Gap Up & Gap Down Scanner for ThinkorSwim

Likos

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2019 Donor
Prior the the "orb scanner" I think this is great but how about a gap potential or open window of opportunity. I've used the previous day closing gap but rather difficult to use since what's done is done leads to a 50/50 chance trade for opening new wedge gap
 
Pivot lines, not ATR?

He starts discussing actual trades in this video at about 11:15 mark. He repeated says he waits for trades to come to him. He may have only one trade for a given day, but that's fine. Some traders have only 2 trades in a week. Don't work to make a trade every day. Sometimes the set up occurs in the first hour, but sometimes in the last hour. He does not recommend sitting and waiting in between those hours. Wasted time, and hard on your butt! The set up has to occur WITH NO CATALYST GOING ON. No conf call, no news, no product news, no regulatory news, etc. This lack of catalyst is what allows for extreme surges to come back to the mean. If there is a sudden move during the middle of trading day, he suspects there is likely a catalyst known. You have to take that into account in subsequent surges at end of day or next start of day.... be careful. He even says YOU SHOULDN'T EVEN BE TRADING IN THE MIDDLE OF DAY ON THESE SURGES. He admits that a trading strategy success may stop working. He's had success with a strategy that stopped working and he subsequently lost a lot of money when he tried to continue to use the same past successful strategy... But he thinks this first hour and last hour FEAR and GREED based strategy has been more successful. He repeats that a trader new to this strategy SHOULD NOT BE TRADING IN THE MIDDLE OF DAY. He says "ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS ASK YOURSELF: Where it the stock coming from and how fast??" The example with CVX, at about 28:00 mark, he showed a drop from $78 to $74 in about 30 minutes in the middle of day. His experience allowed him to take a rebound trade from the $74 to profit about $2/sh. But he does not recommend such mid-day trading for traders new to this surging price and reversion action because many times some catalysts is released and that can screw the price reversion action.
You nailed it! When I watched the video I had the same thought process as you. I think you covered on how to take a trade the next part is to find a scanner and voila! Easier said than done but great job man. We have awesome programmers here and I hope they will figure this out.
 

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Here is another video on Youtube.com sounds like Dan... Truetrader. After watching the above video... you can see the rational behind Dan's trades. He does not show the Pivot Points levels but he does mark the levels at which he initiates trade positions. You can surmise those levels are the zones he has predetermined (Pivot Points or whatever). He is quite patient at waiting for the levels to be hit. He is definitely juggling a few different stocks simultaneously. Pretty nimble guy.

Dan wrote: "Pro tip: On breakouts above key levels, put a BUY STOP a hair above the breakout level to get the instant execution." This is quite a valuable tip. I've never use a BUY STOP. So instead of putting in a BUY LIMIT to catch a falling knife, Dan determines where the support is likely to be and then bounce. Instead of buying a limit order which may get burned by going much lower, he is willing to put a BUY STOP order a little above the price action that is occurring at the support zone. Then if the share price moves higher off that support zone, he will catch the wave higher, knowing more confidently the move has started in the direction he was waiting for. So, he's not trying to get the very best price at the risk of also being burned. He's more willing to not get the best price, but be more assured the direction has now turned in his favor. the BUY STOP will likely have to be "at the market" because a limit order with a BUY STOP may not get executed if share price is popping.

Also Dan takes "half" of his profits pretty quickly to more assure he can exit rest at break even if direction goes against him too quickly. He takes the other "half" of profits soon after. He does NOT hold shares for later in the day. He gets in, then gets out.

Uh, Dan is buying very large dollar amounts. His example of MRK was a $400,000 dollar position alone. His gain waas 87cents for a $4200 profits. Do the math and that is $4200 / $0.87 = 4827 shares... at about $85/sh starting price... over $400,000 position.




 
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In another video here,: Pro Tip from Dan: "Check the most range the stock has had in one single day in the last 24 months. Use that as a guide." In his trade example a stock dropped from open about $96.50 to $91... He went long and it went lower briefly. But he implied from his Pro Tip that he felt confident it would not go much lower because of the past range of stock action.

His trading shows the prehours price action of each stock, but does not reveal what the previous day price action was. But he must be using the previous day high and low as trading zones. He also then considers if today's open surges in a particular direction in relation to previous close, high, low and prehours price action.

Check out his trade on HAS at about the 10:30 mark. He went long on HAS then noticed huge volume to downside and concerned about it. You can see the deep red candlestick with sudden display of big volume. He closed position for fear a conference call was starting and too much unknown about what will be a catalyst.

At about the 15.30 mark, there is great display of his chart on LMNX. It is a daily, one minute chart and shows the previous day close action, the prehours tanking before the market opens, then the surging share price opens well above the previous day's close and prehours end... The shares peaked, then dropped all the way back close to the previous days close, then turned higher again.

There are a few trades he closed because the price action was lackadaisical. He expect directional move soon after he initiates a position. If there is sideways action for too long, he closes position. DISH was example at about 15:45 mark.

 
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We definitely need a scanner for the TrueTrader method. The SCAN finds stocks that open with gap up or down from previous day close. That should be easy. Maybe set a parameter of 5% or greater gap. Then on one monitor you have maybe a dozen small displays of stocks that show up on the SCAN so you can immediately watch if there is a continued surge in direction of the gap (ie gap down, goes further down; gap up, goes further up). I don't think there is a way to SCAN for price action during the preopen hours compared to previous trading day hours. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

Look for news or catalyst information on your prospective stocks. Eliminate those with news.

Set you upper and lower zones at the previous days intraday high and low. Use Pivot Points for determining other possible turning points intraday.

Any other ideas???
 
At this video at the 2:40 mark you have to watch his trade on BA. He does a great job explaining the trading decisions. In particularly he discusses how he was willing to add to his long position at a lower price based on a support level (he does not reveal how it is determined). It would have lowered his cost basis to allow him to hold longer on a pull back. But since he did not get the lower price, he felt obligated to sell and take profits compared to the possibility of a pull back causing a profitable trade turning into a losing trade. It was interesting to learn his rational.

Check out his trade on CHEF at the 5:40 mark. He displays THREE days of trading charts which allows us to see what the previous trading day highs were, the prehours price action, the regular market open prices. CHEF was a rare trade in which he held the position overnight! It was a swing trade for him that he was willing to hold for days or weeks.

Pretty interesting. Again, these are factors for the SCAN to find.

 
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This video from Dan is just too confusing to me. He starts by saying he is going to describe how he sets his support and resistance zones.. He even shows charts... But I have no idea how to replicate what he is showing... Hope someone here figures it out!
 
setting support and resistance levels.... I like how he warns about zig zag higher lows into resistance, or zag zig, lower highs into support area. This is not good for reversal to mean tactic. Instead, this march is more indicative of heading for a breakout, instead of reverse to the mean. Similar to TrueTrader tactic, this guy waits for a set of surging candelsticks reaching the zone as a set up to take a position for reversal.




 
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I think knowing some basic candlestick patterns will aid in watching the peak and trough areas of expected reversal area.

I tend to want to see a long "wick" above or below for either peaking or troughing candlesticks, respectively, as additional info that a reversal may be imminent Those wicks signify price rejection or exhaustion.



Make sure you watch how to interpret a combination of two candlesticks to notice long wick price rejection candlestick.
This guy emphasize never trade candlestick pattern in isolation. Look for Trend, Area of Value, Entry Trigger (T.A.E. Framework). He recommends looking at overall Trend. Then identify Area of Value (which he means support or resistance area). Then candlestick Trigger pattern to start position. But this guy is using a longer timeframe of trading, not intraday trading. But candlesticks can still be helpful for intraday trading.



 
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This is a different trader, Alex Timez, but he reveals his tactics and there is so much similar to TrueTrader, Dan. This is a nice confirmation of the tactic can work... The pertinent comment starts at the 13:30 mark...

He, like Dan, trades the "back side" of a surging move. ie. the reversal toward the mean.

 
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This is famous Anton Kreil... he is warning AGAINST day trading scalping... interesting counter view... But he says the way to get around the difficulty of day trading is to be knowledgeable to trade whatever asset class has the most volatility. Volatility is the milk of profits in trading intraday. SO at least TrueTrader is focusing on highly volatile stock moves. So as difficult as it may be to day trade, it primarily means difficult to do so when the asset has low volatility.

Kind of brutally honest how brokerages continuously need new retail customers to replace old retail customers that blow up their accounts because professional traders in hedge funds and brokerages clean them out with their proprietary professional strategy trading that uses retail trading liquidity to close out position for profit at the expense of retail traders.

He warns retailers NOT to use margin which leverages too much and facilitates blowing up their account. This is why brokerages entice retail customers to use margin... even offering "low" interest rates. The more a retailer is leveraged, the easier to blow them out to get their trading money.





 
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I have a couple friends who have signed up for TrueTrader.net. Here are their insights: The True Trader service really is for those who have time at 9:30AM to 11AM Eastern Time to trade. So if you have a day job, you will have a difficult time using their live online service. They will also sometimes trade at the last hour or two of regular market trading. But that time period is much less fruitful in finding a trade. They take a break in between those two trading periods. For those on the west coast who think they have an advantage because they can trade at 6:30AM to 9:00AM, possibly before going to work at their day job, think again. If you want to be fully ready each morning, you have to be putting in your limit orders from 6AM to 6:30AM based on their pre-open watchlist. (Yes, that is 8:30 AM to 9AM in the east coast.) That means getting up earlier than 6AM to get yourself in the right frame of mind to trade promptly when the market opens. My friends get up at 5:30AM Pacific Time. That makes it particularly tough toward the end of the work day at 5PM and a drive home. And forget about trading at the close of the market hours because you are at your day job then.

This may suit someone who is retired or has a flexible work schedule. But should a retired person be using their retired savings to do day trading??!!
 
@heramone is this what your looking for?
V71ItGo.png
Could this possibly be an RSI plotted this way on the upper chart??? Red line could be the "overbought" area between 65 to 90??? And the green for "oversold" somewhere between 10 and 35? Just thought it looked too similar.....
 
Could this possibly be an RSI plotted this way on the upper chart??? Red line could be the "overbought" area between 65 to 90??? And the green for "oversold" somewhere between 10 and 35? Just thought it looked too similar.....

Beltrame1,
We know from actual subscribers that the zones are pivot points, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly timeframes. But that alone is not enough to make any trading decisions. Matter of fact, those pivot points alone will cause more bad trades because of other factors they consider vital in the decision making. I'm going to likely sign up. I figured the time it takes for me to decipher their strategy is better spent doing it correctly from the start with them as the teachers. I'll report back.
 
This video from Dan is just too confusing to me. He starts by saying he is going to describe how he sets his support and resistance zones.. He even shows charts... But I have no idea how to replicate what he is showing... Hope someone here figures it out!
The closest thing to this on tos is volume profile. It's much less in depth then the version he has though.
 
I found the video with the indicator, but Im not able yet to post an image.
Observing the indicator, the difference between the max and min values of the upper range and the lower range are different. The upper is 2.09 and the lower is 1,1. So i think we can assume that is not related to the ATR. In my opinion, it shoud be related to the size of the "reversal candle" at the specific supply or demand zone.

The stock being analyzed is BYND at May 7, 20. The "TrueTraderReversal" indicator is showing the upper zone between 148.57 and 150.66 and the lower zone between 117.8 and 116.7. Now i'm going to play with the levels in different time frames and try to find the reversal candle.

Finally...

fmA0NEz.png
 
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I was hoping someone can help me build a scanner that confirms a stock is above 9EMA, 20Ema and 50 Ema and with a 4% premarket gap up.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
 
I put this one together recently and have tested it a little bit with good results in finding possible trades.
So far, I've taken no trades from this scan setup.

I've run it after hours, AFTER 8 PM eastern when the AH trading has completed and found some very good looking watchers.

It will pick up stocks that fit all the following criteria:

  • volume over 300K on the day
  • ask size $0 to $20
  • The CLOSE (Day) is at least .1% above the 50, 20, and 9 EMA
  • The price change is 4% greater than 1 bar (4-hour candle) ago
  • Current DAY volume increased 20% from its typical 50 period Average
  • Exclude: All OTC stocks (since they don't trade AH anyway)

With this exact criteria, tonight I found a manageable (24 stocks) list of mostly earnings sell-offs that started to recoup after hours as well as some multi-day runners that continued to run or gap after hours.

http://tos.mx/EdMksA0

It is a new scan setup that I have not tried yet but it looks promising so far.
I will have them on a watchlist for tomorrow and see how they do.
So far it looks like a good list of in-play tickers!

Let me know if this is what you were looking for. All the criteria should be able to be dialed in on your end easily to fit the exact type of stocks you are looking for.
 
Hello there Everyone,

I want to know if theres a way I can scan for small cap gap ups on ToS? If so, can you please help me with how to scan on Tos for this.

Thank you
 

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