Foundations
Finding Candidates
Five TradingView screeners that turn 5,000 tickers into a list you can actually work
Every module up to this point assumes a chart is already in front of you. None of them says how it got there. Screening is the step that decides what you look at all day — and if you get it wrong, the best qualification process in the world is being applied to the wrong names.
A screener does not find trades. It finds candidates. What comes back is a list of stocks that satisfy a set of mechanical conditions, nothing more — no context, no pattern, no timing. The work of deciding which of them is worth a position happens after the scan, on the chart, using the checklist in the next module.
The five screens
Four of them look for strength and one looks for weakness. They overlap deliberately — a genuine leader will often show up on three at once, and that agreement is itself information.
Power Earnings Gap
Blowout earnings, a large premarket gap out of a long base, extreme volume. Then weeks of sideways chop before the real move.
CANSLIM
O'Neil's framework — fundamental growth plus technical leadership plus institutional support, early in an uptrend.
Highest Momentum
Names already up substantially over the year that are still working. Leaders repeat.
Breakout
Trading above the short-term moving averages on above-average volume. A pool to hunt continuation patterns in.
Downside
The same logic inverted. Below the short moving averages, on volume, extending lower.
1. Power Earnings Gap
A Power Earnings Gap happens when a company reports far better numbers than the market expected and the stock gaps up hard in premarket — typically more than 7% — out of a consolidation range that has been building for a month or more, on volume far above anything in its recent history.
That volume is the point. Retail alone does not move a stock that far on that much turnover. A gap of that size on that volume means institutions are repositioning, and institutions do not finish in one session.
What follows is usually not a straight run. The stock chops sideways for days or weeks while the new holders accumulate and the old holders sell into strength. That range is the setup. The gap itself is not.
Market cap floor
1B USD and up — keeps the list liquid and institutionally tradeable.
Recent earnings date
Previous week. This is what makes it an earnings screen rather than a momentum screen.
ADR %
4% and up — the stock needs to be capable of moving enough to pay for the risk.
Average volume, 60D
2M shares and up.
Price × average volume, 60D
50M USD and up — dollar liquidity, so a position can be entered and exited without becoming the market.
Sector
Set to your own preference, or left wide open.
2. CANSLIM
CANSLIM is William J. O'Neil's framework, set out in How to Make Money in Stocks. It is an acronym for seven conditions that O'Neil found in common among historically large winners before their biggest moves. The idea is that fundamental strength, technical momentum and institutional sponsorship all have to be present together — any one of them alone is not enough.
C — Current quarterly earnings
EPS growth of 25% or more versus the same quarter last year. Accelerating profits, not merely positive ones.
A — Annual earnings growth
At least 25% annual EPS growth, sustained across multiple years rather than one good year.
N — New highs
Trading within 15% of the 52-week high. Leaders make new highs; they do not wait at the bottom for you.
S — Supply and demand
Volume rising over recent sessions — active accumulation rather than drift.
L — Leaders and laggards
Relative performance against the S&P 500 above 80. Own the strongest name in the group, not the cheapest.
I — Institutional sponsorship
Evidence that professional money is involved — for example at least one analyst 'buy' rating inside the last 90 days.
M — Market direction
The broad market above its 200-day moving average and that average trending up. Most stocks follow the index.
Market cap floor
1B USD and up.
Revenue growth, TTM YoY
25% and up.
Revenue growth, quarterly QoQ
25% and up.
Average volume, 10D
2M shares and up.
Price × average volume, 10D
100M USD and up.
SMA 20 below price by 5% or more
Price extended above its short-term average — the technical half of the screen.
3. Highest Momentum
This screen looks for stocks already up 70% or more over the trailing year that are still performing. It sounds like buying the top, and that objection is worth taking seriously — but it misunderstands how sustained moves actually look.
Stocks do not go up in a straight line. They move in stair steps: a strong leg, a pause while the move digests, then another leg. A name that has already made a large annual gain and is currently consolidating is a name that has proven it can trend and is now building the next step. Leaders produce multiple setups inside a single momentum move — that is what makes them leaders rather than one-hit gaps.
Performance, 1Y
70% and up — the momentum condition itself.
Price
10 USD and up.
Market cap floor
1B USD and up.
Average volume, 10D
2M shares and up.
SMA 50 below price
Still above the intermediate-term average — 'still working' rather than 'used to work'.
4. Breakout
The Breakout screen surfaces stocks trading above their short-term moving averages with volume running above their own average. It is a wide net by design — the output is not a list of breakouts, it is the pool inside which breakouts are forming.
The trader's job is to hunt continuation patterns inside that pool: flags, tight bases, high-tight setups. Those are the shapes that give a defined trigger and a defined invalidation. Everything else on the list is noise that happens to be above an average.
Price
3 USD and up.
Market cap floor
2B USD and up — the most selective of the five screens.
EMA 8 below price · EMA 21 below price
Short-term structure pointing up.
EMA 50 below price
Intermediate structure agreeing with it.
Relative volume
Above 1 — trading above its own recent average.
Change %
0.01% and up — green on the day.
5. Downside
The same principle in reverse. This screen qualifies stocks trading below their short-term moving averages on volume — names either ready to break down or already extending lower.
The patterns invert too: bear flags, failed rallies, distribution days. And the discipline is identical — confirm the pattern before taking a short. A stock being weak is not a setup. A stock being weak, rallying into resistance and failing there is a setup.
Price
3 USD and up.
Market cap floor
300M USD and up.
Average volume, 10D
500K shares and up · absolute volume 500K and up.
Relative volume
1.2 and up — a higher bar than the Breakout screen.
Change %
Below −1% — red on the day.
SMA 20 above price · SMA 50 above price
Below both short and intermediate averages.
Beta, 5Y
1.5 and up — names that move more than the market.
Running these in practice
Build each screen once and save it
TradingView stores a named screener configuration. These are five saved screens, not five sets of filters to re-enter every morning.
Run them premarket, not at the open
The first fifteen minutes are for executing a plan you already have, not for building one.
Chart everything that comes back
Ten seconds per name. Most are rejected instantly — extended, no structure, nothing to lean on.
Keep what has a level
A name earns a place on the watchlist when there is a defined trigger and a defined invalidation. If you cannot say where you are wrong, it is not a candidate.
Qualify the survivors
That is the next module.