Find Stocks in Play with the Screener

Most stocks on most days go nowhere. Day traders look for stocks that are in play: moving more than usual, on more volume than usual, usually because of news. That's where the clean moves are. Quiet stocks just chop.

Open the screener

In TradingView (affiliate link), open Products, then Screeners, then Stocks. To add a filter, click + on the top panel (or press Shift + F) and type its name.

A simple beginner screen

These are starting points, not magic numbers:

• Price above $10. Penny stocks have wide spreads and wild moves. Not where you learn.
• Average volume above 1 million shares. Busy stocks fill your orders at fair prices.
• Pre-market change, up or down 3% or more. Something happened.
• Relative volume above 1.5. At least half again more volume than normal for this time of day.

Then sort by pre-market change or by relative volume. Filter names in the screener can change over time; type a word like "volume" or "pre-market" after clicking + to find them.

Read the list

For each name near the top, ask one question: why is it moving? Check the news on the stock's page or chart. Earnings, a big upgrade or company news are real reasons. A huge move with no news on tiny volume is a skip.

Pick three to five and add them to the In play section of your watchlist. Fewer is better.

When to run it

Between about 8:45 and 9:15 a.m. Eastern, before the open, and again around 10:00 if you want. Lists can change fast in the first few minutes, so check that the numbers have refreshed before you decide.

Honest limits on the free plan

• US stock data comes from a Cboe feed, so pre-market volume can look lower than other sources show. Compare names to each other, not to a number you read elsewhere.
• Some advanced screener features, like auto-refresh, are on paid plans. You don't need them for the route.

Your task

Build the beginner screen, run it before your next paper session, and add three names to In play. Then go to lesson 7.