A premarket stock screener is a tool that helps you find those premarket movers that fit your strategy. From there, you can do your due diligence and decide whether the stock fits on your watchlist.
Checking what happens before the market opens can lead you to some great trading opportunities. As they say, “the early bird gets the worm.” You can get ahead of other traders and spot the day’s hot stocks before they do.
Just be careful — there isn’t as much liquidity in premarket. It can be hard to exit your position, and price moves can be deceptive. Like I always say, ‘Buy in pre, sell in pre.’ If you hold on too long, your trade could collapse in the revealing light of day.
Premarket is a big part of my trading day. By looking at premarket movers, I know where the action is, and I can hit the ground running when the market opens.
What are the best premarket stock screeners, and how can they help you spot great trades? Let’s dive right in!
What Is a Premarket Stock Screener?
A premarket stock screener is a tool that scans premarket data to find stocks that you want to trade. It scours through thousands of stocks that are active in the premarket and gives you a handful of stocks that fit your trading preferences. This helps you identify which stocks to dive deeper into, so you can make informed trading decisions and maximize your results.
Learn more about the ins and outs of stock screeners in my guide to the basics of stock screeners.
Importance of Using a Premarket Stocks Screener
Using a screener for premarket stocks helps you identify the assets that fit your criteria.
This helps narrow things down so you can do your due diligence and dig up more details on these securities before stock market hours begin, giving you a leg up on the other traders.
Daily Income Trader is another way for you to get a leg up on other traders. It’s a one-stop shop for the best of StocksToTrade loaded with webinars and live sessions from premarket to after-hours.
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Why Do You Need a Premarket Stock Screener?
You need a premarket stock screener because it’s indispensable for trading. It does the heavy lifting when you’re looking for stocks to trade in the premarket, giving you more time to research them before market hours start.
This is how I build my watchlist every day.
Different stock screeners excel at different things. Check out my list of the best screeners for penny stocks and best screeners for OTC stocks. I also have a list of the best overall stock screeners.
Advantages of Premarket Stock Screeners
The primary advantage of a premarket stock screener is that it helps you identify the right stocks to trade according to your strategy during premarket hours. You do this by customizing its screening tools with the criteria that fit your trading strategy.
Plus, a premarket stock screener saves your filters, so you don’t have to rebuild them every day. You can just deploy whichever one best suits your strategy at the time.
How We Evaluated These Best Premarket Stock Screeners
There are lots of stock screeners available to use, but not all of them are right for premarket screening.
Here are two criteria when picking premarket stock screeners:
- Pricing: Most of the best premarket stock screeners are paid apps. Find one that suits your budget while still meeting your trading needs.
- Customizability: Stock screeners live and die by their criteria. The best screener platform should be customizable enough to meet your trading needs.
These aren’t the only criteria you can use when picking screeners. Check out my guide to the best stock screener criteria for additional ways to refine your search.
Best Premarket Stock Screeners for 2024
Here are my picks for the best premarket stock screeners:
- StocksToTrade — Best Overall Premarket Stock Screener
- MarketWatch Stock Screener — Best Web-Based Premarket Stock Screener
- Market Chameleon — Best Stock Screener for Premarket Reports
- Benzinga — Best Premarket Stock Screener for News Monitoring
- Barchart — Best Premarket Stock Screener for Customization
There’s no rule that says you need to pick just one. Try them all and stick with the ones that work best for you!
1. StocksToTrade — Best Overall Premarket Stock Screener
My first premarket stock screener pick is StocksToTrade.
StocksToTrade tops my list because it’s what I use every day. Whenever you see me doing my Premarket Prep sessions, I’m using StocksToTrade.
StocksToTrade is a powerful screener that lets you build scans that identify premarket movers and narrow them down further to determine which stocks deserve your focus the most.
You can build your own scans, or you can use trader-built scans that let you trade like the pros. StocksToTrade also has a powerful news scanner that helps you identify news catalysts and events that might trigger price movements.
Take StocksToTrade for a spin and see how it can change the way you trade. Get a 14-day StocksToTrade trial for $7 now!
2. MarketWatch Stock Screener — Best Web-Based Premarket Stock Screener
My second premarket stock screener pick is MarketWatch.
MarketWatch is a lightweight, web-based stock screener offered alongside MarketWatch’s host of other tools. It doesn’t have as many features as paid screeners, but it lets you filter stocks by various technical and fundamental indicators quickly.
MarketWatch offers a dedicated premarket screener that shows you the leaders and laggards before each trading day. This gives you a good idea of which stocks to pay attention to before the market opens.
3. Market Chameleon — Best Stock Screener for Premarket Reports
My third premarket stock screener pick is Market Chameleon.
A Market Chameleon subscription gives you access to its Pre-Market Movers Report. It provides a ton of real-time information on stocks that are moving in premarket. It’s accessible 24/7 and updates every five minutes to give you a clear picture of market trends and help you make informed trading decisions.
4. Benzinga — Best Premarket Stock Screener for News Monitoring
My fourth premarket stock screener pick is Benzinga.
Benzinga takes real-time news feeds up a notch by letting you filter for specific titles or stock parameters. This means you can cut through the noise and only see the news articles relevant to your trading strategy. You can also use this filter to spot news catalysts for trading opportunities you hadn’t considered.
Benzinga’s news feed also has a squawk box — pretty much an audio news feed. It gives you audio breaking news updates, so you won’t miss important news catalysts when you’re otherwise occupied.
5. Barchart — Best Premarket Stock Screener for Customization
My fifth premarket stock screener pick is Barchart.
Barchart offers customization in spades. You can create your own layouts, ensuring you only see the information you need and nothing else. Being able to organize your desktop helps you focus and minimizes the clutter on the screen.
Barchart also gives you a dedicated premarket scanner that lists the most active stocks, gainers, losers, and gappers before the markets open. You also get a news feed containing articles relevant to those stocks.
Final Thoughts
Premarket stock screeners help you identify stocks to watch before the market opens so you have more time to do your due diligence. Checking out the premarket movers helps you establish a trading plan early in the day, giving you a leg up on other traders.
Here’s an extra stock scanner recommendation for you: millionaire trader Matt Monaco’s Alpha Scanner. A former software engineer, Matt brought those skills back to build a screener based on his profitable trading style.
The Alpha Scanner is filled with live mentoring sessions, trade alerts, and more. Find out if his life’s work can be your trading edge…
