Smart Scans, Safer Trades

We break down a practical stock scanning process that finds strong, tradable momentum while avoiding crowded traps. Using ASTS as a live case, we show how filters, levels, and discipline shape better entries, exits, and risk.

• why a screener narrows noise to opportunity
• core filters for market cap, volume, and percentage change
• interpreting momentum with volume confirmation
• crowded trade warning signs and how to avoid them
• ASTS case study from base to breakout and scale-out
• planning exits, stops, and contingencies
• emotional control over FOMO, greed, and relief
• frameworks for refining scans and reviewing results

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Chapters

• 0:02 What A Screener Does
• 0:51 Building Practical Filters
• 1:32 Reading Results And Momentum
• 2:11 Crowded Trades And Risks
• 3:07 Fine-Tuning To Avoid Crowds
• 3:39 Custom Criteria And Examples
• 5:18 The ASTS Trade Walkthrough
• 6:56 Managing Exits And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

We'll use actual market data and a detailed ASTS trade for context. Today we're going to get in how to scan for stocks and avoid crowded trades by Vajama Trader. Give this a like and subscribe, and let's get into it. Why use a stock screener? A stock screener allows you to effectively filter thousands of stocks down to a manageable list based on your criteria chosen. This approach helps you focus only on actionable opportunities, saving time and improving your decision-making process. A screen is your friend for finding the right stocks quickly. Instead of sifting through endless tickers, you set your criteria and let the tool do the heavy lifting. Setting up your filters. To find the best candidates or trade candidates, such as screener to the United States market or your home country. Select the market cap range from 300 million to 14 billion. Filter for stocks with at least a 3.38 price change to ensure liquidity by requiring at least a minimum of 1.5 million shares traded. This setup narrows your list to the most promising and tradable stocks. These filters are designed to capture the stocks with significant movement and enough liquidity to enter and exit trades easily. Interpreting Screener Results Review the results of each stock symbol, name, current price, percentage change, and trading volume. Focus on stocks showing strong price moves with robust volume, as these are often where the momentum and opportunity align. For example, ASTS scans out with a 10.6% gain in healthy volume. You want to see stocks with meaningful price changes and enough volume to support active trading. ASTS is a great example from this scan. What is a crowded trade? A crowded trade happens when too many traders pile into the same stock, creating high volatility and increasing the risk of sharp reversals. Warning signs include extreme percentage changes, unusual high volume, and sudden price spikes. In this scan, ride RIDE's 155% surge as a classic example of a crowded trade, high risk, while ASTS 10.6% move is strong but less likely to be overrun by speculative excess. Crowded trades can be tempting, but they often end badly, so look for strong, not extreme moves to reduce your risk. How to avoid crowded trades. To avoid crowded trades, adjust your screener to exclude stocks with the most extreme percentage changes and volumes. Focus on the names with steady and sustainable price action and check after hours and pre-market action for signs of exhaustion or fading momentum. It's better to catch a trend early or in the middle rather than chasing the top of a crowded move. Use your filters and watch for signs that run that the run is over or losing steam. So why do we scan for stocks? Well we scan for stocks so that we can find new investments or different types of investments to trade in every day or whenever we're out of a play. So depending on your platform, you can change your criteria of stocks that you want to search by different different ways. Like you can search by you know put RSI in there for criteria, EMA, MA, cash flow from operations, return on equity, EPS. But what I like to do is scan for stocks that are in my region, the US, uh market cap, volume, and percentage. For the market cap, I like to trade stocks that are between 300 million and 14 billion. Volume, I like to look at stocks that trade between 1.5 million to 20 million in a day. Percentage, I'm looking at stocks that are trading between 3.5% and 100%. So if you change any one of these criteria, obviously you're gonna get a different list. But based on the criteria that I put in, this is the list that I came up with. And I was able to come up with a basket of different stocks. Like APVO, 9 Energy, um USP, uh UP, uh Upstart, UPST, AAOI, quite a few energy plays. But what also came out of this list was ASTS. Now ASTS is a big, well, I won't say a big player, but a player in the space space. So ASTS traded about 44, well trading at 44.35 with about a 10.5% gain and strong volume. This combination suggests a healthy vol healthy momentum without risk associated with crowded or extended trades. Now, my trade I took back in March. The uh ideal entry for that for me was$2.20 after months of sideways action and consolidation. The breakout above$1680 to$16.89 resistance brought some excitement and validation for me. Although the temptation was to sell a 22 with a tenfold gain, and even though it was strong, and holding it through the volatile range of 22 to 32 tested my discipline and patience. But the parabolic run of 4471 was a mix of greed and relief, especially when it was when I sold half of it at 44.35 just before the top. Now I think that this stock is probably gonna reject at 47 and probably fade back down to 39 or 35. So I plan to sell the rest of my position in the next run up Friday, and if it fails to hold 36 for support, then I'll be looking to buy puts to probably try to sell them in about the 1850 area. Managing trades best practices. Active trade management means monitoring for volume spikes and reversals, using trailing stop losses to lock in gains, and being ready to exit if a trade becomes crowded or the trend breaks. The most successful traders use screeners for efficient stock selection, avoid chasing extremes, always set stop losses, and have a clear exit plan. Emotional controls is just as important as technical skill, managing FOMO, fear of missing out, anxiety, greed, and relief is key to long term success. What are your biggest challenges to scanning or trade management? Trade management and emotional discipline are what separate consistent winners from the rest. Thanks again for watching.