[pcabc]

OK,the quoting has gone mad in this one.  Not to worry.

I don't think the drop in 2016 is a stage 4, but at the end of the day who cares?

we would have been taken out with our stop loss anyway. so it all becomes pretty moot to be honest trying to worry about a stage 3 or stage 4 exit as we should have taken our profit by then. and the stop loss is going to be nigh on impossible to really get right, so all we're doing it for is the entry

The close was below the falling MA, there are lower highs and lower lows.  On this basis definitely stage 4.    However, stages 2 and 4 are well defined, whereas 1 and 3 seem more subjective.  Since any MA will only be perfectly flat (not rising or falling) using a simple decision based on the position of the close wrt to the MA and its slope will whipsaw around 2 & 4.

I Disagree, I see there is both horizontal support and a long running trendline going back to 2009. there is also just one lower high. it was nothing more than a zig zag/ABC correction in my opinion. anyway, thats the subjectivity of it all. I feel as though we look to move to stage 4 far too quickly. a sloping SMA is just one part of it, we need to have that break of support as confirmation of entry, just in the same way as stage 2

Quite, because depite the points I raised, it looks like it is noving sideways rather than a clear trend.  As you say subjectrive so there will always be areas for differences of opinion.  But as you say, detail not necessarily important, it is quite clear that would have been a bad time to go long.

after a point made by ISA, stage 1 and stage 3 have become quite straightforward now as i see it. as soon as you have a close, lower or higher than the SMA, you are in a stage 3 or 1. which makes the stage 2 and 4 the more important to identify

Does that not encourage whipsaws as it will report stage 1/3 if you have a single day dip below a strongly rising MA?  I think however, this depends on the design of the estimator.

...

indeed, flat is much easier. thats why I chose the donchian channel. we could always put it to the test. choose any stock, where would a break of the 20period donchian get us in. 

That has given me an idea, take my doncian channel code and add or subtract the MA as appropriate, so the channel follows the MA.  I'll have try it and see what happens.

I don't think there is a perfect screener.  The best we can do is to use several good screeners.

Just to add PCABC, im enjoying the collaboration with you

Thank you, likewise.  Spurred me to look into trying some stuff.


OK, I've produced a new stage estimator based on Donchian channels.  The trick here has been to use two sets of channels, a longer period one and a shorter period one.  Pseudo code, approximately:

stage = 1/3

Loop:
  If (MA rising and close > MA):
    If (close > previous long channel high):
        stage = 2:
    End if
  End if
  If (close < previous short channel low):
    If (stage = 2):
      stage = 1/3
    End if
  End if

  If (MA falling and close < MA):
    If (close < previous long channel low):
        stage = 4:
    End if
  End if
  If (close > previous short channel high):
    If (stage = 4):
      stage = 1/3
    End if
  End if

I added some additional logic such that if the close was below the rising MA or above the falling MA that it would go to stages 1/3.  However, either I had a bug, or the rule was never hit, or it was hit but had no effect as another rule had hit first.

Charts attached. As before Green = stage 2, grey = 1/3 and red = 4.  On the longer chart it looks like the new filter whipsaws, but this is because I'm using it daily over many years!  Zooming in it appears to indicate 1/3 when the chart is going sideways.


   
   

Forgot to add, 'A' is as my previous post, just for comparison. B & C use channels with hte above logic:
B: Long 150 days, short 90 days
C: Long 150 days, short 30 days.

I prefer C.