Screener criteria you can copy
Lesson 12 · about 8 min
Everything in the previous three lessons can be expressed as a handful of screener filters. This lesson writes them out in plain language, so you can translate them into whichever tool you use. The wording is tool-neutral on purpose; every mainstream screener supports these fields under slightly different names.
The universe filter
Run this first and save it. It removes everything you should not be swing trading regardless of setup.
| Criterion | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Above $10 (or your market's equivalent) | Under $10 gaps harder and spreads are wider |
| Average daily dollar volume | Above $5 million (price × 50-day avg volume) | Painless exits; position under 1% of daily turnover |
| Market cap | Above $500 million | Removes most manipulation-prone micro caps |
| Exchange | Primary listed exchanges only | No OTC or pink sheets |
| Not an ETF, SPAC or warrant | Common stock only | Setups behave differently on leveraged and derivative products |
In crypto the equivalent is: top 100 by market cap, listed on at least two major exchanges, 24-hour volume over $20 million. In forex, stick to majors and the most liquid crosses. In futures, the front month of contracts with open interest in the tens of thousands.
Scan A: leaders near highs
The primary weekend scan.
| Criterion | Value |
|---|---|
| 3-month return percentile | Top 20% of the universe |
| 6-month return percentile | Top 30% of the universe |
| Distance from 52-week high | Within 10% |
| Close vs 50-day EMA | Above |
| 50-day EMA slope | Rising (50 EMA today > 50 EMA 20 days ago) |
| Next earnings | More than 5 trading days away |
Scan B: tight and quiet
Run on the output of Scan A, or on the full universe in a green regime.
| Criterion | Value |
|---|---|
| (10-day high − 10-day low) ÷ 14-day ATR | Under 5 |
| 5-day average volume ÷ 50-day average volume | Under 0.75 |
| Close vs 20-day EMA | Within 3% above or below |
| Number of down days in the last 10 with volume above average | 2 or fewer |
Scan C: reclaim candidates
For amber and red regimes, where the trend filter forbids fresh breakouts.
| Criterion | Value |
|---|---|
| 6-month return percentile | Top 30% |
| Distance from 52-week high | 10% to 30% below |
| Close vs 200-day SMA | Crossed from below to above in the last 5 days, or within 2% below with a higher low in place |
| Volume on the reclaim day | Above 1.3x the 50-day average |
| Next earnings | More than 5 trading days away |
Scan D: post-earnings gap
Run each morning after the open in green or amber regimes, or the night before using the after-hours reaction.
| Criterion | Value |
|---|---|
| Reported earnings | In the last 1 to 3 trading days |
| Gap | Opened at least 5% above the prior close |
| Held the gap | Closed the gap day above the gap-day open, and above the prior day's high |
| Volume on the gap day | Over 2x the 50-day average |
| 3-month return percentile | Top 50% (does not need to be a leader yet) |
Putting them together by regime
| Regime | Scans to run | Expected candidates |
|---|---|---|
| Green | A, B, D | 20 to 40 raw |
| Amber | A filtered by B, C, D | 10 to 20 raw |
| Red | C only | 3 to 10 raw |
| Cash | None | 0 |
Raw candidates then go through the seven-point pass from the previous lesson.
Key idea: Save the scans once and run them every weekend without changing them. A screen that is edited every week to produce more results is a screen that has stopped filtering.
Common translation problems
- Percentile rank not available. Sort by 3-month return descending and take the top fifth of the count manually. It takes one extra minute.
- ATR not available. Use the 10-day average of (high − low) instead; it slightly understates ATR because it ignores gaps, so use a threshold of 4 rather than 5.
- EMA slope not available. Compare the current 50 EMA value to its value 20 bars ago; most tools allow "indicator today > indicator N bars ago".
- Earnings date not available in the screener. Run the scan without it and check dates manually during the seven-point pass. This is the most commonly skipped step and the most expensive one to skip.
What the scans do not do
They do not tell you where the entry is, where the stop is, or whether the pattern is clean. That is chart work, done by eye, one name at a time. The scans exist to reduce a universe of thousands to a list of dozens, so that your eyes are spent on names that already have the statistical wind at their back.
Try it: Build Scan A in your tool and save it. Run it and note the count. Then add Scan B's tightness criterion and note how much the count falls. That ratio, tight candidates over leaders, is a rough gauge of how many setups the coming week is likely to offer.
Recap
- Apply a universe filter first: price, dollar volume, market cap, listing, common stock.
- Scan A finds leaders near highs; Scan B finds tight, quiet consolidations; Scan C finds reclaims; Scan D finds held earnings gaps.
- Run different scans by regime: all in green, no breakouts in amber, reclaims only in red, none in cash.
- Never edit saved scans to produce more results.
- Scans reduce the universe; the chart work and the seven-point pass still decide what goes on the list.