Top stocks under $20 ready for a breakout

Screening Filters

1. Market Cap ≥ $1,000,000,000

   • Purpose: Focus on more established, liquid U.S. companies rather than tiny, speculative names.
   • Rationale:
     • A market cap over $1B keeps us in mid/large-cap territory, where price moves are more meaningful and less likely to be purely manipulation-driven.
     • For “top” breakout candidates, you usually want stocks that institutions can actually trade in size; this filter helps ensure that.

2. Price Between $3 and $20

   • Purpose: Match your price target (“under $20”) while avoiding ultra‑low‑priced penny stocks.
   • Rationale:
     • The max = $20 directly implements your “under $20” condition.
     • The min = $3 excludes very low‑priced names, which are often highly illiquid, more prone to manipulation, and less suitable as quality breakout candidates.

3. Relative Volume ≥ 2

   • Purpose: Capture stocks currently trading with at least double their usual volume, a classic sign of a potential breakout.
   • Rationale:
     • Breakouts are more reliable when accompanied by unusual volume—it signals stronger buying interest and participation.
     • Relative volume ≥ 2 means today’s volume is at least 2x the recent average, exactly the kind of behavior you’d look for in “ready for a breakout” setups.

4. Monthly Average Dollar Volume ≥ $1,000,000

   • Purpose: Ensure baseline liquidity and tradability.
   • Rationale:
     • Dollar volume (price × shares traded) over $1M per month helps avoid thinly traded stocks where spreads are wide and a single order can move the price.
     • For breakout trading, you generally want to be able to enter and exit without excessive slippage; this filter directly supports that.

5. Support/Resistance Relationship: PriceBreakResistance or PriceBreakUpperBoll

   • Purpose: Identify technical breakout patterns.
   • Rationale:
     • PriceBreakResistance: The stock price has moved above a defined resistance level. This is a textbook breakout signal—price clearing a prior ceiling.
     • PriceBreakUpperBoll: Price breaking above the upper Bollinger Band suggests a strong upside volatility expansion, often associated with emerging breakouts or momentum surges.
     • Combining these captures stocks that are technically breaking out right now, not just “cheap” or “popular.”

6. Region: United States

   • Purpose: Restrict results to U.S. stocks as requested.
   • Rationale:
     • This ensures you’re only seeing companies listed in the U.S. market, aligning with “top US stocks.”

7. Exchange List: XNYS, XNAS, XASE (NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX)

   • Purpose: Limit to major U.S. exchanges.
   • Rationale:
     • NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX are the primary, regulated U.S. exchanges with better transparency and liquidity.
     • This filter avoids OTC and pink‑sheet names, which are often riskier and less appropriate for serious breakout scans.

8. One-Week Rise Probability ≥ 0

   • Purpose: Ensure the model’s probability metric is at least not negative and potentially acts as a soft quality gate.
   • Rationale:
     • In practice, a minimum of 0 doesn’t exclude much, but it ensures you’re only looking at stocks for which the model computes a valid probability of rising over the next week (used for ranking or further analysis).
     • It aligns conceptually with your interest in stocks that are positioned for upside moves in the near term.

9. One-Week Predicted Return ≥ 0

   • Purpose: Focus on stocks with non‑negative expected short‑term return based on a predictive model.
   • Rationale:
     • This screens out names where the model expects negative performance over the next week.
     • For “ready for a breakout,” you want candidates with at least positive expected return, even if it’s not a guarantee.

Why Results Match Your Request

• The price filter (≤ $20) ensures all candidates are under your price cap and avoids extreme penny stocks.
• Region and exchange filters confine the list to U.S. stocks on major exchanges, matching “top US stocks.”
• Relative volume and support/resistance/Bollinger filters directly target technical breakout conditions: strong volume plus price pushing through resistance or volatility bands.
• Market cap and liquidity filters refine the list to more credible, tradable names, making the results more practical for actual breakout trading rather than purely speculative names.
• One-week model-based filters bias the list toward stocks with a positive short-term outlook, consistent with the idea of being “ready for a breakout.”