Forgot your password?
User Documentation
Just a bare skeleton
What is all this for?
You have no doubt noticed three text boxes, and a chart.
The ticker box:
This is where you enter in your favorite ticker. Some choices are presented in a table below, but any of the 8,000 most important stocks in the U.S. should work. Delisted stocks also work, for instance 'dal as of 1/1/2004' for the Delta airlines that existed before it went bankrupt. The rule for delisted stocks is 'sym as of DATE' where sym was the symbol that the delisted stock was known as, and DATE is a date that the symbol traded at.
Example Tickers
| Name | Ticker | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| S &P index fun | spy | |
| Nasdaq 100 index fund | qqqq | |
| Nasdaq index fund (previous) | qqq as of 1/1/2004 |
|
| 3com, inc | coms--0 | |
| Yahoo, Inc | yhoo | |
| Merrill Lynch | mer | |
| Valueline, Inc | valu | |
| Evergreen associates | eee | Going down |
| Apple, Inc | aapl | Going up |
| Ford Motor Company | f | Cyclical, loser |
| Exxon Mobile, Inc | xom | good stock to own |
| Elan Corporation, plc | elan | Very volatile |
| Dryships, Inc | drys | long term volatility |
| TVI Corporation | tvin | Can you keep your gains? |
| Westwood One, Inc | won | You definitely have not won with this one |
| 3M company | mmm | seems cyclical, nice dividend |
| Tyco International, Ltd | tyc | Ouch in 2007 |
| Bear Stearns | bsc | Ouch in 2007 |
| Brazil etf | ewz | Nice to own |
The term box:
The term box allows you to enter conditions under which to hold the stock. These are just expressions that are either true or false at a given time for a stock.
Examples
Lets look at a simple term:
close change over 365 days > 1.0
This means the closing price is higher than it was a year ago.
(close avg 30) change over 100 > 1.0
This term asks "Has the 30 day average gone up over the last 100 days". Notice that the days flag is optional, as days are the default:
(close avg 30) rank 100 days > 10
This term asks "Has the 30 day average within the top 10 of the last 100":
Glossary of fields
| Field | Explanation |
|---|---|
| close | The closing price of the stock |
| open | The opening price of the stock |
| high | The daily high for the stock |
| low | The daily low for the stock |
| volume | The daily volume of the stock, in shares |
| adjustment | The split adjustment factor for the stock price |
| pe | The price per earnings |
| eps | The earnings per share |
| pctyield | The divident yield for the company, in percent |
| dividend | The last actual divident, per share |
| divdate | The date of that last dividend |
| numshares | The number of shares outstanding |
| futureeps | The expected eps for this company |
| day | The day of the month (e.g. 15 if its april 15th) |
| month | The month (eg 2 for February) |
| year | The year (i.e. 2008) |
| The weekday | 0 for Monday, etc |
Glossary of operators
For the purposes of the table below, A or B may be terms, fields or constants.
| Operator | Explanation | Returns |
|---|---|---|
&& |
A && B is true if A is true and B is true |
1 or 0, 1 meaning true |
|| |
A || B |
1 or 0, 1 meaning true |
|
|
A after B is true while A is true, but only after B
becomes true |
1 or 0, 1 meaning true |
|
|
A before B is true while A is true, but only before B
becomes true |
1 or 0, 1 meaning true |
|
|
Like A before B, but it remains true even after A is
no longer true, until B becomes true |
1 or 0, 1 meaning true |
then |
Like A after B, but persists while B is true even
after A becomes false |
1 or 0, 1 meaning true |
> |
A > B is true when A is greater than B. |
1 or 0, 1 meaning true |
< |
A < B is true when A is less than B. | 1 or 0, 1 meaning true |
| >= | A >= B is true when A is greater than or equal to
B. |
1 or 0, 1 meaning true |
| <= | A <= B is true when A is less than or equal to B. | 1 or 0, 1 meaning true |
!= |
A != B is true when A is not equal to B |
1 or 0, 1 meaning true |
== |
A == B is true when A is equal to B |
1 or 0, 1 meaning true |
| max | A max time equals the largest value in A within days days | A number |
| min | A max days equals the smallest value in A within days days | A number |
| avg | A avg days equals the moving average over the given number of days | A number |
| rank | A rank days gives the rank within the given number of days | An integer |
| count |
A count days gives the number of times A is true over the given number of days | An integer |
| / | A / B is A divided by B | A number |
| * | A * B is A times B | A number |
| ** | A ** B is A taken to the Bth power. B is assumed to be an integer | A number |
| // | A ** B is A taken to the Bth root. B is assumed to be an integer | A number |
| <- | A <- days is A shifted the given number of days into the past | A number |
| -> | A -> days is A shifted the given number of days into the future | A number |
Choices
Sometimes you will want to try out a whole bunch of possibilities at once. For instance, you may not know which P/E range is best. You would do something like:
choice minPe = 5.0, 7.5, 10.0, 15.0, 22.5, 30.0, 40.0, 50.0, 100.0, 200.0 pe > minPe
As soon as you type this into the strategy box, a new box will appear, to ask the number of samples. Try changing that number to something larger than 1, for example 5. When you hit Return, the graph will sport 6 multicolored lines. As before the red one is the baseline, and the others all are one of the possible choices. You can use this to intuitively get an idea what, for instance, P/E means to the stock price:
choice minPe = 5.0, 7.5, 10.0, 15.0, 22.5, 30.0, 40.0, 50.0, 100.0, 200.0 choice mult = 1.1, 1.25, 1.5, 2.0 pe > minPe && pe < (minPe * mult)
Notice here that there are 40 different tactics represented by this strategy. If you hit Return repeatedly (CTRL-Return in the Strategy box), the five lines will wiggle around, representing different possible tactics that could be chosen.
The number of tactics box:
You only get this box when there is at least one choice in the Strategy box. If there are no choices, this box will disappear, as all the tactics that would be plotted will be the same.
