How to Find Stocks to Swing Trade: The Screener Settings That Do the First Cut

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Last updated: 16 October 2026 · By Spencer Li, CFTe

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There are thousands of stocks you could trade, and you have maybe 15 minutes a day to look. So the first job is to throw most of them away, quickly and for good reasons, before you open a single chart.

The way to find stocks to swing trade is to let a screener make that first cut, then judge what is left by eye. A good screen asks 5 questions in order: is the market healthy, can I get in and out, is the stock trending, is it stronger than the market, and is it near a sensible entry. I call it the 5-gate screen. What passes is a short list to study, and the trade decision comes later.

Below are the exact settings I use, what each one does, and the part no screener can do for you.

Why use a screener at all?

Because your attention is the scarcest thing in your routine. A screener checks every stock on your list against the same rules in seconds, and it never gets bored or skips one. That leaves your judgement for the 10 or 20 charts that deserve it.

A trader on r/swingtrading asked about this in September 2026: “Looking for a free screener – which can help me to find stocks trading within 5% of 52 weeks high”. It is a good instinct. A stock near its high is often a stock in demand. One reply made the right point, that the screener is a first pass and the trade decision comes after it.

What is the 5-gate screen?

5 filters, each a hard pass or fail. A stock must clear all of them. Here they are with the settings from my own screener.

Two more checks ride along with gate 5. Today’s volume must be at least 1.5 times its 20-day average, and the stock must not have fallen more than 1% on its last day. On the day I captured these settings, 47 stocks passed from my US watchlist.

[INFOGRAPHIC: the 5-gate screen as a funnel, Regime → Liquidity → Trend → Strength → Stretch, with a short list at the bottom]

Why does each gate earn its place?

Each one removes a different kind of bad trade.

Regime is the only gate that looks at the market as a whole. Most stocks fall when the market falls, so when the index is below its 200-day average, the screen passes nothing. An empty list tells you to wait.

Liquidity keeps you out of stocks you cannot exit at a fair price. A thin stock can gap through your stop and leave you waiting for a buyer. On SGX, far fewer stocks clear a USD 20 million bar, so if you trade there, set the floor to suit what you trade and keep your size a small slice of a normal day.

Trend asks for the moving averages stacked in order, short above medium above long. It is the simplest way to say “this stock has been going up, on every time frame I care about”.

Strength has 2 parts. The top 25% of the 52-week range keeps you near the highs. The relative strength check compares the stock’s price with the index’s, and passes only if that ratio is higher than it was about 3 months ago. If your screener has no ratio setting, a rough stand-in is 3-month performance above the index’s 3-month performance.

Stretch stops you chasing. It measures how far the price sits from its 50-day average, in units of ATR, the stock’s average daily range. My screen allows a deeper pullback, 3 ATRs below, than an extension, 2 ATRs above. The RSI ceiling of 80 drops stocks that have run too far, too fast.

ATR also sets a floor. My screen wants an ATR of at least 2% of the price, so the stock moves enough to be worth a swing trade. The link between that range and your risk is in risk vs volatility.

If you want a 15-minute daily routine that starts from a list like this, the free 15-Minute Swing Trader’s Checklist is at the end of this post.

How do you rank what passes?

By how fresh the pullback is. A list of 47 is still too many to study, so sort it.

I sort by the distance from the 50-day average, smallest first. A stock sitting right on its 50-day average, in a strong uptrend, is having a fresh pullback, and that is where I look first. A stock far above it has already moved.

A second sort is by relative strength, strongest first. When 2 stocks look equally good on a chart, I would take the one that has been beating the market by more.

What can a screener never check for you?

The chart itself. A screener reads numbers. It cannot see a pattern, judge whether a range is tight, or tell you whether today’s candle closed the way your setup needs.

So the screen ends where the chart begins. For each stock on the list, I open the daily chart and ask whether one of my setups is actually there. I look for a clean pullback to support or a tight base under resistance, and a candle that has closed in a way that confirms it. Most of the list fails this step, and that is fine.

The setups themselves are in the price action trading guide, with breakouts in how to avoid false breakouts and the candle rule in why you should decide on the closing candle.

What should you check after the screen and the chart?

The calendar. A stock can pass every gate and show a perfect setup with an earnings report 3 days away. A report can gap the price straight past your stop, so check the date before you size the trade. Holding stocks through earnings covers how to size for that gap.

Then size it from the stop. The rest of the stocks process, from choosing the market to managing the trade, is in the ultimate guide to stocks and CFDs trading.

Where do good trades come from?

From the first cut being strict. Every gate in the 5-gate screen removes a reason a trade could fail before you have spent any attention on it. The market is falling, the stock is too thin, the trend is broken, it is lagging, or it has already run. What is left is a short list worth 15 minutes of your day.

Which of the 5 gates is your current list missing?

FAQ

How do you find stocks to swing trade?

Run a screener with 5 gates (market regime, liquidity, trend, relative strength and stretch from the 50-day average), sort what passes by the freshest pullback, then check each chart for a setup and the closing candle.

What are good stock screener settings for swing trading?

One example: the index above its 200-day average, and 20-day average traded value above USD 20 million. Add the 20, 50 and 200-day EMAs stacked up, the stock in the top 25% of its 52-week range, and the price within 3 ATRs below to 2 ATRs above its 50-day average.

How many stocks should a screener return?

Few enough to check every chart in your routine. If the list is too long, sort by distance from the 50-day average and look at the closest first.

Can a screener tell you when to buy?

No. A screener filters numbers. It cannot judge a chart pattern or a candle close, so the entry decision stays with you.

Do these settings work for Singapore stocks?

The trend, strength and stretch gates do. The liquidity floor of USD 20 million is set for US stocks, so on SGX you would need to set a lower floor that suits your position size.

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About the author. Spencer Li is the founder of Synapse Trading and a Certified Financial Technician (CFTe). His trade log is public: every trade since April 2024, dated, losses left in.

Educational content only, not personalised financial advice. Trading carries risk, including loss of capital. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Synapse Trading is not licensed or regulated by MAS.

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Educational content only, not personalised financial advice. Trading carries risk, including loss of capital. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Synapse Trading is not licensed or regulated by MAS.