One of the easiest ways many day traders find trading opportunities is looking for stocks with big price movements—the daily gainers and losers. These are stocks with big percentage gains. This blog post will break down why you should find stock market gainers and losers. We’ll also discuss possible strategies to use when trading based on gainers and losers, and how to find them inside Benzinga Pro.
Why Find Stock Market Gainers and Losers
You can find stock market gainers and losers anytime of day—pre-market, intraday, or after hours. This is why so many traders use them as part of their trading strategies due to their versatility. However, many day traders choose to focus on the pre-market and early intraday stock trading.
Normally, gainers and losers are known as the stocks that have the biggest percentage increase (or decrease) in price during the time period selected. Many platforms allow you to select the time frame of your choice depending on your trading strategy. Benzinga Pro makes finding gainers and losers so easy. Pro allows you to get granular and select session intervals of 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, session, and more.
These stocks with big percentage gains are a great way to create a daily Watchlist so you can focus your attention. Once getting your list of the biggest gainers (and/or losers!), you’ll want to do further research, especially taking a good look at the volume. Analysis will help you determine whether you should buy, sell, or even short the stock, if that is part of your trading strategy.
These big gainers and losers can indicate a stock’s movement and help determine the overall market or sector sentiment is performing. As a day trader, the biggest gainers and losers could be a big opportunity to capture volatility and short-term price movement. As mentioned before, market movers are just one indicator for finding a stock to trade.
When you find a stock you’re interested in, it’s always a good idea to do more research, look at other indicators, and look at what’s causing the movement of the gainer or loser. Is the movement caused by an unknown reason or a news event? The different outcomes of using gainers or losers will depend on what exactly is causing movement. So, determining what is causing the movement can help reinforce your trading decisions.
What to Do Next
Once you find a big market mover, here are some next steps:
- Always remember to research the context of the movement. Why exactly did it move?
- Next, check the volume to make sure the stock has high liquidity so you can get in and out of a day trade quickly.
- After that, you may want to look at moving averages (such as a 30 day moving average) to confirm that the stock is a potential trade. You can also look at the chart to see if there is a chart pattern you use in your trading strategy.
The theory behind this strategy is that more people are looking at the biggest gainers and losers, meaning it’s more likely to be in higher demand, causing the price to go up even further.
Additionally, if the biggest gainers and losers are in a certain industry or sector, you can identify trends that may affect the group as a whole so you focus on (or avoid!) the group.
Read More: Using Volume for Day Trading Stocks
How to Find Gainers and Losers in Benzinga Pro
The best tool for finding the day’s biggest gainers and losers is Benzinga Pro’s Movers tool. As the name suggests, this scanner helps you find the biggest movers of the day, with customizable filters. The only thing you have to do to this easy-to-use tool is to apply the filters you’d like, and you’ll have a consistently updated list of the stocks to add to your Watchlist.
The available filters include:
- Gainers & Losers, Just Gainers, or Just Losers
- Session: Pre-Market, Regular, After Hours
- Period: 15 minute, 30 minute, 1 hour, Session and more, depending on the session selected.
- Sectors: Choose as many as you’d like
- Market Cap: Choose from the sliding scale, or customize it.
- Price: Choose from the sliding scale, or customize it.
- Refresh: 1 Minute Auto Refresh or Freeze (No Refresh)
Tip: Once you get these filters set up, you can click the blue bar at the top to hide the filters and show more Movers results.
Next, you can filter it even more by clicking the filters tab on the right side. Here, you can filter by:
- Symbol
- Name
- Change %
- Change
- Previous Close
- Volume (This is particularly helpful you if you are looking for stocks that only have high volume)
- Average Volume (3 Months)
Once your filters are all set up, you can click on a ticker to pull it up in the Details tool. This will help you access key data, news, and any Why Is It Moving? tags. Why Is It Moving? tags show up at the top of a Details tool and explain why a stock is moving. It’s a quick, one-sentence line designed to help you easily make strong trading decisions when looking at news catalysts in moving stocks.
You can also open the Details tool to the chart tab, and go through each ticker and see if the chart jumps out to you. Depending on your strategy and chart patterns you are familiar with, you may find a trading opportunity.
Final Thoughts
Gainers and losers are a great place to start when you’re looking for stocks. They can be easily identified with the right tools, like Benzinga Pro’s Movers tool, and can be implemented into many different types of trading styles. Gainers and losers can be a great way to find trading opportunities to better support your trading plan and or see bigger profits in your portfolio.
Are you ready to find the market’s biggest gainers and losers? You can try Benzinga Pro for free, with a two-week trial by clicking here, no credit card required to get started.
Disclaimer: Benzinga is a news organization and does not provide financial advice and does not issue stock recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security. Benzinga Pro is for informational purposes and should not be viewed as recommendations. Benzinga Pro will never tell you whether to buy or sell a stock. It will only inform your trading decisions.You can find our full disclaimerlocatedhere.
