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Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Finding gaps - 091206

This is an update to past posts on finding gaps. The catalyst for creating a new list was INET switching their "Top Lists" format. You can read about it in the post titled "It appears INET/NASDAQTrader.com sucks...".

One thing to remember is if you are trading 30-minute charts - and you don't trade the first bar - you have an entire hour after the open to compile your "watch list" for the day. If you are trading 15-minute charts - and you don't trade the first bar - you have an entire 30-minutes after the open to compile your "watch list" for the day.

So for those of you who think you have to know what the gaps are at least 30-minutes before the open, YOU DON'T.

Now the question is, where do you find gaps? The first and most obvious source that the majority of people have access to is the ticker on CNBC. I watch it from 30 minutes before the open to the actual open. You can see what is trading up and down in the pre-market, and by how much.

The next source for me is my trading software - RealTick. I have a "Market Minder" window that lists pre-market % gainers and losers.

The next source is Briefing.com. They give an abbreviated list of stocks "Gapping Up" and "Gapping Down" with associated percentages. If you do not have or want a subscription to Briefing.com, you can visit Trader Mike's blog and read his morning "Watchlist" post; he publishes the information there.

The next source is Quote.com's "Unfilled Gaps" list; you can toggle between NASDAQ and NYSE. I look at this list about 30 minutes after the market opens.

The next source is Prophet.net. I run two scans - one for gaps above the previous day's high and one for gaps below the previous day's low. The basic membership is free, and you can run two scans. I do this about 30-45 minutes after the market opens.

Finally, my trading software (again RealTick) has "Market Minder" windows for "Gap Open Up" and "Gap Open Down". I incorporate any new stocks into my watchlist about 30-45 minutes after the market opens.

There are other sources, and you can find some of them in "Comments" of the posts noted above and below. And, if you find any more great sources, feel free to list them in "Comments" here.

But realistically you can get everything you need from CNBC, Prophet.net, and Quote.com. In fact, you will probably get MORE than you need. Keep in mind you will NEVER get all of the gappers - nor would you want to; it would be difficult to manage a watchlist of 100-200 stocks every day. Accept that you will always miss something, and focus on finding the really good set-ups from the list that you have.

edit - here is an honorable mention - CNNMoney.com's (pre-market) Most Active.

edit - check out my post on Trade-Ideas as another source.


Reference: Previous "Finding gaps" post.

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12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks X!

Anonymous said...

Hey X... not sure you were clear enough :)

Anonymous said...

HI X,

What is the advantage of using so many scans or sources to get gappers. Wouldn't one scan say for instance your trading software (Realtick) provide the same information as the rest of the other sources, assuming you are scanning from the same pool NASQ/NYSE?

Trader-X said...

No. While there is some overlap, for the most part they all return different results.

Anonymous said...

ProphetScan, under the Explore category.

Anonymous said...

Hint for running gap scans on Prophet.net-- if you want a list of gaps above the previous close and not just above the previous high:
On the "Intraday Activity" page of the scan setup, use a NEGATIVE number for the part where it says "Open Price is at lease XXXX % greater than Previous High"; then check the box below it and choose your gap above previous close.
Cheers!

Anonymous said...

I've compiled links to free resources for finding gappers and movers. It's on my blog, right hand columns titled "Movers and Gappers".

I use this to scan pre-market and intra-day.

www.cutyourlosses.blogspot.com

Enjoy!

Anonymous said...

Mmmmh... You deleted my previous comment with the link to the original INET toplists (yes, it is online and still working), maybe because the link looks like an encrypted spam link. OK, so I take this opportunity to promote my blog ;-) where I provide gap up/down lists collected from various sites and filtered by gain/loss and volume. In addition the list contains direct links to the corresponding sites at Yahoo! Finance, Google Finance and MarketWatch. In that way you can search for news very quickly. My blog is in German, but it should be possible to find and read the gap watchlists, which are updated every 15 to 30 minutes.

Olaf

Trader-X said...

Olaf - the reason I deleted the INET link was because it does not show pre-market. It only shows regular and after-hours which is of no use to my style.

Correct me if I am wrong.

No problem with your blog - people can get there by clicking your name on the post above.

Trader-X said...

Olaf followed up his post by saying:

"The URL for the regular hours shows premarket data before 9 a.m."

The URL Olaf posted is too long to appear in comments. So I posted it here.

Diesel B said...

X, since this was posted some time ago I was just wondering if you have found better resources to find gaps? How is Trade Ideas working?

Anonymous said...

Stockfetcher (though the result are 20min delayed) could be a cheap option to find gap