Searching for good stocks

Can anyone offer up any advice on searching for good stocks to trade? I don't have Metastock or any flash software that can run advanced searches (yet), I'm using Data Agent from the Findata website.

I'm trading primarily on the ASX and with over 2000 stocks to trawl through, it's a pretty laborious task doing this by sight. I have used the search function in this program but some of the results are a little dodgy to say the least. I put in a search for “medium term uptrend” for example, and half of the charts look like they’re in a down trend.

Also, is it a good idea to specialise on one sector (mining for example) where you can go through the whole sector by sight without too many problems, or is it better to generalise?

Cheers.

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Originally Posted by wbosher

Can anyone offer up any advice on searching for good stocks to trade? I don't have Metastock or any flash software that can run advanced searches (yet), I'm using Data Agent from the Findata website.

I'm trading primarily on the ASX and with over 2000 stocks to trawl through, it's a pretty laborious task doing this by sight. I have used the search function in this program but some of the results are a little dodgy to say the least. I put in a search for “medium term uptrend” for example, and half of the charts look like they’re in a down trend.

Also, is it a good idea to specialise on one sector (mining for example) where you can go through the whole sector by sight without too many problems, or is it better to generalise?

Cheers.

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The ASX website does have a section that breaks down the actual companies by sector.

I'd start there

http://www.asx.com.au/research/industry/index.htm

Check the right hand side ;)

Hey wbosher,
Essential to go through it by sector I reckon.
I wrote a little c# script a couple of months ago that produces a series of text files of all the australian companies by sector. eg
Materials.txt, Consumer_Services.txt etc that contains the names and code for each company in that sector.
PM me and I'll send you the code or the .txt files.
With a little tweak to the code it could spit out a watchlist from memory.

Here's the sectors: -
"Materials","Consumer Services",
"Food Beverage & Tobacco","Real Estate", "Food & Staples Retailing",
"Diversified Financials","Capital Goods",
"Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology & Life Sciences",
"Software & Services","Technology Hardware & Equipment",
"Media","Energy","Retailing","Health Care Equipment & Services",
"Automobile & Components","Utilities",
"Commercial & Professional Services","Transportation",
"Telecommunication Services","Insurance","Banks"

The thread "Trades - make the call" on the ASX was pretty amazing. Hit absolut-advance and the others up to keep it going.

This article from the Australian Financial Review gives a rundown, organised by sector, of some 'stocks to watch' in the current market upturn.

http://www.afr.com/home/viewer.aspx?...01000031342516