Swing trades under 3 dollars

Screening Filters

1. Price: min $0.50, max $3.00

   • Purpose: Focus on low‑priced stocks suitable for small‑capital swing trades, while avoiding the riskiest sub‑penny names.
   • Rationale:
     • Your request: “stocks priced under 3 dollars.” The max of $3 directly matches this.
     • A $0.50 minimum helps filter out ultra‑illiquid, highly manipulated micro‑pennies where spreads are huge and fills are hard, which makes swing trading very difficult in practice.

2. Volume: minimum 500,000 shares per day

   • Purpose: Ensure sufficient liquidity so you can enter and exit swing trades efficiently.
   • Rationale:
     • Swing trades need stocks with enough daily trading activity to avoid big slippage and to be able to get in/out near your desired price.
     • 500k+ shares is a common liquidity threshold for active traders; it usually yields tighter bid‑ask spreads and more reliable price action.

3. Moving Average Relationship: PriceAboveMA20

   • Purpose: Identify stocks in a short‑term uptrend, which is typically what swing traders want to ride.
   • Rationale:
     • The 20‑day moving average is a classic short‑term trend gauge.
     • Requiring price > 20‑day MA focuses on names that are currently trading above their recent average, suggesting positive momentum rather than a downtrend.

4. MACD: bullish & positive

   • Purpose: Capture stocks with strengthening bullish momentum.
   • Rationale:
     • MACD turning or staying bullish (signal line cross and/or MACD > 0) is widely used to confirm upside momentum.
     • For swing trades, you typically want price not just trending up, but also showing momentum confirmation, which this filter targets.

5. 1‑Week Price Change: between 0% and +50%

   • Purpose: Find stocks already moving up, but not so overextended that they’re likely to snap back immediately.
   • Rationale:
     • Minimum 0%: avoids names that have been dropping over the last week, keeping you aligned with upward price action.
     • Maximum +50%: screens out extreme short‑term spikes that may be late entries and more prone to sharp reversals, which is risky for swing entries.

Why Results Match Your Swing-Trade Request

• The price cap at $3 directly matches your requirement for “stocks priced under 3 dollars.”
• Volume and trend/momentum filters (MA20 and MACD) shift the list toward names that are actively traded and in short‑term uptrends—exactly the type of setups swing traders typically look for.
• The weekly price change constraint keeps you in names that are moving, without chasing the most overextended moves.

Overall, these filters are tailored to find low‑priced, liquid stocks with constructive short‑term momentum, which aligns well with a swing‑trading approach in the sub‑$3 universe.