Question
Hi Anna – please advise on my weekly (Saturday & Sunday) to do list . My daily (M – F) to do list at the beginning of my trading session – Regards
PS Can I possibly suggest an Anna Coulling “To Do Check List” for me and your faithful subscribers. Just an idea . . . my two pennath (for what it’s worth)
Answer
Hi – many thanks for your question which is one I am often asked, so here is my top ten list of things to do. These are the simple things I look at every morning before starting to trade (with one or two on a weekly basis)
- Overnight equity markets – Asia and Far East – price action and volume
- Bond markets – US in particular for bond prices and bond yields, and particularly the 10 year note which is a benchmark
- Yen currency pairs – again for risk and a good barometer of risk on/risk off is the AUD/JPY
- USD index – I use two here – the DXY and the FXCM/DOW which I find is more representative. The old DXY is too heavily euro weighted in my opinion and the FXCM/DOW index provides a more balanced view.
- Commodity indices, and primary commodities – particularly oil and gold and gas
- Fundamental news overnight and for the day ahead. Any news from China and Far East in particular
- Futures volumes on currencies, commodities and bonds and primary indices using volume price analysis
- COT report data at the weekend – here we are looking for changes in sentiment
- Volatility indicator from OANDA – this also has other instruments too and is a very quick and easy way to identify the volatility across the markets – which are moving and which are stagnant. It also displays the extent of price movements and in all timeframes.
- Daily charts for the overall technical picture. This is irrespective of what timeframe I am trading intraday. It provides the framework for the session and a mental picture of the longer term trend.
I hope the above helps to get you started, and thanks once again for an interesting question. All best wishes and wishing you every success with your trading. Kind regards Anna
Hi Anna:
I have read your Volume Price Analysis and am having difficulty coming up with a method of screening stock to identify potential investment opportunities. Can you give me some pointers on how to begin my search?
Thank you
Ron
Hi Ron – many thanks for getting in touch and thank you for buying A Complete Guide to Volume Price Analysis, and I hope you found it useful and enjoyable. With regard to your question, this is a book in itself, but let me try to give you some ideas on where I start for my own investments. As you probably know I am based in the UK, but invest in both UK and US markets, so here are some suggestions.
If we start with the stock screening software first ( both paid and free) there are several that I use, but primarily these are as follows – for UK equities I use Sharescope and for US and Canadian markets I use one called Chartsmart. Both of these are paid, and the reason I like them both is that the stock screening tools are excellent. These are both paid, but two which are free are http://www.finviz.com and http://www.stockfetcher.com – and last of course ( also free ) is http://www.freestockcharts.com. The last of these is another excellent resource, and don’t forget Yahoo and Google finance.
For any of the above packages, I then begin the filtering process by setting some basic parameters as to whether I am searching for large cap, or mid cap stocks, so some parameters around the company size, shares issued etc will start to filter to your preferred list. Then I look for filters on price action on the day – typically 2% moves for example, which will filter out those stocks which are moving, and then of course to filter on volume traded on the day. Stockfetcher is excellent for this, and gives you the option to search instantly for volume spikes – a nice feature. I like to work with several hundred charts at a time, and can work through a list this size in 20 -30 minutes, literally spending a few seconds on each. What I am looking for are patterns, shapes and breakouts which are instantly recognisable as you scan quickly through each chart. Once I have a short list of possibles, then I will start to spend longer on each chart, and consider some of the fundamentals and ratio analysis, along with likely earnings reports. This will then reduce the list to a hot list, which you check on a regular basis as well along with running filters daily for further prospects based on your initial filters. It sounds time consuming, but once set up, is relatively quick, and even when scanning a few hundred charts, can be done very quickly by eye. What you are looking for here in this fast scan is those charts which stand out instantly, either with longer term patterns or more recent price action.
I hope the above helps and many thanks again for taking time to write – wishing you every success in your investing – all best wishes Anna
Dear Anna:
Thank you so much for the detailed reply. I will look at those tools you mentioned and I am sure they will help. I started to reread your book to try and get proficient in recognizing the patterns that are important in finding opportunities. Thank you again.
Kind Regards,
Ron