How to use the scanner

The scanner finds stocks pushing through a resistance line, a price level where the stock was turned back at least twice before. When a stock finally closes above that line, buyers have won the level, and it often keeps going. You get the setups; you decide what to do with them.

The three stages Reading the chart Reading a card Daily vs weekly A simple routine What history shows Sectors Ticker Check Glossary

The three stages

Every setup moves through the same three stages. Tap one of the three step cards at the top of the scanner to see the setups at that stage.

1 · WatchPrice is just below the line. Nothing has happened yet. Worth watching, not acting on.

2 · Broke outPrice closed above the line. It needs one more candle to close higher to prove it wasn't a fluke.

3 · ConfirmedThat follow-through happened. This is the stage that held up best in testing.

A setup leaves the list when price falls back below the line (it shows under Invalidated, with the reason) or runs well past it.

Reading the chart

Red line	The resistance line (the "neckline"), drawn through the two earlier highs where the stock was turned back, and carried on to today so you can see where it sits now.
Yellow line	200-period average: the long-term trend. Price above it is a healthy backdrop.
Candles	Green: the price closed higher than it opened. Red: it closed lower.
Green band	A support zone: recent candles where sellers pushed price down and buyers pushed it back up.
Red band	A resistance zone: the opposite. Buyers pushed price up and sellers pushed it back down.
Bars at the bottom	Volume (shares traded), with a grey line for the recent average. Bigger bars mean more conviction.

Each candle is one day on a daily chart and one week on a weekly chart.

Reading a card

Level to beat	On a Watch card: the price a close above which counts as breaking out. The % next to it is how far away price is.
Confirms above	On a Broke out card: the close needed to confirm the breakout.
$ value	Company size (market value). Bigger companies tend to move more smoothly.
High vol	The breakout came on unusually heavy volume.
Focus	Your own shortlist. Tap the star on any card to add it, or add a ticker in the Focus list; tick “Show only these stocks” there to see only your list. Your list is private to you.
Date	When the setup last changed.
The sentence	What the card means in plain English, worked out from its own numbers: how far price is from the line and what close would move it to the next stage.

Tap a card for a bigger chart and a short company summary.

Daily vs weekly

Daily (the default view) finds shorter swings that play out over days to a few weeks. Weekly finds bigger, slower moves that play out over weeks to months. Weekly setups are checked against four trend rules before they appear: price above its 200-day average, up over the last 6 months, beating the market over the last 3 months, and not a real-estate stock.

A simple routine

After the market closes, open Breakouts and look at Confirmed first.
Narrow the list with the filter bar if you like: Index (for example only S&P 500 or Nasdaq 100 stocks), size, industry or upcoming earnings.
Open the chart. Is the red line clean, touched clearly at least twice? Is price above the yellow line?
Before you buy anything, decide where you're wrong. A common choice is a little below the resistance line: if price closes back under it, the breakout failed.
Size the position so that being wrong costs a small, fixed slice of your account (many traders use 0.5–1%).
Add the ones you like to Focus and check them each day. Use Ticker Check for anything you already own.

What history shows

We tested the same rules on five years of past data (Nov 2021 to Oct 2026, US stocks). Three things stood out:

Most breakouts don't work. About 4 in 10 weekly trades made money. The results came from winners being bigger than losers, so cutting losers matters.
Waiting for Confirmed beat buying at Broke out, and weekly setups that passed the trend rules did clearly better than those that didn't (about 1,800 trades, averaging +0.4 times the amount risked, against +0.2 without the rules).
Stops on weekly charts are wide (often 15–20% below the entry), so position size matters more than the entry price.

These are results on past data, with fixed rules and no costs or slippage. They are not a promise of future results, and the scanner is not advice to buy or sell. See the Disclaimer.

Sectors

The Sectors tab shows which sectors are getting ready. Each sector gets points from its setups: 3 for each stock that Broke out, 3 for each stock on Watch within 3% of its line, 1 for one further away, and 1 for each Confirmed (it has already moved). The points are counted per 100 stocks in the sector, so a big sector doesn't come first just for being big, and a sector needs at least 3 setups to be ranked. Tap a sector to see its stocks, with the same cards as Breakout. Switch between Daily and Weekly at the top.

Ticker Check

Type any ticker for an instant read on daily and weekly charts: is the short-term trend up, is the long-term trend healthy, where's the nearest level to beat, and are buyers stepping in. Use it to check a stock you own or one you heard about. You get 30 scans a day.

Glossary

Resistance line	A line through two or more earlier highs where the stock was turned back. Also called the neckline.
Breakout	A close above the resistance line.
Confirmation	A later close above the high of the breakout candle, showing the move held.
Invalidated	A setup that stopped qualifying, for example because price fell back well below the line. Shown with the reason.
Candle	One day of trading on a daily chart, one week on a weekly chart: where price opened, closed, and its high and low.
Close	The last price of the day (or week). The scanner only uses closes, so a move that fades before the close doesn't count.
Daily / Weekly	Which chart a setup was found on. Weekly setups are bigger and slower.
Moving average	The average closing price over the last N candles, drawn as a line. Charts show the 200; the 8/21 EMA filter checks whether the 8 is above the 21 (short-term trend up).
8/21 EMA filter	Shows only setups whose 8-candle average is above (trend up) or below (trend down) their 21-candle average, on the setup's own chart (daily or weekly).
200 EMA	The 200-candle moving average: the long-term trend. Price above it is a healthy backdrop.
Volume	How many shares traded. A breakout on heavy volume shows more conviction.
Market cap	The company's total stock market value.
Focus list	Your private shortlist of stocks. Tap the star on a card to add one.
Data as of	The market close the setups are based on. The scanner updates once a day after the close.

Open the scanner