In today’s fast-paced markets, the ability to find stocks moving fast can make the difference between capitalizing on opportunities and missing them entirely. Benzinga Pro’s Movers feature is a lightweight scanner designed specifically to help traders and investors identify stocks experiencing rapid price movements in real time. Whether you’re looking for gainers surging on positive news or losers presenting short opportunities, this powerful tool streamlines the process of locating stocks with significant momentum.
What Is Benzinga Pro’s Movers Feature?
Benzinga Pro’s Movers is a specialized scanning tool built to help you find stocks moving fast across different trading sessions. Unlike comprehensive scanning platforms that can overwhelm users with hundreds of filters, Movers focuses on simplicity and speed. The tool displays the top 100 stocks based on percentage change, updating every minute with the most recent price data.
The Movers scanner tracks stock movements across three critical trading sessions: pre-market, regular hours, and after-hours. This comprehensive coverage ensures you never miss significant price action, regardless of when it occurs. For active traders who need to spot opportunities quickly, Movers eliminates the noise and delivers only the most relevant moving stocks.
How to Find Stocks Moving Fast with Key Filters
The Movers tool provides several essential filters that help you identify stocks with rapid price movements that match your trading criteria:
Session and Period Selection
You can track moving stocks during specific trading sessions—pre-market, regular hours, or after-hours. The period filter lets you narrow down the timeframe from 5 minutes to year-to-date (YTD), giving you flexibility to find stocks experiencing sharp recent moves or sustained momentum over longer periods.
Gainers and Losers
The tool allows you to filter specifically for gainers or losers, making it easy to identify stocks surging higher or declining rapidly. Many traders set up multiple Movers tools—one for gainers and another for losers—to monitor both sides of the market simultaneously and double their screening results.
Market Cap, Volume, Float, and Price Filters
To find stocks moving fast within your preferred trading universe, Movers offers slider controls or custom value entries for:
- Market Cap: Filter from small-caps to large-caps to match your risk tolerance
- Volume: Identify stocks with sufficient liquidity to support your position size
- Float: Target stocks with specific share structures that can amplify price movements
- Price: Focus on stocks within your preferred price range
Sector Filtering
You can narrow your search to specific sectors, allowing you to find moving stocks in industries you understand best or that are experiencing sector-wide catalysts.
Using Movers to Trade and Invest
Day Trading Strategy
Day traders can use Movers to identify intraday opportunities by setting the period to 5-minute or 15-minute intervals during regular trading hours. By combining this with volume filters, you can find stocks moving fast with the liquidity needed for quick entries and exits. The minute-by-minute updates ensure you’re always viewing fresh data as momentum develops.
Pre-Market Preparation
Setting Movers to pre-market session helps you prepare for the trading day ahead. Stocks moving significantly before the market opens often continue their momentum into regular hours. By identifying these early movers, you can research the catalysts driving price action and position yourself before the broader market reacts.
Swing Trading Applications
Longer-period filters (1-hour, 1-day, or longer) help swing traders find stocks with developing trends. By filtering for stocks with sustained movement over multiple days and strong average volume, you can identify securities beginning new directional moves worth holding for days or weeks.
Risk Management
The Movers tool also helps with portfolio risk management. By monitoring the “losers” filter, you can identify stocks experiencing unusual selling pressure, potentially signaling broader market concerns or sector-specific issues that might impact your holdings.
Find Stocks Moving Fast: Understanding the “Why Is It Moving” Connection
One of Benzinga Pro’s most powerful features is the integration between Movers and the WIIM (Why Is It Moving) alerts. When you spot a stock moving fast on the Movers tool, you can immediately access real-time news and context explaining the catalyst behind the price action. This connection helps you distinguish between moves driven by legitimate news and unsustainable pumps to avoid.
Every pre-market move tells a story, and Benzinga Pro ensures you understand not just that a biotech stock is up 15%, but why it’s moving, whether the volume supports the move, and if it’s news worth following or another pump to avoid.
Movers vs. Scanner: Choosing the Right Tool
While Movers excels at helping you quickly find stocks moving fast, Benzinga Pro also offers a more comprehensive Scanner tool for traders needing additional capabilities:
Use Movers when:
- You need quick identification of the top moving stocks
- Simplicity and speed are priorities
- You’re monitoring general market momentum
- Once-per-minute updates are sufficient
Use Scanner when:
- You need faster refresh rates (real-time)
- You require advanced filtering beyond the basics
- You’re running complex multi-criteria scans
- You want to save custom scan configurations
For most traders looking to identify rapid price movements, Movers provides the perfect balance of functionality and simplicity.
Maximizing Your Movers Tool Setup
To get the most value from Movers and consistently find stocks moving fast, consider these setup tips:
Run Multiple Movers Tools
Create two separate Movers tools—one filtered for gainers and another for losers. This dual setup gives you twice as many results and ensures you’re monitoring opportunities on both sides of the market.
Pair with Details Tool
Benzinga Pro recommends pairing Movers with a Details tool or using the preset “What’s Moving Scanner” configuration. This combination lets you quickly drill down into individual stocks to see real-time news, chart data, and other critical information without leaving your workspace.
Set Appropriate Volume Filters
Setting minimum volume thresholds helps you find stocks moving fast with sufficient liquidity to execute trades without significant slippage. For day trading, look for average volumes above 500K shares; for swing trading, higher thresholds may be appropriate.
Customize by Trading Style
Pre-market traders should default to pre-market session with 5-minute to 1-hour periods. Day traders benefit from regular session with shorter periods. Position traders can use longer periods (1-day to 1-week) to identify emerging trends.
Who Benefits from the Movers Tool?
The ability to find stocks moving fast appeals to various types of market participants:
Active Day Traders use Movers to identify intraday momentum plays with quick profit potential. The tool’s focus on percentage change helps spot stocks breaking out that may continue their moves.
Swing Traders leverage longer period settings to find stocks beginning new trends before they become obvious to the broader market, providing favorable entry points for multi-day holds.
News Traders combine Movers with Benzinga’s real-time newsfeed to trade immediate reactions to breaking news, catching momentum before it fades.
Portfolio Managers monitor Movers to stay aware of unusual activity in their holdings or potential additions, using the tool for market awareness and risk monitoring.
Getting Started with Benzinga Pro Movers
The Movers feature is included in all Benzinga Pro subscriptions, making it accessible whether you’re on the Essential plan or have upgraded for additional features. New users can take advantage of Benzinga Pro’s 14-day trial to test Movers alongside the platform’s other professional-grade tools.
To start using Movers to find stocks moving fast, simply select the Movers tool from your Benzinga Pro dashboard, apply your preferred filters for session, period, market cap, and volume, and watch as the top 100 moving stocks populate based on your criteria. Within minutes, you’ll develop a workflow that helps you consistently identify opportunities matching your trading style.
Conclusion
In markets where speed and information advantages create opportunities, the ability to find stocks moving fast separates successful traders from those who consistently arrive late. Benzinga Pro’s Movers tool delivers a streamlined, focused solution for identifying rapid price movements across all trading sessions. By combining essential filters with minute-by-minute updates and integration with Benzinga’s news ecosystem, Movers gives traders the edge they need to spot opportunities before the crowd.
Whether you’re a day trader hunting for intraday momentum, a swing trader seeking emerging trends, or an investor monitoring market developments, Movers provides the perfect balance of simplicity and power to help you find stocks moving fast and capitalize on opportunities as they develop.
Get access to the Mover tool with a 14-day free trial to Benzinga Pro right here.