The Best Free Stock Trading Tool You’re Not Using Yet    

Christian Cabrera

In today’s day and age, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the endless products offered by different brokers. You have countless indicators, tools, and newsletters promising to keep you ahead of the curve and help you “beat the markets.”

Well, sorry to break it to you but there’s no indicator or newsletter that will magically put you in a position to consistently beat the markets. If you want to become a consistent trader, you have to focus on strategy development. Once you develop that strategy, the next step is strategy evolution and upkeep.

Markets change constantly, and if you don’t adapt, the markets will eat you alive.

Do yourself a favor: stop spending money on newsletters or indicator packages. Instead, save that money and start using FINVIZ.com. This site offers one of the most powerful, easy to use free stock screeners out there.

That doesn’t mean you can skip the work you still have to build your own strategy and then use the screener to find stocks that meet your criteria. Personally, I’ve used Thinkorswim’s screener (which is also excellent), and I still use it occasionally. But the flexibility of quickly pulling up a web-based screener instead of downloading and opening software is far less of a hassle. Plus, Thinkorswim requires a Charles Schwab account to access their screener.

Why Use a Stock Screener?

If you’re new to trading, you might wonder: Why use a stock screener?

The answer: time.

Time is everything in trading. A stock screener helps you focus on opportunities without wasting hours scrolling through Stocktwits or WallStreetBets.

For example, let’s say you want to day trade. That means you need to find stocks that are moving. This could mean:

A. Stocks with high average volume (in the millions) and a good ATR (Average True Range), or
B. Stocks with unusual volume those that usually trade with low volume but suddenly spike to high levels.

Instead of chasing news or digging endlessly to find these setups, you can simply input your parameters into the screener. It will instantly narrow the market down to where the action is.

It’s that simple:

1. Develop a strategy.
   
   

2. Input your criteria into the screener.
   
   

3. Spot opportunities.
   
   

4. Take risk.
   
   

5. Manage risk.
   
   

6. Take profit or cut your losses.
   
   

Simple, yes, but not easy. The market is already a tough environment in which to succeed. Don’t make it harder by relying on other people’s opinions (newsletters) or a collection of flashy signals (indicators) that ultimately boil down to the only two things that matter: price and volume.