Screening Filters
market_cap ≥ 200,000,000,000 (≥ $200B)
- Purpose: Focus on very large, established companies.
- Rationale:
- “Reputable” usually implies well-known, financially significant, relatively stable businesses.
- Mega-cap stocks ($200B+) tend to have more analyst coverage, institutional ownership, and regulatory scrutiny, which translates into higher perceived quality and credibility.
- This filter steers you away from small, speculative names and toward blue-chip companies that are more appropriate for many options strategies.
monthly_average_dollar_volume ≥ 15,000,000 ($15M/month)
- Purpose: Ensure liquidity in the underlying stock.
- Rationale:
- Higher dollar volume means the stock trades often and in meaningful size, which generally leads to tighter bid–ask spreads and easier trade execution.
- For options traders, a liquid underlying is crucial to avoid slippage and difficulty entering/exiting positions.
is_index_component: GSPC (S&P 500 components)
- Purpose: Restrict results to S&P 500 stocks.
- Rationale:
- The S&P 500 is widely viewed as a benchmark of large, reputable U.S. companies.
- Inclusion requires meeting stringent size, liquidity, and profitability criteria, which aligns well with “reputable US stocks.”
- S&P 500 names also tend to have deep and active options markets, making them good candidates for options trading.
list_exchange: XNYS, XNAS, XASE (NYSE, NASDAQ, NYSE American)
- Purpose: Limit to major U.S. exchanges.
- Rationale:
- These are the primary U.S. stock exchanges with robust regulation and disclosure standards.
- Focusing on these exchanges reinforces the “US” and “reputable” aspects of the request and excludes OTC or lightly regulated venues.
is_optionable: True
- Purpose: Include only stocks that actually have listed options.
- Rationale:
- Essential for your request—if a stock isn’t optionable, it’s irrelevant to options trading.
- This ensures every result is directly usable for executing options strategies.
option_iv_rank between 35 and 80
- Purpose: Target stocks with moderately elevated implied volatility relative to their own past.
- Rationale:
- IV rank measures how current implied volatility compares to the stock’s own historical range (0 = very low vs past, 100 = very high vs past).
- A range of 35–80 suggests:
- Not extremely low IV (which may offer limited premium for sellers and weaker price moves for buyers).
- Not at the very top of the range, which can sometimes indicate unusual, event-driven risk or extreme pricing.
- This band is often attractive for many options traders: enough volatility to make options “worth trading,” but not so extreme that pricing is likely to be distorted or risk excessive for typical strategies.
Why Results Match Your Request
- The S&P 500 + ≥ $200B market cap + major U.S. exchanges combination narrows the universe to large, well-known, and generally reputable U.S. companies.
- The liquidity filter (dollar volume) and “optionable only” restrictions ensure these names have active, tradable options markets, which is central to “best for options trading.”
- The IV rank filter (35–80) focuses on stocks where options are likely to be interesting from a risk/reward and premium perspective, aligning with the idea of “best” candidates for actual trading, rather than just any optionable stock.
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.