I have the chart pattern recognition Plugin, it is under my coffee cup right now. I read a couple of posts here and other boards that said a few people had some success, so I picked it up. I also have John Murphy's book on TA so I was hopeful, but not immediately impressed with the standard settings. With most PlugIns, I have heard, it is what you are able to configure yourself and incorporate in your code that is important. In the back of the “Plugin manual” there is 6 different patterns that you can modify the parameters of. I played with them some and gave up. There are patterns that flag, that doesn't even look close to what they are looking for. There are other times when something looks like a textbook example that no matter what parameters are used will not trigger. I think I was expecting to be able to visualize the patterns like in an example - which is not always the case.

I would say that pattern recognition would probably be one of the hardest to code because a pattern might be subjective. I didn't send CPR back because I didn't have enough time to dedicate to testing it after I bought it. I am trying to better my coding ability so that it might be useful. If you are wanting to pull it out of the box and having it start identifying setups for great trades without spending a lot of time to really get to know it, that is probably not realistic. If you have the time to pull it apart and test everything – it might be worth your while. Check to see if they still have the 30 day return thing if you don't like it just in case. I am still hopeful for it to be useful, but I have a lot to learn and a lot of testing with it to go.

Bill, thanks for mentioning Bulkowski; I wasn't familiar with his work and his books/site look interesting.

Here's a direct link to his website:

Thomas Bulkowski site.

I have picked up Active Trader from the newstand occasionally, but do not subscribe. I know that Thomas Bulkowski is now a regular contributor to Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities, so suspect that he may no longer write for Active Trader. I was set to purchase some of the older articles from Active Trader, but decided, instead, to purchase all three of Bulkowski's book through his website. I have had John Murphy's plugin from the time it was first released. Bulkowski's software checks for many more patterns, both chart and candlestick, than does Murphy's. Thomas updates his software regularly and he makes it available for free, because he does not want the hastle associated with a commercial release. Bulkowski seems to have done quite well for himself since becoming full time trader.

I have a folder full of favorite stocks that I watch. With the downloader, I can convert and send all of these stocks to Bulkowski's program with one click. I tend to just look at the most reliable and most profitable patterns with his software. I imagine that it could be quite formidable to program many of his patterns in MetaStock, but perhaps they may update Murphy's plugin at some point.

Hello Skyman. Welcome to the forum!

I have no problem with offering my experiences on the use of this particular software product. However, with installation problems, I would contact Equis Support directly or the vendor from which you originally purchased the software if other than Equis.

mwaseemtaqi -

I should start with the caveat that I purchased NCU only recently and, as such, need more time before drawing any meaningful conclusions. Although the package is relatively straightforward and easy to use, I have only had limited success thus far in finding good trade candidates.

The first step in utilizing the NCU system for screening of potential candlestick trade candidates involves making an assessment (on a daily basis) of the underlying state of the market (i.e. bullish, bearish, or neutral). This is achieved utilizing the supplied NCU – SPY Global Market Monitor, a proprietary indicator developed by adaptick which is only to be used against the SP500 SPDR ETF. This “Market Monitor”, which according to the NCU manual “synthesizes trend, volatility, volume, and price momentum into one technical indicator” is said to correlate well with both U.S. and major world equity markets.

Well, that may be but herein lies the rub. In the few months that I have been using the NCU system, I have found that this proprietary indicator has not been a good gauge of overall market direction, and therefore screening for candlestick candidates has often resulted in either returning a null set or has yielded a short list of mostly unreliable trade candidates. As an example, during the most recent leg up in the market, the NCU – SPY Global Market Monitor has generated 13 SELL signals out of the past 47 trading days (nearly 9 weeks). More importantly, not one BUY signal has been generated over this same 9-week period as the SPY has advanced more than 7%! Keep in mind that these are not candle signals but indications on which side of the market you should be trading on and therefore screening for utilizing the provided candlestick trade explorations. With that said, I would clearly not want to be on the short side of this current market (candlesticks or otherwise).

My sense is that this could be a useful package but that the Market Monitor needs a bit more refining as it seems, at least at present, to be out of sync with the reality of the overall trend in the market. Even so, this may be just Murphy’s Law at work and could be a temporary condition. Who knows, things my sync up in the future. Hell, this most recent run has caught many people on the wrong side of the market, so why should the software be any different.