Screening Filters
Market Cap Category: large, mid
- Purpose: Focus on established, actively traded companies.
- Rationale:
- Large- and mid-cap stocks tend to have tighter bid-ask spreads and deeper order books, which is crucial for day traders who enter and exit positions quickly.
- They are less prone to manipulation than tiny micro-caps, reducing the risk of sudden, unexplained swings driven by low liquidity or pump‑and‑dump behavior.
- This balances volatility with stability: enough movement to trade, but not pure “lottery ticket” names.
Price: min = 5, max = 80
- Purpose: Avoid illiquid penny stocks and very high‑priced names that may be harder to trade intraday.
- Rationale:
- Stocks under ~$5 are often low-quality, thinly traded, and can have extremely wide spreads—bad for getting in and out quickly.
- Very high-priced stocks (e.g., $300–$1000+) can make position sizing and intraday scaling more difficult for many retail traders and often require larger capital per trade.
- The $5–$80 range typically offers:
- Reasonable ability to buy/sell in flexible share sizes, and
- Enough price movement in absolute terms to capture worthwhile intraday moves.
Monthly Average Dollar Volume: min = 1,000,000
- Purpose: Ensure strong liquidity (enough money flowing through the stock every day).
- Rationale:
- Dollar volume = price × volume; this filter seeks stocks where at least $1M on average changes hands daily.
- Higher dollar volume means:
- Tighter spreads → lower transaction cost per trade.
- Better fill quality on entries/exits, especially for larger orders.
- Less risk of getting “stuck” in a position due to lack of buyers/sellers.
- Liquidity is one of the most important requirements for day trading; this filter directly targets that.
Beta: HighRisk
- Purpose: Favor stocks that move more than the overall market—i.e., higher volatility.
- Rationale:
- Beta measures how sensitive a stock is to market moves. A “HighRisk” or high‑beta stock tends to move more than the index on a percentage basis.
- For day traders, movement = opportunity. A stock that barely moves offers little chance to profit after spreads and fees.
- This filter steers you toward names that have enough intraday range to make day trading worthwhile, while the other filters (cap size, liquidity) attempt to keep that volatility tradable rather than chaotic.
Price Change Percentage (recent): min = 3%, max = 15%
- Purpose: Select stocks already showing notable price action, but avoid extreme, out‑of‑control moves.
- Rationale:
- A recent move of at least +3% suggests the stock has momentum, news, or increased trader interest—exactly what day traders look for.
- Capping the move at 15% avoids the most parabolic names that:
- Can reverse violently intraday.
- May already be “late” after an oversized move.
- Are often dominated by emotion and high slippage.
- This range targets “active but still somewhat controllable” setups, which are generally better for planned intraday strategies (breakouts, pullbacks, mean reversion, etc.).
Why Results Match Your Day-Trading Goal
- The liquidity-focused filters (large/mid-cap + minimum dollar volume + price range) aim to give you stocks where you can reliably get in and out, with reasonable spreads and order fills.
- The volatility and momentum filters (high beta + 3–15% recent price change) intentionally surface names likely to move enough intraday to make day trading worthwhile, but avoid the most extreme, dangerous outliers.
Together, these filters narrow the universe to liquid, actively moving stocks that are more practical candidates for day trading tomorrow, while managing some of the common risks (illiquidity, extreme penny stocks, untradable spikes).
This list is generated based on data from one or more third party data providers. It is provided for informational purposes only by Intellectia.AI, and is not investment advice or a recommendation. Intellectia does not make any warranty or guarantee relating to the accuracy, timeliness or completeness of any third-party information, and the provision of this information does not constitute a recommendation.