Best potential shorts this week

Screening Filters

1. Price: $5 to $100

   • Purpose: Focus on reasonably priced, tradable stocks for short setups.
   • Rationale:
     • Below ~$5 you get into very volatile, low-quality penny stocks where borrow can be hard or expensive and price action is erratic.
     • Extremely high-priced stocks can have wide spreads and may not fit many retail risk profiles.
     • The $5–$100 range balances liquidity, borrow-availability, and manageable position sizing for short trades.

2. Monthly Average Dollar Volume: ≥ $500,000

   • Purpose: Ensure there is sufficient liquidity to enter and exit short positions.
   • Rationale:
     • Higher dollar volume means tighter spreads, better fills, and less slippage—crucial for short-term trades like “this week.”
     • Illiquid names can gap violently on small orders, which is especially dangerous when you’re short.

3. Moving Average Relationship: PriceCrossDownMA20

   • Purpose: Find stocks that are just starting a potential downtrend.
   • Rationale:
     • A price crossing down below the 20-day moving average is a classic early signal of momentum shifting from bullish to bearish.
     • This aligns directly with “potential short” candidates: you want names where the trend is turning down, not stocks that are already deeply oversold and extended.

4. RSI Category: Overbought or Moderate

   • Purpose: Target stocks that are not yet washed out and may still have room to fall.
   • Rationale:
     • Overbought RSI suggests price has run up too far/too fast and may be primed for a reversal lower—ideal for initiating shorts as momentum rolls over.
     • Moderate RSI avoids stocks that are already in oversold territory, where the risk of a sharp short-covering bounce is higher.
     • Together, these categories focus on relatively elevated or neutral momentum levels, where downside potential is still meaningful.

5. One-Week Predicted Return: -100% to -3%

   • Purpose: Prioritize names where the model expects downside over the coming week.
   • Rationale:
     • The upper bound of -3% means we’re screening for stocks with at least a modestly negative expected return over the next week, fitting your “this week” time horizon.
     • The lower bound of -100% simply allows for very bearish model forecasts (large expected drawdowns) to remain in the candidate list.
     • Using a predictive factor narrows the universe to names where historical patterns and features suggest a higher probability of near-term declines.

Why Results Match Your Request

• The screen is restricted to liquid, tradable stocks in a practical price range—appropriate for active short trading this week.
• PriceCrossDownMA20 plus overbought/moderate RSI zeroes in on stocks just rolling over from strength, a common profile for attractive short setups.
• The negative 1‑week predicted return directly ties the results to your one-week horizon and “potential short” focus, emphasizing names where models expect downside rather than upside.

Overall, these filters collectively aim to surface the most technically and statistically plausible short candidates for the coming week, while avoiding illiquid or already oversold names that carry unfavorable risk/reward for new shorts.