How to Use the Stock Hacker on ThinkorSwim Platform - 1 Comment Features of scanners in ThinkOrSwim The ThinkOrSwim trading platform includes an extensive library of ready-made stock scanners.
The stock needs to be at least $40, so that the options will have adequate premium. Code: percentChg (0, 14, 0, close) -10. Image of the scan setup: William percent R scan: This is a scan based on the William%R study used by Price Headley of bigtrends.com. The technical study is a trend indicator.
Finding stock that meet your criteria can be a difficult task. However, with the scan tab on ThinkorSwim this is made far easier. Traders can use the scan ta.
General Parameters Scanner Options in Thinkorswim
Everyone knows that the role of the scanner is to search for stocks according to your criteria. Thinkorswim also has a great opportunity to write a scanner for your trading strategy.
In order to open the stock scanner window, go to TOS, go to the “Scan” tab, then “Stock Hacker” and you will see the settings for scanning stocks.
There shouldn’t be any difficulties with the stock scanner since there is enough information about it on the Internet, which cannot be said about the option scanner for TOS (Option Hacker), so we will focus on it.
How To Use Thinkorswim
The Option Hacker tab, as you may have noticed, is to the right of the Stock Hacker. Option Hacker is good for separating two types of scans and maintaining the same settings when switching between trading and analysis. In Options Hacker, you will still first filter the stock list, as in Stock Hacker. Use all your usual filters: price, volume, average volume, price performance, etc. You can even add your own research filters for basic stocks. It is important to note that research filters only work for stocks.
Option Hacker Thinkorswim
After you narrowed down the stocks to those that interest you, it’s time to filter out the stock options. Here you can add any available option attribute: open interest, delta, price, etc.
Setting Options and Filters in the Thinkorswim Option Hacker Scanner
In the “Option Hacker” tab, select Scan in: All Optionable, Intersect with: none, then Add filter for stock. A stock close minimum set to “10.00”, maximum “200.00”.
Click “Add filter for option”, select “Option open interest”, a minimum of “1,000”, a maximum of “658,116”.
Add “Add study filter”, Study “Average_Volume”. The “50” period simple moving average of the Volume is greater than “1,000,000”. Done!
To save new settings for scanning, click on the icon (looks like 3 horizontal dashes) in the upper right corner and select “Save Scan Query”. After you have given a name to this parameter, it will appear in your list of user scans in the “Personal” section. To load any scan, including this, simply click on the same menu icon and select “Load Scan Query”. Then hover over the Personal section and you will see a menu with the names in alphabetical order. By clicking on the name you need, the specified parameters will automatically load into the scanner window below.
One of the most confusing things about Option Hacker is that Study filters don’t work with options, they only work with stocks. You might think that since the scanner is called an optional hacker, it means that by scanning the closing price or ATR, it will calculate them according to the optional prices, but this is not so. You can only use the built-in option filters to filter options, but use other types of filters for basic stocks.
Trading options is a bit more complicated than stocks, futures, etc. Spreads can be terrible. Option Hacker functions are very useful for the trader and their proper use can really speed up the analysis and complement the trading strategy.