We use a proprietary analytical screen developed by one of our clients who is a PhD scientist (now happily retired.) It is an extremely powerful software tool that benefits from several years of research and development in statistical analysis and data mining techniques. This software tool includes search capabilities that allow us to continually develop, update and tune our technical strategies in response to changing market conditions.

We have developed strategies that range from ultra-conservative to aggressive for either taxable or non-taxable accounts. With these strategies, buy and sell signals are determined from multiple technical indicators—some that are stock-specific and some that indicate the general market conditions. We use a combination of well-known technical indicators and some that are proprietary and are used exclusively by Crow Financial Advisors. One of our proprietary indicators is called Market Posture. Our Market Posture indicator allows to see at a glance whether the general market is conducive to buying stocks. We also use this indicator to determine whether specific market sectors are in a buying or selling posture.

We use our technical analysis software to determine buy and sell signals for all our stock trades. To limit risk we keep a constant eye on portfolio heat for all our portfolios. Portfolio heat is the percentage of a portfolio that could be lost if the prices of all stocks fell to their stop loss. When stop losses are not used, the portfolio heat is 100% of everything invested in equities. Our technical analysis software incorporates a proprietary stop loss algorithm that takes into account the purchase price, time held, and price volatility among other variables. Stops are updated about once a week or any time the stop loss recommended by our technical analysis software increases by 1% or more. Every stop is calculated for every stock independently and we NEVER adjust stops down with a falling market.

The combination of sell signals made by our technical strategies, stop losses that are constantly updated, and a larger view of market conditions using our proprietary Market Posture indicators help us to move quickly into cash when market conditions turn negative and to move back into equities when the market rallies. We believe that we achieve a level of market agility that is uncommon among traditional brokerage firms.