Best Choice Software

Stock Wizard Screen

To get to this screen, click the fourth button from the left in the upper toolbar.

The button has a wizard on it, and is labeled "Search Wizard".

Photo A

If you haven't already, please read the ReIndexing section first before you go on to learning about the wizard.

Overview

This stock wizard is a very powerful tool that allows you to find specific stocks based upon search criteria that you select, and then save those stocks to view in a User List. For example, you can do a search to find all the stocks over $15 whose average volume is over 500,000 shares a day and whose last three earnings quarters have been up. Then, you can save these stocks to a User List and then view their charts.

For definitions for each item in the list, go to the Best Choice Software Definitions Page. The items in the list starting with LT will be in the L section of the definition page, the items starting with B will be in the B section of the definition page, and the items starting with ST will be in the S section of the definition page. LT, B and ST are explained below.

Getting Started

To get started, click once on an item in the list that you would like to do a search for. Then click the Add button on the left side of the window. A few things will happen. First, this automatically adds it to the list above which shows the currently selected conditions for your search. The second and most obvious is on the right side of the wizard window. Except with a few items in the list, you should see a blue selection bar with different buttons and numbers next to it. This allows you to modify the conditions of your search. We will go into more on this below. Also, you will see the number of stocks change that meet your search condition in the bottom right corner.

Basically, you will continue adding your search criteria to the top list, and modify them using the bar or check boxes on the right side of the wizard window. Once you are satisfied with the conditions you have entered, you can save the stocks it has found to a user list. Then you will close the wizard and select the user list that you have just created on the main screen. You can also save the conditions that you just defined so that next time you wont have to re-enter them. We will now go through an example of using the wizard in detail.

An Example

To start this example, open the wizard window by clicking on the wizard button on the toolbar at the top of the Best Choice main screen. This is the fourth button from the left. Lets say we want to find a good long term 50/50 stock. In other words, we want a stock whose price has made gains of at least 50% a year, and its earnings have also make gains of at least 50% a year. There are some other factors we will will look at to define a good long term stock, but lets just start with these two first.

The first item in the list says "LT - Price Growth Rate By Perent". Click once on it with your mouse and then click the "Add" button. This adds this condition to the upper list box. By the way, LT stands for Long Term, so items in the list starting with LT stand for long term conditions and will typically be used accordingly. The items in the list starting with "ST" stand for Short Term, so items in the list starting with ST will generally be short term search conditions. "B" stands for Both, so those items can be used for both long term and short term searches.

Photo B

The information under the "Condition" column is the description. The information under the "Value" column shows the values that are currently selected for that condition. The information in the "Rank" column shows the rank in terms of percent of the selected values. We will go more into detail about this information in the next few paragraphs as we describe the big blue condition bar on the right side of the wizard window. Also keep in mind the fact that the values on your screen will be be different than the values on this help page because these values change over time.

With this first search condition, you will also see a large blue bar on the right side of the wizard window that looks like the following picture, except that the data will be different.

Photo C

The number values on this side represent the actual percent price gains of 8063 stocks. From here we can tell a few things. First, we can tell that over half of all the stocks have lost money, or have had negative price gains. We can tell this because all the numbers at 50% and below (see numbers on other side of the bar) have negative numbers. We can also see that only 10% of all the stock prices made more than 26.5% (between 90 and 100%)

The numbers on this side represent the percent of all stocks in which the data on the other side reflects. The 0 at the bottom reflects 0 percent of the data, or of the 8063 stocks. The 10 above it reflects 10% of the 8063 stocks. So, for example, the bottom 10 percent of the 8063 stocks had a price gain between -48.9 percent and -100.0%. Basically, they lost a lot of money.

Now, we have just added our first condition, so the bar is totally blue (everything is selected), and the number of securities that meet the current condition will most likely be all the stocks available in the database. Also notice that the information in the "Values" column in the list box is identical to the top and bottom values to the right of the blue bar. Also the information in the "Rank" column is 0 and 100, which shows that we have currently selected all the information between 0 and 100 on the right side of the blue bar. By default, when you add a new search condition, all the data will selected.

Now lets change some of the values of this search condition. You will notice on the right side two sets of arrows, an upper pair and a lower pair. The upper pair of arrows allow you to move the search condition values from the top. The lower pair of arrows allow you to move the search condition values from the bottom. In this example, we want to select all the stocks that have made 50 percent price gains or better. So on the bottom pair of arrows, you will start clicking the arrow that points up. This will start moving the bottom of the blue area up.

As you click the up arrow, you will start seeing a few different things. First, the big blue number below the blue bar will be changing. That is because we are changing our search criteria, so the number of stocks that meet the current condition will also change. Second of all, you will start seeing white at the bottom of the bar. The blue part of the bar shows what we have selected for our search criteria. The white part of the bar shows what is not selected. The line between the blue and the white defines our current selection. Third, the information in the upper list box will be changing.

For example, if you clicked the upper arrow 10 times, first of all the number of securities that meet the current conditions would be less. The area between 0 and 10 percent on the bar would be white, and the area between 10 and 100 percent would still be blue. The information under the "Values" column in the list box would say "-48.9 to 49569197.8", because that is what we have currently selected. The information in the "Rank" column would read "10 to 100".

Now we want to keep going up until the first value in the "Values" column reads above 50 percent. In this example, we would have to keep going until we get over the 90 percent mark on the right side of the bar. This is a lot of clicking, so we have made a way to get there faster. If you move the mouse to where the white area meets the blue area, the mouse will turn into a double arrow. Now what you want to do is click and hold down your mouse button, and start to move the mouse up. This will move the line between the blue are and the white area. When you have gotten close to the area you are looking for, let go of the mouse button and the movement of the bar will stop. The number of stocks that meet the current criteria will have changed, as well as the "Values" and "Rank" information in the list box. After you have used the mouse to move the bar, you can still use the arrows to refine your search criteria, or to "just look around" at the data.

Go ahead and move the blue bar up until the first value in the "Values" column shows at least fifty percent. It should read something like "51.3 to 49569197.8". The first value will usually not be exactly 50 percent, but it will be something relatively close. We have now defined the first condition for our search.

Now, lets select a second search condition. Under the first item that we selected, you will see an item called "LT - Earnings Growth Rate By Percent". Lets add this condition by clicking once on it and clicking the "Add" button. You will now see a new blue bar that is completely blue. Again, when we select a new condition, the program defaults to all the data. Do the same as we did with the Price Gains by moving the bottom of the blue bar up so that the first value in the "Values" column is at least 50%.

As of right now, we have found the stocks that have made gains of at least 50% in price and earnings. But as I mentioned before, there are other search criteria that would be helpful in narrowing down even furthur our search for the best long term stocks. One of those is Average Volume. You will find this search condition in list starting with the B's. Remember B stands for Both. It is always a good idea to find stocks that have good daily volume for both long term and short term trading.

Once you have found "B - Average Volume" in the list, go ahead and click it, and then click the "Add" button. Once it is in the list, move the blue area up. We always feel that is is good to find stocks trading at least 300,000 shares a day, but you can select whatever makes you comfortable. Actually, when it comes to average volume, we use this search condition in all of our wizard searches, whether they are long term or short term. It really helps to filter out all those low volume stocks that tend to give horrible trading results and lots of slippage. What remains are the gems. When you think about it, the stocks that have the higher overall average volume are obviously the stocks that are the most popular, have less slippage, and generally move more.

Ok, lets add just one more condition. Actually two more, but they deal with the same subject. Look towards the top of the list for "LT - Price Growth Rate Consistancy". What is that, you ask? Ok, here we go. This condition has to do with how consistant over time prices continued to move up. Some of the stocks that made over 50 percent a year still had large up and down swings. We would rather bypass those stocks and invest in the stocks that were more consistant over time.

We can also describe this another way. You remember the three yellow lines on the long term charts on the main screen? Well, the closer these three lines are to each other, the more consistant the stock has been over time. This is what we want, nice narrow bands. PAYX is a good example of a very consistant stock. If you look on the very right side of the screen, under the Average Volume for the currently showing stock chart, you will see Price and Earnings Consistancy numbers. These numbers show in percent the consistancy of both the price and earnings. If prices actually made a straight line, then the Price consistancy would be 100 percent. Unfortunately, no stock would ever do that, but the closer to 100 percent we can get, the better.

So in our search condition for the wizard, move the blue area up to 90 percent (numbers on the right side of the blue bar). We want to find the stocks whose price was over 90 percent consistant. Once you have done this, go ahead and find the conditions "LT - Earnings Growth Rate Consistancy", and add that one too. I usually only try to find the earnings that are over 80 percent consistant, because sometimes it starts finding too few stocks. You can obviously play around with all the numbers for different results. Its up to you as far as how many stocks you want the wizard to return.

OK! We now have five different search conditions. We could add more, but lets just go with these for now. Lets now save our results to a User List. Click the button in the lower left hand corner of the wizard labeled "Save Search Results to a User List". You will see a window come up like the one below.

Photo D

You can do one of two things. If you want to create a new user list (and this is recommended), type in the white top text box what you wish to name your new user list. This can be whatever you want to name it, just be sure to name it something you will remember what the list is a week or two from now. Once you are done, click the "Save" button.

You can also save your search results to a current user list. Just click on the user list you want to save to, and then click the "Save" button. Just be sure you dont enter a name and also select a current user list in the list box. The program will give you an error message. Once you have clicked the "Save" button, the window will close and you will be back at the wizard window. If you would like to see the stocks in your new User List immediately, bypass the following two sections, and go to the section below, "Looking at Your Search Results".

Saving Your Search Criteria or "Condition Set"

You can also save these conditions to what we call a "Condition Set". After you have saved the stocks to a User List, click the other "Save" button towards the right side of the list boxes. This will save the conditions that you just selected, so that if in say a few months from now you want to do the same search, you wont have to manually enter all the information you just did. You can just recall it from a "Condition Set". After you have clicked the "Save" button, you will see the following window.

Photo E

Just enter a what you want to name this condition set. Make sure it is something easy to remember. Look at Photo F below for a few ideas. Once you have entered a name, click the save button. Your condition set will be saved.

Loading a previous "Condition Set"

When you first open the wizard window, you have the option of "loading" a previously saved Condition Set, or set of conditions. (duh) If you have previously saved a condition set, you can recall it so you don't have to re-enter it again. Just click on the "Load" button on the wizard screen. You will see the following window with your previously saved Condition Sets listed.

Photo F

Just click on the particular Condition Set you wish to see, and click the "Load" button. This window will close, and you will see your previous conditions all neatly loaded in the upper list box. Neat, huh?

Looking at Your Search Results

Once you are done, go ahead and close the wizard window by clicking the "X" in the top right corner of the window. (This is how you close all windows in Best Choice 4.0). Then click on the User List drop down box on the top right area of the Best Choice Screen. It is the first text box under the heart button and under where it says Security List. You will find your new User List at the bottom. Click on it, and the stocks that show up in the list below it are the stocks that met your search conditions. Congratulations! You have found some of the best stocks in the market for long term trading!

For more long term wizard search examples, go to the Long Term Strategies section.

For more information about this website, email webmaster@bestchoicesoftware.com