how to check for volatile stocks

Discussion in 'Trading' started by cashclay, Sep 12, 2017.

  1. cashclay

    cashclay

    Hello. I am looking for indicators on my scanner to see which stocks move and has the most volatility. What indicators should i look for?
     
  2. ET180

    ET180

    I watch implied volatility rank. Some stocks (Tesla, FB, NFLX) are more volatile than others. Need a way to filter that out.
     
  3. maxpi

    maxpi

    I used to trade stocks that were very low priced. Most were headed for delisting and at the time I couldn't short issues <$5 but that was where the volatility was.
     
  4. JackRab

    JackRab

    Historical volatility... you could look at implied vol, but then you limit yourself to the stocks that have options. And, some implied vols are high, while they actually don't trade and the spread in options is very wide... making it look like the implied vols are high, but they might not be...

    So I would definitely just look at historical vol....
     
  5. JackRab

    JackRab

    But a lot of that volatility comes from the spread... say a stock at 10 cents, that has a 1 cent spread so it looks very volatile when the bid and then the ask trades... that's 10% move... but actually it's not very tradable intraday since the bid/ask size is massive and won't budge.

    There's plenty of stocks out there with a decent price, that do move... usually in the (bio-)tech or pharma stocks... some energy/mining... etc
     
  6. cashclay

    cashclay

    Im looking at the ATR average true range, and it says 2 or -2 . What does this mean?
     
  7. comagnum

    comagnum

    I use APTR, which is the ATR in percentage. I run two columns of APTR - on is 5 days the other 20. This makes it real easy to see what the current and longer term avg volatility is.
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2017
    bpr likes this.
  8. sss12

    sss12

    @comagnum do you have a minimum ATR you look for to indicate enough potential movement ? I use a ATR of at least 1% of the price, but I came to that pretty arbitrarily. (ATR on the 9 or 14 ave)
    Also, not set in stone. I trade options on TLT which has ATR usually below 1.
     
  9. comagnum

    comagnum

    do you have a minimum ATR you look for to indicate enough potential movement ?

    I use the APTR mainly for quickly sizing up my exit if the trade goes against me. My own theory is equities have more risk than an ETF, looking for range about 2X or more of the SPY to make the trade worth the risk.
     
    sss12 likes this.
  10. sss12

    sss12

    @comagnum "sizing up my exit"....do you use some function of APTR as a stop loss level ?
     
    #10     Sep 13, 2017