Penny stocks

Screening Filters

1. Market Capitalization: min = 100,000,000, max = 1,500,000,000

   • Purpose: Focus on smaller companies that are still of a reasonable size.
   • Rationale:
     • “Penny stocks” are typically smaller-cap companies, so capping market cap at $1.5B keeps us in the small‑cap range.
     • Setting a minimum of $100M avoids the very smallest micro‑/nano‑cap names, which are often highly illiquid, more easily manipulated, and riskier than most investors realize.

2. Share Price: min = 0.50, max = 5

   • Purpose: Capture “penny stocks” by price.
   • Rationale:
     • In the U.S., a common practical definition of a penny stock is a stock trading below $5 per share.
     • The upper bound of $5 directly targets this.
     • The lower bound of $0.50 helps filter out extremely low‑priced “sub‑penny” or near‑worthless stocks that can be extremely speculative and prone to manipulation.

3. Daily Volume: min = 1,000,000 shares

   • Purpose: Ensure sufficient trading activity.
   • Rationale:
     • High daily volume makes it easier to enter and exit positions without moving the price too much.
     • Many penny stocks are thinly traded; requiring at least 1M shares/day helps focus on those with active interest and better liquidity.

4. Monthly Average Dollar Volume: min = 10,000,000

   • Purpose: Add a liquidity filter based on dollars, not just share count.
   • Rationale:
     • A stock could trade many shares but at a very low price and still have low dollar turnover.
     • Requiring at least $10M of average monthly dollar volume helps ensure that meaningful amounts of capital can be traded without excessive slippage.

5. Price Change % (daily): min = -100, max = 100

   • Purpose: Effectively no restriction; it just keeps out obviously broken data.
   • Rationale:
     • A range of –100% to +100% is extremely wide, so it does not really filter normal stocks.
     • It mainly ensures we don’t include erroneous entries with absurd one‑day moves far outside realistic bounds.

6. Exchange Listing: ['XNYS', 'XNAS', 'XASE']

   • Purpose: Limit results to U.S. major exchanges.
   • Rationale:
     • XNYS = NYSE, XNAS = NASDAQ, XASE = NYSE American (formerly AMEX).
     • Your follow‑up “us stocks” is captured by restricting to these U.S. exchanges.
     • This also intentionally excludes OTC/pink‑sheet stocks, where many penny stocks trade but with far higher risk, poorer disclosure, and lower regulatory standards.

Why Results Match Your Request

• You asked for penny stocks:

  • The price filter ($0.50–$5) directly targets the common penny‑stock price range.
  • The market‑cap cap at $1.5B keeps the focus on smaller companies, consistent with typical penny‑stock profiles.

• You specified “in the US market”:

  • The exchange filter (NYSE, NASDAQ, NYSE American) restricts the search to major U.S. exchanges only.

• Additional liquidity filters (volume and dollar volume) improve practicality:

  • They try to avoid the most illiquid, risky names, giving you U.S.‑listed penny stocks that are at least actively traded and more feasible to buy and sell.