How to Scan for Stocks

This may help some  new traders who have been asking me how to find good movers. However learning this , is not a guarantee that money will be made easily from trading. It takes extreme discipline to consistently do the right thing.

To understand the concept of finding a good moving stock lets look at few charts in hindsight first.
What is common for all these movers: The strong above average volume. The volume is fuel to move the stock just as more fuel is needed to move the car over the hill.
Fact is any stock that has nice intraday move could be tradeable,( speaking of daytrading)  such as for instance a stock that has ATR of $1 or bigger. It can be nice directional move or it can be choppy. To make money in directional-momentum move seems to be easier , although making profitable trades in choppy stocks is also possible by implementing tactics which requires different approach ( almost 180 degree opposite approach of the trading the momentum directional move )

The factor here is THE RELATIVE VOLUME. The relative volume scan is available almost on any scanner:  TC 2000,  Finviz,,  Trade Ideas and so on.  Besides that, The variable ( in this case the number 3 )  shows how many times is the current volume at the current moment higher then the average volume that symbol normally trades for the past 30 or 90 days. Each scanner is little  e bit different, with some  you can define it yourself, and some are pretty much fixed on the last 30 days. The bigger the number  is the bigger the relative volume is at the current moment. I look to have at least few hundred thousand shares traded in the first few minutes, or in the premarket, For example: there may be a stock that average volume is only 50,000 per day. Today may trade at 500,000 shares all day which is 10 x the average volume. This stock will not satisfy my criteria to trade it simply because it still has very low liquidity for the day. So I need to have at least couple of hundred thousand shares traded the first few minutes so I can actualy have enough liquidity to trade large size in and out quickly.   So I set the scan like this:

It is simple and clean. Now it is all up to which stock  I select to trade. Quick view of their daily chart helps a lot in finding a stock with the least resistance above ( if long ) or below ( if short )

You can either scroll by hoovering above the symbols or click chart view which will display all daily charts. 

From here it is all about focusing on only few, the ones that you may think are the best,  since trading everything is not easy at least not easy for  me. I'd rather stalk my symbols for the day then jump on many new ones just because I had to take some losses. Weather I will just get in and trail the stop as the stock moves or I sell the pops and buy the dips , it all depends  on how the stock is trading. I love to only trail the stops below. but there are I think more cycles when it is better to sell the pops and re-buy the dips.

Hope this may help.

Have a happy trading

AngelDan@DaChopa