How to Use StockTwits as a Stock Scanner

StockTwits is the Twitter for stock and forex traders. As such, StockTwits users tweet almost exclusively about stock news, their personal fundamental or technical analysis and post stock charts from time to time. The chit chat about [intlink id=”13″ type=”category”]stock trading[/intlink] may be fun, but traders can really benefit by StockTwits, given the fact that tweets are sorted by stock symbols, so that we don’t get lost in the conversations. Depending on the popularity of a stock regarding the number of tweets, there is a horizontal list of trending tickers on top of StockTwits with the most talked about stocks. Tickers’ order changes dramatically on breaking news and during normal trading hours, so if you are scanning the market, looking for the most active stocks in the last 5 or 10 minutes, StockTwits trending tickers list is a great free stock scanner! But wait, there’s more!

I’ve been a StockTwits member (Follow me!) for quite some time – 2 years in fact – since I launched my trading blog. I had noticed the list of trending tickers right from the start, as I suppose every member does upon visiting StockTwits website. It’s right in front of our eyes so it’s difficult to miss that. Clicking on a stock ticker will get you to the stock-related tweets and you may read the latest news about your favorite stock or a popular stock at that moment. Maybe a crucial support level gets traders’ attention, or a couple of popular traders – judging by their followers’ number – share their investing activity and you may try imitating their trading strategy. Actually the tweets can be anything related to the specific stock, as long as the original poster includes the stock symbol in their tweet using the dollar sign in the beginning. That is how StockTwits can sort out a huge bunch of stock tweets.

StockTwits Trending tickers

Great, how about that stock scanner you mentioned in the title? Well, if you think the trending tickers’ list is the only list you can find at StockTwits, guess again. There are a few more sort-of lists that may act as a stock scanner and I found out just… yesterday! At the very top of the StockTwits website there is a search button, four general categories and the sign in/member area. Check out the last category, named “Signals” directing to… social signals! The new page is so-called HeatMap and stocks are sorted by sector and colored as green or red, depending on their price action. The size of each stock’s square is an indicator of social heat, in other words how many users are talking (tweeting) about that specific stock.

StockTwits Heat Map

Therefore, if you have already kept an eye on tech stocks or are interested in investing in the healthcare sector, here you can point out the most popular stocks of that sector to trade. Popularity often means increased volume of shares and we do need liquidity, especially in scalping or day trading. Alright, is that all?

No. There are 4 more lists which you can access by selecting “stocks” at the same page on the left column. I discovered these stock lists yesterday and I will certainly make use of during trading in the future. The lists present the stocks of unusual social volume on StockTwits, either rising or falling. For example, we see that tweets about JCP stock have increased dramatically over the past 7 days, followed by NDAQ and VELT tickers.

Unusual Social volume of StockTwits

Rising volume of tweets points out stocks of important news or prices nearing to crucial price levels. Investors are either talking about news that will have an impact on the price eventually, or special happenings on stock charts like a volume spike or a Fibonacci retracement level. Either way it’s sort-of a free stock scanner! If you happen to be a day trader, don’t forget to click on “1D” for the daily list of unusual social volume on StockTwits!