The Stock/ETF/Commodity Pinbar Thread

Tomorrow will be dead w/ the holiday, but here a bunch of pins that formed today (keep in mind this is the full list, so many of these are crap, but there's a few good ones mixed in as well):

Bearish:

PPG - PPG INDUSTRIES INC
DISCA - DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS-A
SINA - SINA CORP
WTW - WEIGHT WATCHERS INTL INC
RBC - REGAL BELOIT CORP
ONXX - ONYX PHARMACEUTICALS INC
TLEO - TALEO CORP-CLASS A
ENER - ENERGY CONVERSION DEVICES
VNDA - VANDA PHARMACEUTICALS INC
SEED - ORIGIN AGRITECH LTD

Be careful with DISCA, TLEO, and SEED, these are high fliers and can hurt you if they decide to go up and you're short...

Bullish

AMX - AMERICA MOVIL-ADR - Nasty...hits a 52wk high and get smacked the next day...
MS - MORGAN STANLEY
ADI - ANALOG DEVICES INC
XL - XL CAPITAL LTD -CLASS A - I'm a Seller of this one...but what do i know!
CINF - CINCINNATI FINANCIAL CORP
ACGL - ARCH CAPITAL GROUP LTD
ONNN - ON SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION
RDC - ROWAN COMPANIES INC
ODP - OFFICE DEPOT INC
ICA - EMPRESAS ICA S.A. -SPONS ADR
AAN - AARON'S INC
MXGL - MAX CAPITAL GROUP LTD
CCC - CALGON CARBON CORP
MDCO - MEDICINES COMPANY

Some weekly bars for you. Hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend (at least in the states a holiday weekend).

Bullish

MSFT - MICROSOFT CORP
IBM - INTL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP
NHP - NATIONWIDE HEALTH PPTYS INC
RJF - RAYMOND JAMES FINANCIAL INC
FNFG - FIRST NIAGARA FINANCIAL GRP
UFS - DOMTAR CORP
SKT - TANGER FACTORY OUTLET CENTER
ELS - EQUITY LIFESTYLE PROPERTIES
SYKE - SYKES ENTERPRISES INC
PVTB - PRIVATEBANCORP INC
CVI - CVR ENERGY INC
CVO - CENVEO INC
AMCC - APPLIED MICRO CIRCUITS CORP
BGS - B&G FOODS INC-CLASS A

Bearish

WMT - WAL-MART STORES INC
WIT - WIPRO LTD-ADR
PPL - PPL CORPORATION
LIFE - LIFE TECHNOLOGIES CORP
HSY - The Hershey Co.--> Repeat!
VRTX - VERTEX PHARMACEUTICALS INC
VR - VALIDUS HOLDINGS LTD
DDR - DEVELOPERS DIVERSIFIED RLTY
LMNX - LUMINEX CORP
HSTX - HARRIS STRATEX NETWORKS
PBH - PRESTIGE BRANDS HOLDINGS INC
SEED - ORIGIN AGRITECH LTD -->Careful...highflier...+160% since Oct!

Hi there,

Great thread you have started, congratulations for that.

I am not sure though how you are making your scans, I would appreciate if you would develop a bit more how you do them, (tools you use, and the scan criteria). In my case I use ProRealTime, in their free EoD version, however I am still playing with the scan options, I am trying to translate the pin concept onto a mathematical search to automatise the search. I am focusing on UK and European stocks so I could add them too to this thread.

Thank you and keep up the great work, I follow it with big interest.

I'm currently using a piece of software I have available through work, but I'm looking to transition it to something free. My method is actually pretty simple.

I have a spreadsheet with tickers going down column A, company names in column B, the High, Low, Open, Close in the next 4 columns. Then 30-day High, and 30-day Low in the next two. From there i have various calculations based on those 6 variables. High-Low, Open-Close, and a few others. Then I'm looking at various ratios such as the "body" (Open versus close) the "tails" (i'm sure proper candlestick terminology may refer to these things differently, but that's my shorthand...) -- I.e. how much higher is the intra-day high versus the body, or how much lower is the low compared to the close, etc. Then I compare those stats, the intra day volatility to the 30-day High/Low. I explain this a little in some of the earlier posts...

The software you mentioned has a DDE server (i.e. pulling data into excel) -- I actually shot them an email to see if it's available to free (end-of-day) users. Another option is the Interactive Brokers has an API/DDE Server that I might be able to configure to give me the data I need. The issue i will most likely run into is that I'm requesting a relatively high ammt of data: 2,000 tickers, 6 fields (H, L, O, C, 30-day High, 30-day Low) so 12,000 items. Might be doable, might not...

In any case, if either of these providers can give you this data, my spreadsheet would be fairly easy to replicate. But it's all relative...If volatility is high, certain pins don't look good/useful, when volatility is low sometimes a smaller pin could matter. I haven't figure out a perfect "catch-all" in one formula, it all gets tweaked daily as conditions change - I guess this could be considered a strength & a weakness of the "system".

I will play around with the DDE on Interactive Brokers and if i can get something working, i'll share it here.

Hi,

good job so far Infinity.
Here are my 2cents on this exercise:

I did sort of back-testing of your up/down pins.
I noticed several pins which developed the opposite direction than expected.
Main reasons:
- pins after breakaway gaps (gaps always indicate strong trends)
- bullish pin in a mature bullish trend (trees don't grow to the sky)
- overall the bullish pins outperformed the bearish ones. Which in my conclustion relates to the overall market performance.

All in all: - We will have to add a overall market trend indicator
- filter those pins mentioned above (dont know if possible in an automatic way; guess need manual adjustment)

I would love to finetune your sheet. Or maybe I will start rebuilding one of my one. It is up to you.

Never forget: knowledge is one of the few thing that grows if you share it.

Benjamin

perfect setup on PALM:

3 green bars in a row. last one before pin shows indecision of market on PALM.
Then nice red pin.
All happening at the 50% retracement of the overall downmove @14.00.
Volume drops from one day to the pin day about 50%.

see pic:

Benny - Thx for your input! I agree that there are certain instances where the presence of a pinbar is not necessarily a bullish/bearish occurrence. I think you'll find much better win % on pins at swing High/Lows. Also, not all of these pins (a fairly large % I think) don't break and in those cases you can assume no trade is ever made (i'll include an example of this at the end of this post)...I wish there was an automated way to see if a pin is near S/R level, trendline, or a Fibbonachi level, but right now I don't have a way of calculating that. I think I do have a way of adding a "gap" indicator, but I'll play around with that tonight.

The market direction is a tricky thing to get a good indicator of (i.e. if i knew which way the market were heading on a day-to-day basis, i'd be a rich man by now!). Perhaps something as simple as a Moving Average or some sort of # of days since new monthly High vs. new monthly low on the S&P 500.

I'm still tweaking the spreadsheet, so I'm not sure it's quite ready for prime-time just yet but once it is I would be more than happy to share it with you -- Sharing is caring after all...!

Here's an example of a weekly pin that is waiting to break...Granted, not the best example seeing as this is sitting at multi-year highs. I never like shorting stocks with this much momentum on their side, but nonetheless, you get my point...

Here's today's list. I highlighted a few things you mentioned in your post (gaps, extended stocks, etc). These are sorted based on how today's volume compares to the 30day average volume...

Enjoy:

Bullish:
HBI - HANESBRANDS INC
UNP - UNION PACIFIC CORP (a gap...)
ITMN - INTERMUNE INC
KRE - SPDR KBW REGIONAL BANKING ET
IYT - ISHARES DJ US TRANSPORT AVG
GWR - GENESEE & WYOMING INC-CL A
PNW - PINNACLE WEST CAPITAL
ATVI - ACTIVISION BLIZZARD INC
CS - CREDIT SUISSE GROUP-SPON ADR (a gap...)
TSCO - TRACTOR SUPPLY COMPANY (a gap...)
NXY - NEXEN INC
BWS - BROWN SHOE COMPANY INC (example of wrong-way pin @ swing high)
AU - ANGLOGOLD ASHANTI-SPON ADR (gap)
NSC - NORFOLK SOUTHERN CORP
VALE - VALE SA-SP ADR
GFI - GOLD FIELDS LTD-SPONS ADR
MXIM - MAXIM INTEGRATED PRODUCTS
CFN - CAREFUSION CORP (another hight)
GMT - GATX CORP
BBD - BANCO BRADESCO-ADR
IGT - INTL GAME TECHNOLOGY
ELP - CIA PARANAENSE ENER-SP ADR
DBA - POWERSHARES DB AGRICULTURE
PACW - PACWEST BANCORP
TSU - TIM PARTICIPACOES SA-ADR
EZA - ISHARES MSCI SOUTH AFRICA INDEX

Bearish:
ERII - ENERGY RECOVERY INC
FTE - FRANCE TELECOM SA-SPONS ADR (May be a bad tick...)
YGE - YINGLI GREEN ENERGY HOLD-ADR
PFE - PFIZER INC (at 52wk high)
DRI - DARDEN RESTAURANTS INC
MDT - MEDTRONIC INC
BEC - BECKMAN COULTER INC

What I learned from trading is to keep it simple. You can add any complexity to any system but this noise distracts you from the real things that move the markets. same with so called "live news feeds". Too much information that does not matter at all for ones trades.
I mean those few opportunites coming out of the scan need a closer look anyway. You can then add fibos etc by hand if needed.


Market direction: Fair enough! you would have made it already if you can predict the market direction.
Thought quite a time about it yesterday.
For the beginning I would go with a 38SMA on the index just looking whether it points up or down.

Would like to point you towards a little detail, too. Maybe you noticed it before but I think could be another "filter" for good opportunity trades:
Pins differ in their shape. Let me call it "perfection".

Take an bearish pin for example.
Some form a long tail but the close is above opening.
On the other hand there are those "perfect" pins with long tails AND closing BELOW the opening. So the open/close follows the expected direction.
Vice versa for bullish ones.

A few for your consideration:
Ticker Name
MCD - MCDONALD'S CORP
USB - US BANCORP
GA - GIANT INTERACTIVE GROUP-ADR
SSD - SIMPSON MANUFACTURING CO INC
SGY - STONE ENERGY CORP
BRKL - BROOKLINE BANCORP INC
ANDE - ANDERSONS INC/THE
WPRT - WESTPORT INNOVATIONS INC

That last was incomplete. Here are this week's, weekly pins. I think there may only be one bullish pin in here:

Ticker Name
LLY - ELI LILLY & CO
BK - BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON CORP
STT - STATE STREET CORP
K - KELLOGG CO
VIA/B - VIACOM INC-CLASS B
NTRS - NORTHERN TRUST CORP
CI - CIGNA CORP
SLM - SLM CORP
FFIV - F5 NETWORKS INC
ARG - AIRGAS INC
AIXG - AIXTRON AG-SPONSORED ADR
DWA - DREAMWORKS ANIMATION SKG-A
TEG - INTEGRYS ENERGY GROUP INC
NAV - NAVISTAR INTERNATIONAL
AMR - AMR CORP
FULT - FULTON FINANCIAL CORP
THOR - THORATEC CORP
CIEN - CIENA CORP
RRR - RSC HOLDINGS INC
UNTD - UNITED ONLINE INC
CPTS - CONCEPTUS INC
TSYS - TELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEMS-A
MDCO - MEDICINES COMPANY
BPFH - BOSTON PRIVATE FINL HOLDING
LNY - LANDRY'S RESTAURANTS INC

I haven't forgotten about this thread, I've just been transitioning my spreadsheets to a new data provider. I'm testing out the products from www.analyzerxl.com and so far I'm impressed. If/when everything is transitioned I might even be able to post some spreadsheets that other could work on/look at.

In the meantime if others have any good set-ups they want to post, feel free.

Which broker do you guys use?

I have a few different ones I use - They are on my profile. They're all Good.

Yeah Im looking at interactive brokers but im just astounded that a company of such a large size has such a WEAK WEAK trading platform...java based...

Im looking into ninja trader, they appear to be more professional

Their platform is actually fine once you get the hang of it. Their charting is awful, but the platform itself is no worse than any of the others out there. There is a lot of customization that you can do to it, for instance, you can have it default your orders to a certain number of shares, value of shares ($X,000 trade value whether it's a $2 stock or a $500 stock), etc. Have it create bracket orders by default (i.e. if you buy at $20 to have an $18 stop and a $25 take profit for example). There are more features than I know what to do with. And their execution is great

Ninja is fantastic as a charting package and strategy testing platform. If you want to conduct live trading thru Ninja using interactive brokers you need to pay for a live license which is somewhat pricey but their customer support is outrageously good (as opposed to IB's which isn't so hot...).

Have you any experience with MB trading and there desktop platform? Im currently testing it out, they seem really professional and offer a diverse amount of markets to trade.

They are excellent. I have nothing but good things to say about them. From a technology perspective they're a little bit behind IB and I find that their Options/Futures data is a bit expensive compared to IB, however for US Stocks the are great and the data is free and they have no account maintenance fees whatsoever.

And I think i already mentioned their customer service is second to none -- you can their 1-800 number and you get a person within 30 seconds and they don't charge a penny more for doing a trade over the phone. One thing they could improve is expanding their ETFs that are shortable -- You have to call them up to get a "locate" in order to short some of the less liquid ETFs.

An update to the January post on WTW.

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q..._WTW_after.png


Also, Nice job BennyFX on the PALM call, that was an excellent setup.
Price where you recommended shorting: $14. Price now: $5.96

Yeah, i know...I've not been posting. Soon enough though I'll be back...

Bearish Pinbars are everywhere on the charts I'm looking at. I will (hopefully) post a few in the morning...One trend I noticed was a TON of REITs on my list. Here's the REIT ETF and sure enough... a bearish pin: