How This Trader Made $220,000 (37% gain) in October 2017...

Here's a great blog post by @SmashTheBid detailing his trading last month.  It does a great job of illustrating some things I've been harping on for well over a decade.  Namely:

• You don't need a high win-rate to make money.  He made that $220K with a 62% win rate. The key is to keep your winners bigger than your losers and to have a positive expectancy
• You can make money on non-penny stocks! He made significant amounts of money on stocks priced over $20 and those priced under $20.  And many people wouldn't even consider trading stocks above $5 or $10!  (It drives me crazy to see people focus so much on low-priced stocks.  You should think in amounts of money invested and percentages, not number of shares and points!)
• There's a lot of opportunity on the short side. 40ish % of his profit came from shorting.
• It's important to keep and review a trading journal.  
• It's critical to have a plan and stick to it.

New Scan Option: Filter Only *Your* Stocks

The other day somebody asked me if there was a way to run a scan and only see results from his watchlists.  There was not, but after discussing it for a while I saw how it could be useful to those who like to trade from a specific set of stocks.   

So I've now added the ability to run scans against just the stocks which are in your watchlists and portfolios.  Just check the box next to "Only My Stocks" in the form where you enter your scan criteria.

Market Cap Scan Filter Plus More Fundamental Data

I have some good news for the many people who have asked me for a market cap scan filter.  As of today you can finally filter by that piece of fundamental data,  You'll see a couple of new parameters in the form where you enter your scan criteria.  Those news parameters allow you to choose values for a minimum and a maximum market cap.