As a momentum trader, I don't care about strategies that much. I just want the stock to have direction, volume and order flow.
I am more of a believer that for momentum trading, the value of trades ideas comes from it being able to tell you which stocks are moving more than usual and meets criteria that makes the stock tradeable.
Why do i look at it that way instead of per strategy? Stocks that are in play will have multiple setups and strategies to trade off. Identify those stocks at premarket and during day and trade the strategy as it comes.
Some stocks do an OR Breakdown and then reverse, reject vwap and then continue down. You have three plays there in the same stock.
Another benefit that this scanner gives me is that it is just one scanner providing me the output. I don't like to have 5 different scanners for 5 different strategies, it just overwhelms me. I want to know what the rest of the traders are trading that day. Normally this scanner will not give you more than 10 stocks in day. Today it was 4-5.
Trading only these types of stocks has helped me reduce my losses and avoid stocks with no volume or nor real direction. I want a stock that has a fast moving tape, this makes it harder for big fish to manipulate the price as the price is determined by more market participants.
Scanner Strategy and Criteria:
Anything that has a relative volume of 3 or more within the first hour of trading is normally a stock that has some catalyst.
Strong Volume, High Relative Volume (RVOL) and Unusual Number of Prints.
Unusual number of prints doesn't normally show up as much but it is a good indicator. I only trade stocks with a fast tape. if the tape is slow, I don't touch.
Filters:
1. At least 1% change
2. Price more than 10. There are a lot of penny stocks in play every day and I don't trade these, that is why I use $10.
3. Float - 30M. Important to have a float minimum. There might be low floaters moving all day that are just pump and dump schemes where risk is hard to manage.
4. Volume Today, If it is in play, it will normally have at least 1m shares traded in the first five minutes.
5. Average Daily Volume (0.5m shares). This isn't much but it helps filter out stocks that never have liquidity but have a lot today only. I want stocks that have at least an average liquidity every day.
6. Spread - no more than 10 cents. Anything more than that is too much risk for me.
7. Time of Day - first 60 minutes. the stocks that move in the morning are normally the ones with high volume that will provide opportunities all day, even for trend traders in the afternoon session.
8. RVOL - 3x. I find that 2 times is too little, specially when there is a macro even that happens, a 2x can easily be triggered. I don't want to trade Beta, I want to trade Alpha stocks.