Universe
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The universe is the pool of securities a scan starts from. Filters then keep the ones that match. Narrow the universe to skip whole groups you never trade, like OTC listings or ETFs, without writing a filter for each.
The same settings panel holds the scan's Sort, which decides the order of the results.
Tour
Each section is a switch list. Your changes apply the next time you scan.
Click the gear icon to the right of Scan. The Select universe panel opens.
- Exchange: the venues a security lists on. Nasdaq, NYSE, AMEX, ARCA, BATS, BX and OTC.
- Security type: the kind of instrument, such as Common Stock, ETF or Warrant.
- Country (HQ): where the company has its headquarters.
- Themes: groups of stocks that trade together, such as silver miners.
- Market sessions: the trading sessions the scan may run in.
- Sort: the field the results are ranked on, and the direction.
- Results: Auto-refresh results reloads an open saved scan's results when it refreshes in the background. Super and Super Pro.
How the settings combine
Within one section, the choices are OR'd: Nasdaq or NYSE. Across sections, they intersect: Nasdaq or NYSE, and Common Stock. Your filters apply after that, to whatever is left.
The line above the results tells you how big the universe was. "1,362 matches from 5,692 scanned" means 5,692 securities passed the universe settings and 1,362 of them matched your filters.
Changing the universe or the sort does nothing until you run the scan again.
Reference
Exchange
Every venue is on unless you turn it off. OTC covers over-the-counter listings: thinly traded, often low-priced names that don't list on a major exchange. It needs a paid plan.
Security type
Until you change it, a scan covers Common Stock, Ordinary Shares, ADR (Common) and ETF. On the Free plan, ETFs drop out of that set.
Country (HQ)
The country where the company has its headquarters. It is not where the stock lists, and not where the company does business. Nothing selected means no country limit.
ETFs have no country, and neither do many OTC names. Turn on Unknown (no country on file) to keep them in a scan that picks countries.
Themes
A theme is a group of stocks whose prices move together, rebuilt every week. Pick one or more themes and the scan only looks at their members.
- Depth sets how far into each theme the scan reaches: core members only, core and satellite members (the default), or every member.
- A theme can drop out of the weekly grouping. It then shows under Not in this week's classification and adds no stocks, so the scan comes back empty until you Remove it.
Themes need a paid plan.
Market sessions
Pre-market, Regular, After-hours and Closed. These set when the scan may run, not which stocks it finds. Run a scan outside its sessions and it comes back as Scan skipped. Leave all four on unless the scan only makes sense in one session, like a pre-market gap scan.
Sort
Sorting happens here, before the scan runs, across every match. The column headers in the results don't sort.
Pick a field and the direction resets to the natural one: ascending for Ticker and P/E (TTM), descending for the rest. Switch it with Desc and Asc. Tickers with no value sort last either way, and ties break on ticker. No sort turns sorting off.
For what the two % change fields measure, see % change.
Plans
On the Free plan, OTC and ETF show a bolt icon and can't be switched on.
Tips
- Turn off OTC and keep Common Stock for a scan you plan to trade on a major exchange. It cuts the thin, wide-spread names before any filter runs.
- Sort before you scan. A scan that returns 900 matches shows the first page in sort order, so pick the field you care about most, such as % Change (all sessions) for movers.
- Picking countries? Check Unknown. Without it, ETFs and most OTC names fall out of the scan.