The most common reason why most swing traders are not profitable is that they trade the wrong stocks.
Therefore, stock selection is one of the most important criteria for success, and today I will show you the best settings for the Finviz screener to find the best swing trading stocks. Both beginners and advanced traders can use these settings.
These are my personal stock criteria, and they can be used for many different scanner software, but in this guide, we will focus on how to find the best swing trading stocks and setups using Finviz. So let’s get straight into it.
In This Article:
FinViz Swing Trading Stock Scanning
1. Press Screener
First, go to the Finviz stock screener website, finviz.com. There, you need to find the Screener tab and press it.
You’ll see there are now over 10,000 stocks in the screener, so let’s narrow that down a bit.
2. Press All
Next, press All in the submenu to view the scanning settings for all stocks.
Here you will find many different options, and I understand it can be overwhelming, so let’s go through what settings I use and how to screen for the right stocks. Your settings should look something like this:
3. Finviz Stock Criteria
To find the best swing trading stocks with Finviz, use these settings/criteria:
- Average True Range > 5 (6 if paid version)
- Average Volume > 1 Million
- Price > $2 – $5
- Above 200 and 50 simple moving average
- Dollar Volume > $100M
- (Optional) Revenue Growth > 30%
So let’s go through what each of these settings means.
1. Average True Range / Average daily range
In finviz you will find a box where it says Average True Range. In other software, I usually use Average Daily Range. The main difference is that ATR accounts for gaps, while ADR does not. Both ADR and ATR calculate the percentage change in the stock price each day.
You want the ADR/ATR to be at least above 5. The reason for this is that it’s much easier, in my opinion, to trade stocks that already have established momentum; they move more nicely, make big moves, and will stop you out less.
Personally, I usually trade stocks above 6 ADR, so you can set your settings to 6 or above as well. The max setting in the free version is 5, but with the paid version, it narrows your focus list.
2. Average Volume
The next thing you want to set is the Average volume. Personally, I like to trade stocks with an average daily volume of 1 million because they are liquid and the spread is not very wide. This makes sure you can use tight stops.
3. Price
The price is straightforward, and you can set it to whatever you want. I usually don’t trade stocks below $2 because I have found my trading to be more profitable the higher the stock price. If you are a beginner, you can set this to 5 dollars or more, depending on your preferences and trading style.
4. Above Moving Averages
You also want to scan for stocks above the 200- and 50-simple moving averages. This will ensure you will only get the strongest stocks in your Finviz scanner. You will find both the best long and best short setups by scanning for the strongest stocks, in my opinion.
5. Dollar Volume
The last thing you should set is the dollar volume. Dollar volume is basically price * share volume traded. For example, a $1 stock that trades 100k shares a day has $100k in dollar volume, while a $100 stock that trades 100k shares a day has $10 million in dollar volume.
This setting can be tricky to find, but press the Current volume tab, scroll down until you see the USD subcategory, and choose Above $100M.
Personally, I like to trade high-dollar-volume stocks because they move nicely, you can get tight stocks, and you will have funds and institutions buying them, which is a recipe for big moves.
6. Fundamentals (Optional)
When using all these settings above, you will most likely get 100-150 stocks to choose from. If you feel this to be overwhelming, you can also use some fundamentals. Personally, I use revenue growth. You can set the annual revenue growth in percentage above 30% to narrow down your list.
If you don’t want to scan with fundamentals, you can also set up scans to narrow the list by using a 1-, 3-, or 6-month gainers scan, as I discuss in my other post: how to scan for swing trading stocks.
Last words
You can definitely mix around with these settings to narrow down your list. I would suggest increasing ATR, dollar volume, or fundamentals to narrow the list to at most 50 stocks. Remember that in trading, less is more, and you only want to trade the best stocks in the market.
If anything is unclear or you have any other questions, leave a comment below, and I will get back to you.
I also post swing trading setups, market structure insights, and lessons like these daily on Twitter.
