How Scanners and Screeners Can Revolutionize Your Trading

If you invest in stocks then you already know that it is a great way to put money aside where it will work for you. But if you want to take your strategy to the next level, then you need to be looking at technology to take the strain.

When you consider that the NASDAQ and NYSE have upwards of 7,000 stocks listed, you may wonder how anyone can efficiently identify good targets.

Don’t worry if you aren’t a committed full-time day trader; these apps work just as well for the part-time investor who is looking to put away a few hundred dollars into good quality companies.

The good news is that by using a scanner or screener app, you can quickly find stocks that fall into your investing plan and snap up those bargains early.

Don’t worry if you aren’t a committed full-time day trader; these apps work just as well for the part-time investor who is looking to put away a few hundred dollars into good quality companies.

Scanner and screeners—what’s the difference?

Sometimes people will blur the lines between scanners and screeners.  It is important to understand the difference because each are useful for different situations.

A stock screener is a filtering mechanism that will look at a market and filter out stocks that don’t fit your particular strategy.

For example, perhaps you only want NYSE traded stocks, in utility companies, with high trading volumes that have shown a 5% increase over the last week.

A good stock screener will give you a list of the companies that fit your criteria in seconds, providing you with targets to investigate further.

For most modern screener apps, the list of criteria you can choose is almost endless. This gives you the power to spot the type of company stocks you want to buy with pinpoint accuracy.

Stock screeners are one of the first types of apps for investors devised for the internet age. They are designed for people who might log on once a day, download a series of longer-term targets, and then do their research.

In general terms, stock screeners tend to be quite light on resources, which means that you can use them on pretty much any computer or device.

Screeners are great for investors as they give you targets to look for based on a series of attributes. However, they tend not to be used as much by day traders — for that, you need a good stock scanner.

Stock scanners may look similar to screeners but they are quite different. These apps are more useful for active day traders...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips