Best option put tickers for rest of day

First, a quick reality check

There’s no way to know which tickers will be the “best” for puts for the rest of today with any guarantee. What a screener can do is narrow down to names that technically and structurally favor bearish or downside setups, where put options might be more interesting for further analysis.

The filters your colleague used are trying to do exactly that.

Screening Filters

1. volume >= 200,000

   • Purpose: Ensure the underlying stock has sufficient trading activity.
   • Rationale:
     • Higher stock volume usually correlates with tighter bid–ask spreads and more reliable price movement.
     • For options traders, especially intraday, you want liquid underlyings so that the options themselves are more likely to be liquid and easier to get in/out of without large slippage.
     • Setting a floor of 200k shares helps avoid illiquid, obscure names that might move erratically or be hard to trade.

2. moving_average_relationship = PriceBelowMA20

   • Purpose: Focus on stocks in a short-term downtrend or showing relative weakness.
   • Rationale:
     • The 20-day moving average (MA20) is a common short-term trend gauge.
     • Price trading below its 20-day MA suggests recent momentum is bearish or at least weaker relative to its recent history.
     • For put options, traders often prefer underlyings that are already in or entering a downtrend, as that aligns with the directional bet of a put.

3. price_change_pct <= -1.0

   • Purpose: Capture stocks that are already down at least 1% on the day.
   • Rationale:
     • A negative daily price change (≤ -1%) flags stocks currently experiencing downside pressure.
     • This can indicate intraday weakness or selling momentum, which is often where short-term put traders look for opportunities (e.g., trend continuation, breakdowns).
     • Combining “down on the day” with “below MA20” strengthens the bearish bias: the stock isn’t just weak today; it’s weak in the context of its recent trend.

4. list_exchange in [XNYS, XNAS, XASE] (NYSE, Nasdaq, AMEX)

   • Purpose: Limit results to major U.S. exchanges.
   • Rationale:
     • Stocks on these exchanges tend to have better regulation, more consistent reporting, and generally higher liquidity than OTC or foreign listings.
     • For same-day options trading, stability and liquidity of the underlying market structure are important.
     • This avoids many thinly traded or less transparent instruments that may be riskier or harder to trade intraday.

5. is_optionable = True

   • Purpose: Only include stocks that actually have listed options.
   • Rationale:
     • Since you specifically asked for “option put tickers,” you need underlyings with listed options chains.
     • This filter ensures that every stock that shows up can, in practice, be traded via puts (subject to your broker and specific contract liquidity).
     • It avoids wasting time evaluating charts of stocks where you couldn’t execute your intended strategy.

Why These Results Match Your Intent

• Bearish bias for puts

  • PriceBelowMA20 + price_change_pct <= -1% explicitly tilt the screen toward names already showing weakness both intraday and relative to the recent trend—exactly the type of environment where put buyers often look for continuation setups.

• Tradability and liquidity

  • volume >= 200k, is_optionable = True, and limiting to XNYS / XNAS / XASE aim to ensure that both the stock and its options are more likely to be tradeable intraday with reasonable fills and narrower spreads.

In combination, these filters don’t promise “the best” put plays, but they narrow the universe to liquid, optionable U.S. stocks currently weak and below a short-term trend line, which is a logical starting point for identifying candidates for intraday or short-term put strategies. You’d still need to do chart/option-chain analysis (support levels, volatility, spreads, time decay, etc.) before placing any trades.