How to Screen Stocks: A 5-Minute Beginner's Guide
A practical walkthrough of stock screening — what the filters mean, which ones matter first, and how to turn a screen into a shortlist. Free screener linked throughout.
1. Decide what kind of trader or investor you are
Screening is only useful when the filters match your style. A day trader screening for intraday momentum wants different numbers than a long-term investor screening for valuation. Before touching any filter, pick the bucket you are in: value, growth, dividend, technical, intraday, futures or options. On this site each style is a preset category in the stock screener, so the first decision is a single click. New to the vocabulary? The free 18-lesson curriculum covers it from the start.
2. Learn the five filters that do most of the work
- Volume — the liquidity gate. Below ~500K shares/day you will struggle to exit a position at a fair price.
- % Change — what is moving today. Momentum screens typically filter +2% or better; mean-reversion screens flip it negative.
- Market Cap — size and stability. $2B+ keeps you off lottery-ticket penny stocks; under $10B is where growth lives.
- P/E Ratio — valuation anchor. High P/E means paying for growth; low P/E can mean value or a problem. Context matters (lesson 12 of the curriculum walks through it).
- 52-Week Range — proximity to highs is a momentum signal; near lows is either deep value or a broken story.
3. Start from preset screens, then customise
Every screener worth using ships presets — pre-built filter combinations for common strategies. This site ships 130 of them (34 free): Graham net-nets, Greenblatt Magic Formula, dividend aristocrats, golden-cross technicals and more. Run one, look at what comes back, then adjust one filter at a time so you learn what each one actually changes. Each strategy page explains the rule behind the screen. Building screens from scratch on day one is the fastest way to get 400 useless results.
4. Cross-check with social attention
A stock can pass every quantitative filter and still be dead money if nobody is trading it. The second input this site adds beyond classic screeners: trending stocks today, ranked by Reddit mention volume over 24 hours and StockTwits trending score. When a ticker shows up in your screen and the trending list, attention and fundamentals are aligned — that overlap is where the interesting candidates live.
5. Shortlist into a watchlist, then do the real research
Screening finds candidates; it never approves them. Star each survivor into your watchlist (stars are on every screener and trending row), then open the stock's page for its chart, key statistics and company summary, and check the intraday chart for the pattern it is printing. The screen took 30 seconds — this part is the job.
Stock screening FAQ
What is a stock screener?
A stock screener is a filter tool that narrows thousands of listed stocks down to the handful matching your criteria — think volume, price change, P/E ratio, market cap or sector. Instead of browsing, you describe the kind of stock you want and the screener returns the matches. This screener covers 6,700+ US stocks on Nasdaq and NYSE.
What filters should a beginner use?
Start with three: average volume above 500K–1M shares (so you can get in and out), a % change filter to see what is moving today, and a market cap floor like $2B to skip ultra-thin penny stocks. Add valuation filters like P/E only once you have a strategy that needs them.
How often should I run a stock screen?
Most active traders run a shortlist screen once before market open, and a longer research screen weekly. Preset strategies make the daily pass a 30-second habit rather than a 20-minute chore — start from a preset and adjust one filter at a time.
Does a stock screener tell me what to buy?
No. A screener surfaces candidates; it does not rate them. Use it to build a watchlist, then research each name — charts, filings, earnings — before any decision. The free learning track here walks through that research process end to end. Nothing on this site is investment advice.
Stock Sight Finance is a research and education tool. Not investment advice; data may be delayed.