Hot Stocks

A big percentage move on a thinly traded stock is not the same event as a big move on one that turns over tens of millions of dollars a day, so this scan gates on liquidity first: at least a million shares today and a fifty-day average of $10 million a day. On top of that it takes two kinds of mover. Names up or down 15% or more, which qualify on the size of the move alone, and names up or down more than 5% where dollar volume is also running three standard deviations above its own sixty-day norm, which is the smaller move that the tape is actually paying attention to. It runs in both directions: a stock down 20% is as hot as one up 20%, and both appear. Because it reads today’s volume and today’s change, the list moves through the session and settles at the close. Requiring the move is what separates it from the unusual volume screen, which asks only whether turnover is abnormal.