Welcome to How to Build and Run a Search
To open the search builder click on the "Search" button under the Search Tab of the menu.
After the search module is open you will see three bars.
Search List
This section lists all the searches uploaded by the team administrator. Just click on a search title to run the search. The results will show up in the Search Results section.
Search Results
This is were the results of the search are shown. If you use relative search criteria each stock will be in order of how well it matches what you are looking for. This window will also show the values for each criteria.
Search Builder
This is the section where you can create your own searches and run them. This will be the section we will be discussing here.
Building a Search
Make sure the Search Builder Tab is selected. You can open a previous search by clicking the pull down at the top of the window and selecting a search you saved previously or you can right click and choose "File" ==> "Open Search".
However we want to build a search from scratch. If there is already a search present right click and select "Clear" to start a new one. To start building a new search click the grid cell with "Click to add a criteria" and you will get a list of all the criteria you can search on. To start with we are going to look for stocks that have been strong recently. I am going to choose "Relative Strength" ==> "Price Relative Strength" ==> "Relative Strength 34 days".
This means we want to search all the stocks on their relative strength for the last 34 days. If you notice the description and the units of the criteria are displayed in the lower status bar.
Next we choose how we want to search, each criteria has its own ways to search. In this case we can choose
High as possible - Put all the stocks put in order of their strongest relative strength,
Low as possible - Put all the stocks in order of their weakest relative strength.
Cross Above - Only list the stocks who criteria we will next choose have gone from below to above this criteria's value.
Cross Below - Only list the stocks who criteria we will next choose have gone from Above to below this criteria's value.
Comparison - Choose stocks that are >, >=, <, <=, =, or <> to a specific value.
In our case we are going to request a list of the strongest stocks over the last 34 days.
Then we can choose a weighting of this criteria to other criteria, except for fine tuning 100% works well.
Now lets limit our search to stock over $5. We choose price and then choose > and then select enter value and then enter the number 5.
Running a Search
There are a number of options we can set before running our search, all are listed just below the menu.
Number - This tells the search engine how many stocks to return. You can return up to 200 stocks.
Watchlist - This is a drop down of any watchlist you have previously created (see How to Use a Watchlist). If you select a watchlist the search will be run only against the symbols in the watchlist. So you can limit your search to a specific portfolio of stocks.
Back Test Date - By default the search engine get the best list of stocks for today. However, you can go back in time and select and earlier date. When this date is selected the search engine will run the search on that date. When a back test search is run, the search engine will automatically calculated the return on each stock and the average return for all the stocks from the date of the search up to the Return Date.
Return Date - This is only used when running a back test search. The search will calculate the percent return on each stock and the average return for all stocks between the search date and the return date. This quickly allows you to see how well the search has preformed historically.
Saving a Search
Once you have built your search you can save it by right clicking and choosing "File" ==> "Save Search". Then give the new file a name and select save. You can open and run the search in the future by selecting Open Search or by using the pull down at the top of the search builder menu. Also the search will appear in the main menu pull down labeled My Searches.
We now have 2 criteria, so lets run our search, click the run button.
And we get back a list of the 25 strongest stocks with a listing of each of the criteria we choose. From here there are a number of things we can do.
Change the search - Just click the search builder bar to go back and add, change or subtracts criteria to better refine your search.
Move all the symbols to a watchlist - Just drag the blue square into a watchlist or a chart to copy all the symbols into a watchlist (see "How to Fill a Watchlist with a Search").
Drag and Drop the row header into a chart - This will change the chart you drag onto to the current symbol.
Click on the symbol - This will change all the charts linked to the results (Linking a list of Symbols to any chart(s)).
Click Tag - You can tag the symbols you are interested in, then clean up the list using the "Right Click Menu" ==> "Tag Options" (see "Tagging a Watchlist").
Copy to Excel - Right click in the result section and choose "Export" ==> "Export Table To Excel".
Sort - Click any column header to sorts the results by that column, each click will toggle between an ascending sort and a descending sort.
Drag a column title to the group area - If a column contains only a few identical categories you can drag the column header into the gray bar above it and the results will be grouped according to identical results. Just drag the listing in the gray bar out of the bar to remove it.
Copy Search To Chat - If you right click and select "Export" ==> "Copy Search To Chat", you will place a link in the chat channel that anyone can click on and get a copy of your search.
Copy Search To Forum or Blog - If you right click and select "Export" ==> "Copy Search to Forum or Blog" you will paste the search to the clipboard. Then when you want to add it to a forum or blog you can use paste. Anytime anyone clicks on the click from in the program it will launch and show the search in the search window.
Slide Show - See "How to Use a Watchlist".
Reports - If you right click on a symbol and select reports you can get many reports from yahoo such as news, profiles, insider trading, etc. You can use these report to get more information of the stocks return in the search results.
Clear - Erases the current search to build a new one from scratch.
Size Columns - Right click and select size columns to pack the table as tight as possible while allowing all the values to be seen.