Seeks to find stocks that have formed a high, tight flag formation over the past 10 days. There are often not a lot of hits on this scan. Some days there are no hits. You can decrease the length of the flag to produce more hits or get these stocks on a watch list earlier. To change flag length to six days, for example, change "length := -11:" to "length := -7:".

output="htflag.lst";

 integer length;

 length := -11;

 exchange=nyse, nasdaq, amex;

 if close(length+1) > max(length,-256,hi)  and
  close (length+1) > close(length) * 1.10 and
  max(0,length+2,hi) < high(length+1) and
  min(0,length+2,lo) > max(length,-256,hi) 
 then
println symbol;
 endif;

The scan is derived from Chapter 10, with the same title, of Linda Bradford Raschke’s book Street Smarts. It is based on Welles Wilder’s Average Directional Index (ADX). It uses ADX to help determine when to buy a stock in a strong trend. This is a classic “buy the dip” scan, that identifies the stocks that are both in a strong trend, yet are dipping in price. The buy strategy is to place a buy stop above the previous day’s bar ( I use +$0.02) once the price has touched the 20 day EMA The scan yields candidates that are both in a strong trend, but have dipped to hit the 20 day EMA during the most recent day’s trading. If filled, place a stop at the previous day’s low and trial it up as the price moves with your trade. Short trades are the reverse of the above and the scan must be modified.

I have added some filters to the scan to eliminate the gapping stocks and it yields candidates that are more tradable, price and volume wise. Note that the UnRuly Dog prescan is used as the input file.

Input= "udu5550.lst";
output = "HolyGrail.lst";
daystoload=500;
DaysRequired=500;

SET ADX = 14;

Printhdrln "Symbol,Close,EPSRank,QRS,30adv,Vol,PE,IRLGroup,SharesFloat,SharesShort,Name,InstHold";
if ADX (0)>30 and
ADX (-5)> 30 and 
ADX (-4) > ADX (-5) and
Low (0) <= EMovAvg(0,20,cl) and
Low (-1) >EMovAvg(-1,20,cl)  and
Vol(0)>=50000 and
Close(0)>=7  
then
  println Symbol,",",Close(0):7:2,",",EPSRank(0):3:0,",",QRS(0):3:0,",",avgvol(0,-29):8:0,
  ",",vol(0):8:0,",",PE:5:0,",",IRLsymbol:12,",",Sharesfloat:5:2,",",Shortint:5:2,",",description:-15,
  ",",InstHold:3:2;
 endif;