Your stock screener is the first tool you open every trading day, because timing is essential for day trading, which makes it necessary to have trade signals based on real-time market data as fast as possible. Let’s go through the list of the best stock screeners and scanners, their features, costs, and their pros and cons.
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Best Stock Screeners
I have intensively tested and reviewed over 30 stock screeners and stock scanners. Some are ideal for day traders, and some are the better choice for investors.
1. Trade Ideas: Best for Day Trading
Day traders need quick and precise stock screeners that scan the market in real time to find stocks to trade. This is where Trade Ideas has its strengths. The screener is empowered by AI algorithms, which are used to identify the best trade ideas in real-time.
The AI tool scans the US stock exchanges (NYSE, AMEX, Nasdaq) and Canadian markets, identifies the best possible settings, and applies them to current market conditions to provide users with trade ideas based on real time quotes. The AI trade alerts include long and short signals. If traders want, they can even use an automated trading interface to automatically create orders based on the AI alerts.
While the price tag is surely at the upper end of scanners, the wide variety of all-in-one features is known to convince. The features range from trade alerts, backtesting and fully customizable stock screeners, over market fundamentals, picture-in-picture charts and a trading room to broker integration, simulated trading and trading through the chart with one click.
- ✅ Day Traders
- ✅ USA Markets
- ✅ AI Market Scanner
- ✅ Integrated Trading
- ✅ AI Trading Signals
- Screening metrics to filter stocks based on 500+ variables
- Pricing: Free version, paid version from $127 – $254 monthly and $1,068 – $2,136 yearly.
Limited Time Offer
Use the promo code “DAYTRADEZ” for a 15% discount (valid for all monthly and annual Trade Ideas Basic and Trade Ideas Premium subscriptions).
See Also: Trade Ideas Review | Trade Ideas Promo Codes
2. TradingView: Best for Mobile Use
TradingView strikes with the best app for iOS and Android amongst all stock screeners in this list. The app has excellent ratings on the App Store (4.9/5 with about 298,200 reviews) and on Google Play (with an impressive 4.7/5 based on about 718,000 votes). The screener app works everywhere. It is fast and accurate.
Those who want to use TradingView on larger monitors should consider using the web-based version or installing the available desktop software. You can use TradingView to identify companies to invest in, analyze and screen stocks and chart patterns, monitor and compare stocks, apply trading indicators, and more.
TradingView also stands out as one of the best stock screeners by covering the broadest range of exchanges across the globe. From U.S. and Canadian markets to global to European and Asian markets, users can choose from nearly every market imaginable. And finally, TradingView has the best charts across all tools in this list.
- ✅ Traders & Investors
- ✅ USA + International Markets
- ✅ Advanced Charts
- ✅ Broker Integration
- ✅ 20M+ User Community
- Screening metrics, filters, alerts and variables: 500+
- Pricing: Free version, free trial, paid version from $14.95 – $59.95 monthly and $155.40 – $599.40 yearly.
See Also: TradingView Review | How to Get TradingView Pro for Free or with a Discount
3. Finviz: Best for Quick Market Research
Finviz is a free stock screener that I have used for over ten years to quickly check market conditions when delayed quotes are okay enough for the things to look at. As surprising as it may sound, Finviz looks similar to how it looked ten years ago. That’s due to its absolute simplicity and efficiency of how you can use it.
Type in the stock symbol of your choice, and you’ll get a good mix of company fundamentals and technical analysis insights, along with news and insider trading information. You can check hundreds of stock details like P/E ratio, dividend yield, company earnings insights, global news, and more.
The tool is fast, and the free version is much better than many other tools with free stock screener features. Those who want can subscribe to their premium stock screener, Finviz Elite, and get access to advanced stock screeners, correlation analysis, backtesting, and broader market coverage.
- ✅ Investors & Data Analysts
- ✅ USA Markets
- ✅ Downloadable Data
- ✅ Fundamental Data
- ✅ Backtesting & Correlation Analysis
- Screening metrics, filters, alerts and variables: 300+ for stocks and ETFs
- Pricing: Free version available. Paid version $39.50 monthly and $299.50 yearly.
See Also: Finviz Review
4. Stock Rover: Best for Buy and Hold Investors
Stock Rover sets the standard for stock and ETF screening, with over 700 fundamental, technical, and descriptive metrics. Whether you’re focused on value, growth, income, or quality, Stock Rover gives you the tools to build, refine, and test investment strategies with precision.
Built for long-term, buy-and-hold investors, Stock Rover runs on any modern web browser, with a clean interface that makes complex analysis easy to navigate. There is a mobile version available too.
The stock screener is powerful. Custom formulas let you create or modify metrics to suit your strategy, multi-level screening supports compound filters and conditional logic, and pre-built screeners include classic strategies like Piotroski, Graham, and Dividend Growers.
Advanced tools for investors are also included. Charting covers everything from price trends to valuation and ratios, alongside tools for fair value, margin of safety, historical scoring, Monte Carlo simulations, portfolio analytics, and rebalancing.
- ✅ Investors & Data Analysts
- ✅ US-Listed Stocks & ETFs
- ✅ Advanced Reports
- ✅ Fundamental Data
- ✅ Custom Metrics
- 700+ metrics covering valuation, growth, profitability, dividends, financial strength, analyst ratings, technicals, and more
- Pricing: Free trial available. Paid version monthly: $7.99 – $27.99 and yearly $79.99 – $279.99
See Also: Stock Rover Review
5. TrendSpider: Best for Technical Analysis
TrendSpider is an excellent choice, if excellent backtesting capabilities, a broad range of covered financial markets (stocks, futures, options, ETFs, crypto), and innovative functionalities are what you are looking for. TrendSpider is frequently used for technical analysis and market research.
You can apply over 200 trading indicators to your chart, and the charts look great. In addition, multiple chart types are supported, from candlestick charts, over range bars, Heikin Ashi charts, Renko and Point-and-Figure charts, to TrendSpider’s innovative Raindrop charts. You can visualize multiple charts on one monitor simultaneously.
What makes TrendSpider unique is the multi-time frame analysis, where you set a primary time frame and a secondary time frame. This way, you can, for example, visualize a trading indicator value calculated based on a lower time frame on a higher time frame (e.g., the 200 EMA of the 5-minute chart on the daily chart).
While TrendSpider focuses on technical analysis, it’s an excellent choice for stock traders to scan for fundamental and technical criteria because of their integrated database of company fundamentals, earnings data, and seasonality insights. You can create a custom screener with your own criteria and conditions to find the best stocks in your desired category.
- ✅ Stocks, ETFs, Futures & Crypto
- ✅ US-Markets
- ✅ Advanced Backtesting
- ✅ Seasonality Data
- ✅ Multi-Time Frame Analysis
- Screening metrics, filters, alerts and variables: 200+
- Pricing: 14-day trial for $19 – $39, monthly plans for $89 – $199
See Also: TrendSpider Review
6. TC2000: Best for Windows Installation
TC2000 is an installable trading software with extensive market scanner features for stocks and options. Users can scan for technical analysis based conditions and a wide range of company fundamentals. Custom alerts can be set to never miss a price change.
The scanner is feature-rich, and the help guide on filtering, scanning and sorting alone includes 54 helpful articles. You’ll quickly learn how to use the condition editor, use multiple filters, create conditions for indicators, analyze bid/ask spreads, use the data sort feature, and more.
- Screening metrics, filters, alerts and variables: 100+ for stocks and options
- Pricing: Free trial, paid version from $9.99 – $59.99 monthly and $99.84 – $599.88 yearly.
See Also: TC2000 Review
7. BlackBoxStocks: Best for Options Trading
BlackBoxStocks excels where other screener functionalities end. While most tools focus on stock screening, BlackBoxStocks goes the extra mile and fully features an options screener that scans over 900,000 options contracts in real time.
The stock screener covers scans like top lists of stocks, dark pool trading activities, premarket action and more.
The options screener comes with a bullish and bearish flow, options heat map, volume, alerts, open interest analytics, and options flow, including historical options flow. Unique features are the gamma exposure, net options delta (total and 0DTE), and options dollar flow.
- ✅ Stocks & Options
- ✅ US-Markets
- ✅ Options Screener
- ✅ Unusual Options Flow
- ✅ Dark-Pool Data
- Screening metrics, filters, alerts and variables: 100+ for stocks and options
- Pricing: Free trial, paid version $99.97 monthly and $959 yearly.
See Also: BlackBoxStocks Review
8. Zacks: Best for free Investment Research
The Zacks stock screener is only one of the diverse screening tools Zacks offers since, besides stocks, you can scan for mutual funds and ETFs. The stock screeners are divided into Basic Screens and Premium screens, where the Basic Screens are the best free stock screener screeners that are accessible to everyone.
You can use the Zacks stock screener app to freely scan for undervalued stocks, stocks with fundamental strengths, growth stocks and many more. The paid plan includes access to the Zacks #1 rank (strong buy) list today and guides on how to use the Zacks Rank Stocks screener.
- Screening metrics, filters, alerts and variables: 100+ for stocks
- Pricing: Free version and free trial available. Paid Premium version $249 per year.
See Also: Zacks Premium Review
9. Seeking Alpha: Best for Fundamentals
Seeking Alpha is an excellent choice for smart investors who want to analyze the stock market in detail regarding every fundamental data aspect one can think of. There are three main contributor types at Seeking Alpha. The traditional SA authors write well-researched stories.
The quant functionality grades and ranks stocks based on fundamental data at buy, hold and sell. This can be combined with factor grades such as valuation, growth, profitability and momentum. In addition, it’s possible to set price alerts for every stock, monitor SEC filings, compare companies against their peers, and connect portfolios to the Seeking Alpha platform.
- Screening metrics, filters, alerts and variables: 200+
- Pricing: Free version, free trial, and a paid version for $299 yearly.
10. Benzinga Pro: Best for Screening Market News
Benzinga Pro combines stock screening and data analysis with actionable stock market news, trader chat rooms, and trading signals, as well as innovative features like their audio squawk streams. The Benzinga Pro stock screener is frequently used by swing traders, but also a good choice for active traders.
The scanner feature is available in the Essential subscription but not in the lower-priced Basic subscription.
- Screening metrics, filters, alerts and variables: 100+ for stocks
- Pricing: Free trial, paid version from $37 – $197 monthly and $367 – $1,997 yearly.
Bottom Line
My favorite stock screener for day trading is Trade Ideas, followed by TradingView. Both tools know to convince with fast data streams, a great selection of stock screener settings, and an easy-to-use interface. Still, backtesting, automated trading, and A.I. trade signals are only available with Trade Ideas, which makes it the clear winner.
For options traders, BlackBoxStocks is an exciting scanner that can scan for unusual options activity (they also have basic stock scans). The filter options are really good, and the screener is fast and accurate. The stock screener from TrendSpider is a good choice for swing traders and investors because of their stock analysis features.
Stock Screener Comparison
| Trade Ideas | TradingView | TrendSpider | Finviz | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trading Style | ||||
| Day Trading | ||||
| Swing Trading | ||||
| Investing | ||||
| Features | ||||
| Backtesting | ||||
| Charts | ||||
| Market-News | ||||
| Multi-Time-Frame | ||||
| Markets | ||||
| USA | ||||
| Stocks | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| ETFs | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Futures | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Options | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Crypto | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| International | ||||
| Review | Review | Review | Review |
FAQs
What Is a Stock Screener?
A stock screener is a tool used by active traders, swing traders, and investors to help identify the best stocks to trade and invest in. The best stock screener is the one that helps you achieve your goal most efficiently. The ratio between costs and outcomes should always be well-balanced. Stock screeners filter stocks based on financial metrics, some do with fundamental data (good for investors), others with advanced features like intraday trade alerts and notifications (good for day traders).
How to Choose a Stock Screener for Day Trading?
You start by evaluating your needs and then look at the best options where price and value are well balanced. You will also need to choose whether a standalone screener or an integrated screener. Broker dashboards often include a screener, but in some cases, it is only a side product and not the best choice. A dedicated stock scanner is typically the better option since those are directly developed for scanning purposes.
Here are some of the things to consider when evaluating a stock screener:
- What regions are you interested in? (North America, Europe, Asia etc.)
- What other assets do you want to trade and invest (mutual funds, ETFs, forex or even cryptocurrencies).
- Does free end-of-day data suffice, or do you need real-time tick data?
- Is it sufficient to have out-of-the-box pre-defined scans, or do you need coding language capabilities?
What Is the Difference Between a Stock Scanner and a Screener?
The terms stock screener and stock scanner are frequently used as they would stand for the same, but by taking a closer look at the meaning of a stock scanner vs. a stock screener, it becomes apparent that there is a clear difference between both. Stock traders should be aware of the differences to ensure that they subscribe to the right product to trade stocks efficiently.
Stock Scanner
Stock scanners come with real-time data (e.g., tick data from NYSE and Nasdaq) and identify potential trading opportunities based on specific pre-selected criteria and alert types. Such filter criteria include trading volume, stock price, price gaps, and technical indicator values.
A stock scanner is most frequently used by day traders who want and need their trade alerts in real time since every second counts in the decision-making process. The typical time intervals are the tick chart, 1-minute, 3-minute and 5-minute.
A stock scanner always updates itself in real-time without any user interaction needed. The charts refresh, the indicator values, the trade alerts, everything comes in in real-time.
Stock Screener
In contrast, investors who set filters on large data samples such as market capitalization, earnings results, and dividend yield estimates mainly use a stock screener.
The time interval data is primarily based on end-of-day data for time frames such as the daily, weekly and monthly charts.
Stock screeners often use one fixed data point when the tool gets started and then need user interaction to refresh the data.
A stock screener is often combined with analytical tools like a stock chart with multiple trading indicators.
User Interfaces of Stock Screeners and Scanners
On the surface, screeners and stock scanners may look similar. Still, scanners have much more configuration capabilities where users can adjust how the data is visualized, what data is used, and what filters are applied to deepen the analysis.
You can think of it like buying a pre-configured trading PC vs. building one yourself. The pre-configured one gets delivered after simply choosing the one you want, while the custom PC requires a specific definition of what CPU, motherboard, RAM etc., you want, then it gets assembled based on your requirements and then gets delivered.
A stock scanner also comes with pre-build layouts, but it has much more flexibility in defining scanner criteria. In contrast, the stock screener typically has one main interface where every screening takes place in a pre-defined way.
Market Data
Market data makes the big difference between stock scanners and screeners. Still, not every real-time data is the same. Real-time data is important for day traders, who focus on trading stocks on high frequency. With this live data, trading opportunities based on specific criteria will be seen quicker.
Real-time tick-by-tick data: The original data feed from Nasdaq and NYSE are delivered tick by tick. The data feed contains every trade made on the stock exchange. Such a high amount of data is expensive, and the processing capabilities and needed infrastructure are compelling.
That’s why most tools don’t use tick-by-tick data.
They aggregate the data to a certain level to save data storage, fees and bandwidth.
Therefore, those needing real-time tick data should ensure the tool delivers it. Real-time data can also be a data feed from one ECN and sub-network like BATS. So if your tool provider advertises with real-time data, make sure they have the same understanding about the data quality that you have.
Delayed market data: Delayed market data is cheaper and typically still include intraday time frames like 1-minute, 5-minute or 15-minute. Still, that data is delayed by a couple of minutes. The delayed data feed can still be provided via the original stock exchanges, but the tool provider pays fewer fees and can offer that data for a lower price to its clients.
End-of-day market data: End-of-day market data only consists of the open, high, low and close price of a day. That data is then aggregated into the weekly, monthly or yearly time frame. In contrast to intraday market data, the end-of-day data is mostly free and often used by free web-based market screeners.
Alexander Voigt • Senior Editor & Founder of DAYTRADINGz
Alexander is a day trader and investor with over 20 years of experience analyzing and trading the financial markets. He wrote for Benzinga and Equities.com and has been quoted on leading financial websites such as Business Insider, Investors.com and Forbes.