What is a stock watchlist, and why keep two lists?
A single list of 80 symbols is a list nobody can watch. Split it. The universe is the pool you choose from: stocks liquid enough to trade, in sectors you follow, that you review once a week. The daily list, sometimes called the A-list, holds only the names with a reason to move today, such as news, earnings or unusual volume, and a level where your setup would trigger.
The drawing at the top of the page shows the idea with a hypothetical universe of 500 stocks. A price and volume filter leaves 233. Asking for relative volume of at least 2, or earnings within 3 days, leaves 67. Keeping the 5 with the highest relative volume gives today’s list. Every number comes from a rule, which makes the list repeatable and easy to review in your trading journal.
- Trading universe
- The pool of stocks a trader is willing to trade, chosen by fixed rules such as liquidity, price and sector, and reviewed on a schedule, usually weekly.
- Daily watchlist (A-list)
- A short list of three to ten stocks prepared before the session, each with a reason to move and a marked level, so attention goes only to setups that could trigger today.
Which filters should you use to build a watchlist?
Start with the filters that protect you, then the ones that find movement. A stock screener can apply most of them in one pass:
- Liquidity: an average volume floor, such as 1 million shares a day, and a minimum price, such as $5, keep spreads tight and fills predictable.
- Relative volume: RVOL of 2 or more means a stock is trading at least twice its usual volume for the time of day, a sign that something is happening.
- Earnings date: know which names report this week. Some traders want them for the move, others avoid them for the gap risk; either way, mark the date. See earnings season.
- Sector: group names by sector so you can see when a whole group is moving, and avoid holding five versions of the same trade.
- Your setup: the filters that match your own strategy, such as stocks near a 52-week high or pulling back to a moving average.
How do you organise a watchlist in TradingView?
TradingView’s watchlist panel sits on the right of the chart. At the time of writing, these are the tools that matter:
- Separate lists: open the watchlist name dropdown and create a new list, for example one for the universe and one for today. Lists can also be imported from a .txt file of symbols with exchange prefixes.
- Sections: right-click the symbol above which you want a divider and choose Add section. Use sections for jobs, such as A-list, earnings this week and waiting for level.
- Flags: flag a symbol with a colour to mark priority; flagged symbols collect in colour lists you can open from the watchlist menu. The free Basic plan has one flag colour and paid plans seven, according to the pricing page.
- Columns: add or remove metrics such as last price, change % and volume from the three-dot menu, and click a column name to sort.
- Limits: the pricing page lists one watchlist of up to 30 symbols on the free Basic plan, and more lists with up to 1,000 symbols each on paid plans.
What should a pre-market watchlist routine look like?
The routine matters more than the exact times. In the drawing below, a trader in New York time works through six steps between 8:00 and 9:30:
- 8:00: news and the earnings calendar for names in the universe.
- 8:20: scan for gaps and pre-market volume, and add new names with a real catalyst.
- 8:40: mark levels on the daily chart: the prior day’s high and low, the pre-market range and nearby support and resistance.
- 9:00: set alerts at those levels.
- 9:15: cut to the 3 to 5 names with the clearest setup and write the plan for each.
- 9:30: the open. Trade only what is on the list; anything else waits until tomorrow’s review.
How do you set alerts on a watchlist?
Alerts let a watchlist watch itself. The simplest way is a price alert at each marked level, so you only open a chart when price arrives; see TradingView alerts for the steps and trigger options. TradingView also offers watchlist alerts: choose Add alert on the list from the watchlist menu, or pick the list in the Symbols field of the Create alert dialog, and one condition is checked on every symbol separately, including symbols you add later. At the time of writing, the pricing page lists 2 active watchlist alerts on Premium and 15 on Ultimate.
Tools that mark a level before price gets there fit this approach. Our invite-only UpTickFlow indicator draws harmonic buy zones before price arrives, so a name in the waiting section can carry an alert on its zone. A zone is a place to watch, not a reason to buy on its own; your trading plan still decides the entry, stop and size.
When should you remove a stock from your watchlist?
A watchlist that only grows stops being useful. Write pruning rules into your plan and apply them during the weekly review. In the drawing below, three rules decide for six hypothetical symbols:
- Volume rule: if average volume falls below the floor, 1 million shares in the example, the stock leaves the list. XYZ3 at 0.6 million goes.
- Time rule: if a stock has sat on the list for 10 sessions or more without reaching its level, the idea has gone stale. XYZ2, at 12 sessions, goes.
- Setup rule: once a setup has triggered, move the stock to your journal; if price breaks the level against you, the setup is gone. XYZ4 moves to the journal and XYZ6 goes.
- What remains, XYZ1 and XYZ5, stays, and the open slots go to new names from the universe, never to tips you have not checked. Waiting for those few names is part of patience in trading.