Only available to our Extra and PRO subscribers, the Advanced Scan Interface provides you with an amount of flexibility not available through the Standard Scan Interface. It can do all of the things that the standard interface can do with several important additions, such as:

1) The ability to create conditions with multiple indicators on each side of the Comparison Operator.

2) The ability to create scans that join different conditions together with "OR" logic.

The standard scan interface can transfer your criteria into the advanced scan interface so that you can make additional edits if desired. If you are new to scans we recommend you read our Understanding Stock Scans page and our Standard Scan Manual, then start working with the standard scan interface until you feel comfortable enough to move to advanced scans. For many, the standard scan interface will provide sufficient flexibility for their scans.

By the way, if you are just learning to create scans, we recommend that you download and print our Scan Tutorial and then slowly follow its directions. Scanning is incredibly useful but it does take time to learn.  You might also want to review the information and example scans in our Scanning Stocks blog.

To access the Advanced Scan interface, go to the Standard Scan workbench and click the  button at the bottom of the page.

Scans are an invaluable resource for technical analysis; they allow you to envision a desirable chart and then see it in the real world. The Advanced Scan interface is for users who desire complete control over the scan engine, allowing for virtually any form of criteria rather than simply the most common forms.

A downside to the advanced scan interface is the amount of room for error on the part of the user. For this reason it is advised that you start your scans in the standard scan interface and then transfer them to the advanced interface. We encourage all our Extra and PRO subscribers to use our scan engine and, if you ever feel constrained by the Standard Scan interface, to experiment with the Advanced version.

The Advanced Scan Interface is composed of three main parts: The starting date adjuster, the scan expression box, and the scan builder. The scan expression box is what the scan engine ultimately uses to run the scan. Commands can either be inserted through the scan builder or from the Standard Scan interface, or they can be entered by hand. See below for more details on these sections.

Near the top of the page you will see the above text and drop-down boxes. These can be used to specify the time from which the scan will be performed.

You can change the number in the first box to run your scan "in the past" and see what results would have been generated. You can specify any number up to 500 in this box but keep in mind that, depending on your scan criteria, the further back you go, the less accurate your results will be. You can also scan from the last market close or the last intraday update.

The scan expression region contains the criteria used to run the scan. All commands must be entered into this box or inserted through the scan builder.  The number in the upper right displays how many characters are remaining in the scan expression.  Scan expressions must be less than 2560 characters.

Directly below the expression box there are three buttons that can be used to reset the scan expression, run the scan, or check the syntax. Whenever you add a clause it is always a good idea to check the syntax so that if you make a mistake, it will be caught right away. If there is a syntax error, text will appear at the bottom of the box that identifies the problem.

If you see this message:

Then you are ready to run the scan.

For some examples of scan criteria, click on any of the "help" links on the page. The help link is found at the top right corner of the Scan Builder box, as shown below.

The Scan Builder can be used to insert common clauses that you need. The clauses that you can insert are broken down into nine different categories, each having its own drop-down box. Once you select a clause from the menu, hit the  button and it will be placed in the Expressions Box with the default values. You will probably want to modify these default values by hand in the Expressions box.

These are short commands used in the Expressions Box that are used often within the Scan Builder clauses. It is important to be familiar with these commands if you plan on customizing any of the criteria. Often times there are multiple ways to express the commands, such as through both words and symbols ("=" and "equals").

Here is a brief description of these operators, with the synonyms in quotations.

The comparison operators compare one value or indicator to another:

= "equals" 
>= is greater than or equal to  
> is greater than 
<= is less than or equal to 
< is less than 
!= is not equal to 
x  "crosses" 

Standard arithmetic operators are available for use in any expression:

+ Plus
- Minus
* Multiplied by
/ Divided by

You can use several additional keywords to specify a date offset for an indicator of other value. Supported date offset keywords include:

You can specify whether an indicator is calculated using daily price bars or weekly price bars by using the following modifiers:

Clauses are joined together with logical operators. The logical operators the scan interface supports are:

When using clauses separated by the logical operator "OR", it is important that you pay close attention to your square brackets. To illustrate the reason for this we'll look at an example. If we start with a scan for stocks with a Double Top:

[Type = Stock] and [Double Top is True]

and we decide that we want to include stocks that have a Triple Top pattern as well, we would start by adding that clause separated with an "OR". This gives us:

[Type = Stock] and [Double Top is True] or [Triple Top is True]

Unfortunately, if you run that scan, you'll get results that include Indices and Mutual Funds even though you specifically specify that you just want Stocks. The problem is that the last clause is evaluated entirely independently from the rest. To fix this we need to add square brackets around the clauses we want evaluated together. In this case we will want to add square brackets around the two pattern clauses:

[Type = Stock] and [ [Double Top is True] or [Triple Top is True] ]

Now the two clauses will be evaluated together and the scan will give us the desired results.

There are several ticker properties that you can set as filters for your scan.

Type: The type of each ticker symbol. Acceptable values are "Stock", "Index", and "Fund".
Symbol: Can specify that the symbol "starts with", "ends with", or "contains" certain letters.
Name: Can specify that the name "starts with", "ends with", or "contains" certain letters.
Country: The country of the exchange it is traded on. Acceptable values are "US" and "Canada" .

Region: A broader area than a specific country.  Acceptable is are "NorthAmerica".
Exchange: The exchange that each stock trades on, either "NASDAQ", "NYSE", "PINK", "AMEX", "TSE" or "VENTURE".
EPS: Each stock's last reported Earnings Per Share value.
PE Ratio: Each stock's last reported Price-Earnings Ratio.

Market Cap: Each stock's last reported Market Capitalization.  Market Capitalization is expressed in million dollar increments.

Optionable: The stock trades options.

Has Dividend: The stock pays a dividend.

Dividend: Amount of the annualized dividend.

Yield: Yield (in percent) based on the annualized dividend.

Select any of these properties from the drop-down menu, click , then edit the fields in the Expressions Box if you want to use parameters other than the default ones.

This field contains price, volume and SCTR entries:

• High: The largest price value for each ticker during each period.
• Close: The last price value for each ticker during each period. Note that when the market is open and an intraday scan is used, the 'Close' value is equal to the most recent price for each stock.
• Open: The first price value for each ticker during each period.
• Low: The smallest price value for each ticker during each period.
• Volume: The number of shares traded during each period.
• Range: The value of the High minus the value of the Low for each period.
• SCTR: All existing SCTR types
• SCTR.sp5: S&P 500 SCTR values
• SCTR.sp4: S&P 400 SCTR values
• SCTR.sp6: S&P 600 SCTR values
• SCTR.us.etf: U.S. listed ETF SCTR values
• SCTR.tsx: Toronto exchange SCTR values

Furthermore, all of the technical indicators available on our charts are available as Indicator Functions in our scan engine and can be selected from the Technical Indicators menu. A comprehensive list of indicator functions is described below.

Select any of these properties from the drop-down menu, click , then edit the fields in the Expressions Box if you want to use parameters other than the default ones.

The scan engine can be programmed to search for charts that either do or do not display specified candlestick patterns.

The criteria will appear as a true/false parameter. For example:

[Piercing Line is true] will search for charts with the Piercing Line pattern.
[Piercing Line is false] will exclude charts with the Piercing Line pattern.

The scan engine can also search on more discrete candlestick patterns called Candlestick building blocks.  Customized candlestick patterns can be created via the building blocks.  These criteria will also appear as true/false parameters.  For example:

[Marubozu is true] will search for charts with a Marubozu pattern.

For detailed descriptions of candlestick patterns, see our ChartSchool Chart Analysis page.

Select any of these properties from the drop-down menu, click , then edit the fields in the Expressions Box if you want to use parameters other than the default ones.

The scan engine can be programmed to search for charts that either do or do not display specified Point and Figure patterns.

The criteria will appear as a true/false parameter. For example:

[Bullish Triangle is true] will search for charts with the Bullish Triangle pattern.
[Bullish Triangle is false] will exclude charts with the Bullish Triangle pattern.

Select any of these properties from the drop-down menu, click , then edit the fields in the Expressions Box if you want to use parameters other than the default ones.

These properties are not quite as straightforward as "true/false" parameters, but they still follow a structured and consistent formula.

For example, the New 52-week high would be entered like this:

Notice the "max" expression is used with 260 days as the period, meaning that it evaluates the daily high.

Select any of these predefined scans from the drop-down menu, click , then edit the fields in the Expressions Box if you want to use parameters other than the default ones.

The scan engine recognizes each group by a unique ID code. Therefore, when you insert a group expression such as "Gold & Silver", it will look like:

[group is GoldSilver]

Now the scan engine will only search within the Gold & Silver Sector.

Select any of these groups from the drop-down menu and click .

Just like the sector and industries, the scan engine recognizes each index group by a unique ID code. Therefore, when you insert a group expression such as "S&P 500", it will look like:

Now the scan engine will only search within the S&P 500 Index.

Select any of these groups from the drop-down menu and click .

You also have the ability to have the scan engine search your favorite lists. So if you, for example, wanted to see all the stocks in your "My Tech Stocks" list that have reached their 52-week highs, the command would be:

Notice that "My Tech Stocks" is assigned "2" on the drop-down menu.

Select any of these lists from the drop-down menu and click .

Saving the scan criteria allows you to run your custom scans any time you want without re-entering all the filters. Likewise, if you obtain results that you find useful, you can save them all as a "Favorites" list for further analysis.

Once you enter in all the criteria you desire, you can either:

• Click Add/Modify the Current Scan under the drop-down menu in the top right. Enter a description for the scan and click "OK"
  

OR

• Scroll down to Managing Your Favorite Scans and click on Add/Modify the Current Scan. Enter a description for the scan and click "OK".
  

Manage Saved Scans:

To manage the scans you have creatd click "View All Scan" link located below the Your Favorite Scans drop-down. Once the page displays you can check off the box to the left of the scans title and click "Remove the selected scans" to easily delete them from your account.This is also a great way to see in list format all your saved scans and their description.

Once you run the scan, you will see this menu on the scan results page:

Click on Put these results into a new ChartList to save all of the results. Enter a description for the scan and click "OK". You may want to put your new list in a CandleGlance display to pick out charts that you like or dislike.

Options to select from are:

This list describes and provides examples for criteria for clauses that are found in the Price, Volume, and Indicators menu.