Session sets - PRE, MKT, AH and auto
Premarket, market hours and after hours each keep their own filter values. Why? Because a stock that looks interesting at seven in the morning, on thin premarket volume, looks very different at eleven, with the whole market trading.
In this video
The 30-second version
The same topic in thirty seconds, made for a phone screen.
Both videos use the desk in paper mode with made-up symbols and prices.
Read the transcript
Three sessions, three filter sets
Premarket, market hours and after hours each keep their own filter values. Why? Because a stock that looks interesting at seven in the morning, on thin premarket volume, looks very different at eleven, with the whole market trading. The same numbers cannot be right for both.
PRE, MKT and AH
PRE, MKT and AH load that session's filters by hand. The lit button shows which set you are looking at, and any change you make in the filters row is saved into that set, and only that set. Pressing one also turns auto off, so the set stays where you put it.
auto follows the clock
With auto ticked, the sets switch themselves with the market clock: to market hours at half past nine, and to after hours at four in the afternoon, New York time. The desk works New York time out from your own computer's clock, so keep that clock, and its time zone, right.
A fresh start after the close
At four o'clock the after-hours session also starts fresh, so first hits and new highs are counted again from zero. A stock that already ran in the morning has to earn its place again after hours, and the after-hours set decides whether it does.
Set it up once
Tune each set once, for the way you trade that session, leave auto ticked, and the scanner changes its rules on time, with nothing for you to remember. The trading day itself is anchored to New York, so a late session stays in one day.
In practice
A common way to use it: a looser premarket set, because volume is thin early, a stricter market-hours set, when everything is trading, and an after-hours set for late news. Whatever your rules are, each one is ready when its session starts.