Using Koyfin's Market Mover Feature
Modern traders take today's technology for granted. At one time, trading from home was extremely challenging. So much so, that many successful floor traders found they were unable to transition to trading from home.
Traders on the floor of the exchange, like myself at the Chicago Board of Trade, could hear the trading activity hum along as it ebbed and flowed based on market-moving news. The buzz would turn to a dull roar when news broke and the markets were moving. Standing in the trading pit I could react immediately to that energy—literally get out in front of it. But what about investors from home? How do they get a feel for what is climbing and by how much?
Enter, Koyfin's nifty market movers feature. During normal market hours, the image you see on the top of this screen is a live image, with the little dots constantly moving. By looking for symbols that are moving to the right and higher, you are looking at stocks that are rallying on rising volume—if you were standing in that stock's trading pit you'd feel the buzz happening. The opposite pertains to those dots you see on the bottom right of the screen—those stocks are falling on rising volume.
I've come to scan this heat map on a regular basis to see if anything is freshly breaking out. To show you an example of what it might look like, take a look at the circled symbol in the image above. SO is towards the top right of the image, meaning the stock is rising on rising volume (this is something you want to see). Now let's see what that might look like on a chart.
Notice on the chart you can see the price action, but a daily chart does little to show that the INTRADAY volume is nearly two times its previous ten day average. Just looking at the chart shows that the price is breaking higher, but it is an incomplete picture. Seeing where SO is on the heat map shows a more complete picture.
In addition to spotting potential opportunity, a scan of Koyfin's heat map shows where the bulk of stocks are trading at any given time. Is volume lighter than normal? Are most stocks positive or negative on the day? Looking at the cluster of dots tells you at a glance.
Another neat feature is the ability to put in a sector ETF and quickly see how each stock in that ETF is performing. This can be extremely useful. For example, when I see GDX is beginning to perform in a way that makes me believe the precious metal sector is about to move higher or lower, I will insert GDX into Koyfin's heat map to see if the ETF is primarily moving because of one outsized performer, or if all the stocks in that particular sector are moving in the direction of the ETF.
If you are looking for more tools to help in your trading, it would pay to take a look at Koyfin's many useful, and free, features.