Stock Scanner Settings That Actually Find Runners

A stock scanner is a filter, and a filter is only as good as its settings. Set them too loose and the scanner shows you the whole market, which is no help. Set them too tight and it shows you nothing on the mornings that matter. The goal is a list of five to fifteen names in pre-market that narrows to two or three by the open, every day, without you having to touch it.

These are the settings that get there, with the reason for each. They are the basis of the filters on the DayTradingNews scanner; if you are building your own scan elsewhere, they transfer directly.

The core filters

Relative volume ≥ 2 (ideally 3)

The single most important filter. It removes every stock that is having a normal day, which is almost all of them. At 2× you will get a longer list including some noise; at 3× the list is shorter and cleaner. Start at 2× and raise it if the morning list is too long. Below 2× you are not scanning for unusual activity; you are browsing.

Percent change ≥ 5% (up or down)

A stock that is moving less than this on heavy volume is usually a block trade or a rebalance, not a day-trading opportunity. Some traders set the threshold at 3% for mid-caps and 10% for small-caps. If you only trade long, filter for positive change; but note that the biggest opportunities on many mornings are on the short side, and scanning both directions costs nothing.

Price between $1 and $50

Below $1, spreads and halts make most trades unworkable, and many brokers restrict them. Above $50, the percentage moves that day traders live on are rare outside of earnings. Adjust the band to your account and your style — $2 to $20 is a common tighter version — but have a band, and do not scan outside it.

Minimum volume

Relative volume alone can be fooled by a thin stock trading a small absolute number of shares. Add a floor: at least a few hundred thousand shares traded in pre-market, or a million by mid-morning. This removes the names you could never exit.

The refining filters

These are not essential, but each one removes a specific kind of bad trade.

Float

Float is the number of shares actually available to trade. Low-float stocks (under about 20 million shares) move violently, halt often and squeeze hard; high-float stocks are smoother and slower. Neither is better, but you should know which you are looking at. Many scanners let you filter or display it; if you only want the explosive names, cap float at 20 million; if you want cleaner charts, set a floor of 50 million.

Average volume

A stock that normally trades 50,000 shares a day is hard to trade even on a 10× morning. A floor on average daily volume — say 300,000 — keeps the scan on names that have a real market.

Gap only in pre-market

Before 9:30, restrict the scan to stocks that are gapping — trading meaningfully away from yesterday's close. A stock with pre-market volume but no gap is usually a large order being worked, not an event.

Exclude what you cannot trade

If your broker will not short a stock, do not scan for short candidates. If you do not trade stocks under $2, take them out of the price band. The scanner's job is to show you tradeable names; anything you would never trade is noise.

Settings by time of day

The right thresholds change through the session because the baseline changes.

Pre-market (7:00–9:30). RVOL ≥ 5, change ≥ 5%, gap required, minimum pre-market volume 200,000. Expect five to fifteen names.

Opening hour (9:30–10:30). RVOL ≥ 3, change ≥ 5%, minimum volume 1,000,000. Names that were not moving pre-market but start at the open show up here.

Midday (10:30–2:00). RVOL ≥ 2, change ≥ 3%. Midday is quieter and the bar can be lower; what you are watching for is a name whose RVOL is rising into the afternoon, which usually means fresh news.

Power hour (3:00–4:00). RVOL ≥ 2, change ≥ 3%. Late-day movers are often continuation of the morning's names, plus stocks reacting to news released during the day.

A scanner that lets you save several filter sets makes this easy. If yours only lets you save one, use the opening-hour settings; they are the best compromise.

Sorting

How the list is sorted matters as much as what is on it.

• Sort by volume for the standard view: the busiest names at the top, which is where the liquidity and the crowd are.
• Sort by relative volume when you want the most unusual names first, regardless of size.
• Do not sort by percent change as your default. The top of that list is usually a sub-$1 stock with a 4% spread.

The scanner here defaults to volume descending, with relative volume shown as a bar so the unusual names stand out visually without re-sorting.

What the list should look like

A well-set scanner at 8:30 AM shows something like this: eight names, all above $1, all with relative volume in the high single digits or above, all with a percent change you can see without squinting, sorted so that the most-traded is at the top. From those eight, after checking catalysts and charts, you keep three. That is a good morning's work before the open, and it is what the settings above are designed to produce.

If your list is regularly over thirty names, tighten relative volume. If it is regularly empty, loosen percent change first, then relative volume. Change one filter at a time and give it a week before judging.

Two mistakes to avoid

Adding more filters to fix a bad list. Ten filters produce a list that is empty on the mornings that matter. Four good filters produce a list every day. Depth comes from the checks you do on each name after the scan — catalyst, chart, spread — not from the scan itself.

Trusting the scan to do the reading. A scanner tells you where the activity is. It does not tell you whether the activity is worth trading. That is the checklist, and it happens after the scan, every time.

Educational content only, not investment advice.