Guide to Day Trading Strategies

STOCK SCANNING & 
BUILDING A WATCH LIST
I 
À
nd almost every single trade setup on one of my stock scanners. I use stock scanning software 
provided by Trade-Ideas (www.trade-ideas.com). I cannot speak highly enough about their tools. 
Without their scanning software, I would be lost as a trader. A trader can have all the textbook 
knowledge of the markets, but if they are unable to 
À
nd setups in real-time, they will never be 
pro
À
table. Stock scanners are the tools we use to 
À
nd tradable setups. Before stock scanners 
existed, traders would trade off a master watch list of their top 50 stocks, or wait for news to 
break over the wire about a particular stock. This is not an effective method of day trading 
because out of the several thousand stocks available to trade, typically there are only 5-10 stocks 
in play each day. I consider a stock in play if it is surging up or down more than 4%, with a strong 
catalyst. Using stock scanners, I can choose the speci
À
c type of stocks I want to see and 
À
lter 
out all the noise. This adds tremendous clarity to my stock selection process. I can also make 
complex scanners to look for speci
À
c chart patterns, or I can use simple scanners to look for 
broad matches such as stocks that just reported earnings in the last 24hrs.
Full Scanner Layout by Trade-Ideas
Day trading is a very dif
À
cult career that we can make a little easier by using the best tools. This 
includes stock scanners. One of the great features of Trade-Ideas is the ability to view historical 

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data of a stock scan. I can look back and see all the alerts from a day or week, and review the 
results. This saves us a tremendous amount of time sitting and watching scanners in real-time 
to develop a back test history. We can instantly back test and quickly correct inconsistencies or 
false alert issues. I provide all of the students in our live trading courses with the proprietary stock 
scanner settings I have developed over the years. Students are able to use the exact same tools 
I use every day to 
À
nd trades. Although I have about 15 scanners I am actively using every day, 
they are clustered between two groups. I have scanners looking for reversal opportunities and 
I have scanners looking for momentum trades. Those are the two strategies I trade and those 
are the setup ideas I need to 
À
nd those trades in real-time. All of the stock scanners I use have 
been highly customized to provide me with a watch list of the type of stocks I have the highest 
percentage of success trading.