SpiderScan - the ultimate scanning tool
EDIT: SpiderScan costs $79... one-time fee, that's it.
I'm sure many of you have seen comments from Greytrader on this blog and on others. I've known GT for awhile now and about a year ago he talked about putting together a scanning tool. We both used Quotetracker, Interactive Brokers and, at the time, Prophet.net as a scanning tool and our trading styles are very similar so the idea of throwing out ideas to find out what would make a good scanning tool (without breaking the bank) was very easy.
So, GT had a great idea - since he's a programmer - to put together a tool that would basically collect information from various sources in a very quick way and all at the click of a button. After many tweaks, enhancements and feedback... SpiderScan was the end result. I have been using SpiderScan exclusively for about a 6-7 months now and ditched my prophet.net membership in the process. Spiderscan integrates information from sources/scans that include Interactive Brokers, Briefing.com, Prophet.net, Quote.com, Finviz.com and even a new Pre-market scan to help spot the early movers.
From a gap trader point of view... the benefits are really amazing. Yes, I am endorsing this product. And it's well worth the cost (and actually pays for itself after a month if you are a prophet.net silver member). But here are the reasons why SpiderScan rocks for me:
Simplicity - all I need to do is press one button to tally the results of a few different IB scans all at once and usually within a minute. Same thing goes for the rest of the scans.
Flexibility - Not only are there many different types of scans, but I can also set the volume, gap % and price which allows me to runs many different scans within the first half hour. There's also a Sector and Industry scan that shows what's up or down (and, again, does so very quickly).
Speed - not just in the fact that SpiderScan assembles many different scan criteria very quickly but there are built in features that allow me to quickly identify the kinds of stocks I'm looking for. For example, look at the screenshot below. In the 'Open' column on the far right you'll see some prices are in yellow and some are in blue. The 'blue' prices are what I look for... stocks gapping outside the previous day's range. And now, all I have to do is press Shift-B, press the spacebar and viola... all the results are quickly exported into QT and, just like that, I have my watchlist ready. Plus, all the columns are sortable and link directly into Quotetracker. So when I click on a stock... it automatically shows up in a QT chart.
Reliability - Spiderscan is just a solid product from head to toe. Plus, Greytrader is a great person to interact with and very quick to answer questions and... take suggestions.
Here's a good example of how I use SpiderScan. My first scan is at 9:34 in the morning and it's the IB scan (Spiderscan actually merges a couple of scans like the Hot Contracts By Volume and Top Close to Open - % Gainers). I would have to run 4 different IB scans, exported to Excel just to get the same results. I literally cut about 10-minutes out of my routine, not to mention all the aggravation. I adjust the volume to 50,000 shares and look for a gap of at least 1.5%. I also enter the minimum and maximum price. After about a minute I get my results. And by simply pressing Shift-B and the spacebar... all these stocks are magically transferred to Quotetracker.
Now, I run the Finviz scan at around 9:55. Again, I adjust the settings and click a button. This time when I get the results, SpiderScan knows which stocks I've already seen. To makes things simple, SpiderScan makes all new stocks orange, these are ones that did not appear in my previous IB scan. I can press Shift-C and import all these new stocks that are outside yesterday's range right into Quotetracker. Plus, SpiderScan knows what stocks are already in my Quotetracker portfolio and will not import the same stock... no overlapping.
Bottomline: Greytrader has offered to make SpiderScan available for a 10-day free trial period for a limited time. This product and offer is not available anywhere else right now so be sure to take advantage of it. And, if you're wondering... I have absolutely no financial involvment or business stake in SpiderScan. I just know a good product when I see one and Greytrader is as solid as they come. Plus, there's a really nice selection of demo videos and detailed information about all the bells and whistles on the SpiderScan blog: http://spiderscantool.blogspot.com/
I will keep this post as my first post for about the next week. All of my new trading posts will appear under this one.
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7 comments:
OONR7,
Nice plug for SpiderScan. Is an IB account required in order for the IB based scans to work? Any other accounts required for scans to work? Thanks.
oonr7 - I read the spiderscan blog and I cannot find the information on pricing. I clicked on buy now and it says the product costs $79 - is that a one time fee - maybe there is more information wrapped in the downloadable program but I could not find the terms listed on the blog. Also, just to clarify - we do not need memberships to the datasources that the scan pulls data from, we just get it directly from the spiderscan? How does that work? Because prophet and finviz both require paid memberships to get real-time results so does spiderscan pull up real time results from those feeds or are they delayed?
Is that $79 per month?
Thanks for your share of details on this product. I was thinking over the weekend how to simplify my scanning the premkt news from 6 different sources. Last week I thought the upgrade WL, etc, was the ticket but found it unreliable: some budge some don't, TRW SLM ACM et al, upgraded. Before that it was just news, but if you qualify the news and trade it...but that's my opinion sneeking in to the matter. Oh, BA had some neg news and charted out well last week. But unreliable again and I have many Group WL's that do me no good so far, uless I just sit and watch it to evolve but that depends totally on the market. How can I determine the market direction at the same time. The TI Volatility% list does pretty well: fuqi slm trw were on the top of the list of 200 or so. Could work consistently, but I'd have to study it over time. So I tossed it all and said ok, 6% 40k >$8 gap or not Scottrade scan and that got all today's winners. I'm stuck with that for now.
Jim: yes, you will need an IB account to run the scans. That's the only scan that requires an account. You'll need a free membership in prophet.net to get the results and a paid briefing.com membership (but there's a substitute Pre-market scan that's available). That's it.
Tom: it's $79 and that's it... no further costs. The only scans that require memberships or accounts are: IB scans (you'll need to open an account); Prophet.net - you just need to open a free, basic account. And briefing.com... you will need a paid account. However, GT put together a nice substitute, Pre-market scan that collects info from various, free sources. Finviz does not require a username/password. The great thing about Spiderscan is that you can open a free Prophet account, set up your two free scans and Spiderscan will tally all the results at once... not 10 at a time. Plus, you get the benefit of seeing if price has opened outside of yesterday's range.
Spiderscan is absolutely ideal if you're using QT and IB.
Tom,Prophet results are delayed with the free accounts. Finviz data is delayed except for the volume which is realtime from another source. To get real time data for those 2 scans, you need to subscribe to their site.
There is a free real time data source used in the Sector, the Industry, Briefing and the Prem scan. The reason it is not used for every scan is by design so that some scans only depend on one source (web site) to work. Email me if you would like the option of using the real time source for Finviz and Prophet.
will this make me money? that's all i want to know
Nice, i'll give it a try.
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