Screening Filters
Price: $10–$250
- Purpose: Focus on reasonably priced stocks that have active options markets and are practical for short‑term option trades.
- Rationale:
- Very low‑priced stocks (under $10) often have illiquid or low‑quality options chains and wider bid‑ask spreads, which is risky for same‑day in‑and‑out trades.
- Very high‑priced stocks (well above $250) can make option contracts very expensive, limiting position sizing and flexibility for a quick day trade.
- The $10–$250 range is a common “sweet spot” for having both decent option liquidity and manageable contract prices.
Monthly Average Dollar Volume: ≥ $1,000,000
- Purpose: Ensure you’re looking at liquid stocks with enough money trading hands every day to support tight spreads and easy entries/exits.
- Rationale:
- For an options day trade, you need the underlying stock to be liquid; illiquid underlyings often mean illiquid options.
- A minimum dollar volume filter helps avoid thinly traded names where you could get stuck in a position or pay a large spread to get out.
Moving Average Relationship: PriceAboveMA20
- Purpose: Bias the scan toward stocks in a short‑term uptrend.
- Rationale:
- With price above the 20‑day moving average, the stock is generally considered to be in a short‑term bullish phase.
- If you’re planning an intraday options trade (often buying calls or selling puts), having the broader short‑term trend on your side can increase the probability of favorable intraday moves.
- It doesn’t guarantee a move tomorrow, but it filters out names in clear downtrends.
1‑Week Price Change: +1% to +15%
- Purpose: Target stocks that have been moving up recently, but not in an extreme, “blow‑off” kind of way.
- Rationale:
- A minimum of +1% over the last week avoids completely stagnant names that might not move enough intraday to make an options trade worthwhile.
- A maximum of +15% avoids stocks that have already made huge, possibly overextended moves that can be prone to sharp reversals or gap risk.
- This range tries to capture “active but not insane” momentum—useful for short‑term trades where you want movement but also some stability.
is_optionable: True
- Purpose: Limit results only to stocks that actually have listed options available.
- Rationale:
- Since you explicitly want an options trade, there is no point returning non‑optionable stocks.
- This filter guarantees that any stock found by the screener is tradable via options for your planned same‑day in/out.
Why Results Match Your Intent
You wanted a stock suitable for a same‑day options trade at the open. These filters emphasize:
- Options availability (is_optionable=True)
- Liquidity (minimum dollar volume) for quick entries/exits
- Reasonable contract costs (price range)
- Short‑term upward bias and recent activity (PriceAboveMA20 + 1–15% weekly gain), which are logical starting points if you’re looking for a name that might move favorably intraday.
We don’t use ultra‑specific or exotic intraday indicators in this screener, but for your goal—finding candidates for a same‑day options trade—these filters are effective: they narrow the universe to liquid, optionable, recently active stocks in short‑term uptrends, which you can then further analyze for an actual trade setup.
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.