Bid and Ask Stock Alerts

Trader tip

Searching for a bid-ask spread scanner or a level 1 stock screener? In Trade Ideas, this is Streaming Alerts: the alerts watch the inside market, and the filters keep only spreads and sizes you can trade.

Streaming Alerts push each alert the moment it fires, the Bid and Ask filters are checked at that same moment, and Top Lists (Screeners) can sort by them.

Key point

The bid is the best price a buyer is offering, and the ask (or offer) is the best price a seller will take. The Bid and Ask category holds the alerts that fire on changes at the inside market and the filters that measure spread, bid size, ask size and the bid/ask ratio.

Settings

How Trade Ideas finds it: Large Bid Size Alert (LBS): by default, this alert will appear when stock that is trading 1,000,000 shares per day has a bid size of 6,000 shares or greater. Spread Filter (Spread): to find stocks that have a spread between $0.10 to $0.25, add the Spread filter and enter 10.00 in the minimum field and 25.00 in the maximum field.

Find bid and ask activity in real time

Stocks with a large bid size or ask size

Size alerts and size filters. Find stocks with an unusually large bid on Level 1, as it posts. Large Bid Size (LBS) needs 6,000 or 10,000+ shares on the bid, depending on average volume.

Alerts and filters: Large Bid Size Alert (LBS) · Large Ask Size Alert (LAS) · Bid Size Filter (BS) · Ask Size Filter (AS) · Bid / Ask Ratio Filter (BAR)

Crossed and locked markets

The bid at or above the ask. How Trade Ideas finds it: on the Market Crossed Alert (MC) page, by default, the market crossed alert reports when the ask price for a stock is lower than the bid price.

Alerts: Market Crossed Alert (MC) Market Crossed Up Alert (MCU) Market Crossed Down Alert (MCD) Market Locked Alert (ML)

Stocks with tight or wide spreads

Spread filters and the large spread alert. Find stocks with a tight bid-ask spread, or skip wide-spread stocks. The Spread filter measures the gap between bid and ask in pennies (10 = $0.10).

Alerts and filters: Large Spread Alert (LSP) · Spread Filter (Spread) · Distance From Inside Market Filter (DNbbo)

Prints above the offer or below the bid

Buyers paying up and sellers hitting bids. How Trade Ideas finds it: on the Trading Above Alert (TRA) page, by default, the trading above alert appears when someone buys a stock for more than the best offer price.

Alerts: Trading Above Alert (TRA) Trading Below Alert (TRB) Trading Above Specialist Alert (TRAS) Trading Below Specialist Alert (TRBS)

New high ask, new low bid

Quote-based highs and lows, plus the offer stepping down. How Trade Ideas finds it: on the New High Ask Alert (NHA) page, by default, this alert appears any time the ask price goes higher than any time today.

Alerts: New High Ask Alert (NHA) New Low Bid Alert (NLB) New High Ask (filtered) Alert (NHAF) New Low Bid (filtered) Alert (NLBF) New High Bid (filtered) Alert (NHBF) New Low Ask (filtered) Alert (NLAF)

All 23 Bid and Ask alerts and filters

Bid and Ask alerts

New high ask

• New High Ask Alert (NHA): Find stocks whose ask price is making a new high today, as the quote changes. New High Ask (NHA) watches Level 1 quotes, not just prints.

New low bid

• New Low Bid Alert (NLB): Find stocks whose bid price is making a new low today, as the quote changes. New Low Bid (NLB) watches Level 1 quotes, not just prints.

New high ask (filtered)

• New High Ask (filtered) Alert (NHAF): Find stocks whose ask is making a new high today, without alert spam. NHAF shows about one alert per stock per minute unless the move is unusually large.

New low bid (filtered)

• New Low Bid (filtered) Alert (NLBF): Find stocks whose bid is making a new low today, without alert spam. NLBF shows about one alert per stock per minute unless the move is unusually large.

New high bid (filtered)

• New High Bid (filtered) Alert (NHBF): Find stocks whose bid is making a new high today, without alert spam. NHBF shows about one alert per stock per minute unless the move is unusually large.

New low ask (filtered)

• New Low Ask (filtered) Alert (NLAF): Find stocks whose ask is making a new low today, without alert spam. NLAF shows about one alert per stock per minute unless the move is unusually large.

Large bid size

• Large Bid Size Alert (LBS): Find stocks with an unusually large bid on Level 1, as it posts. Large Bid Size (LBS) needs 6,000 or 10,000+ shares on the bid, depending on average volume.

Large ask size

• Large Ask Size Alert (LAS): Find stocks with an unusually large ask on Level 1, as it posts. The Large Ask Size alert (LAS) flags big offers sitting at the inside ask.

Market crossed

• Market Crossed Alert (MC): Find stocks with a crossed market (ask below bid) as it happens. Market Crossed (MC) reports the first cross in each group, so you are not flooded.

Market crossed up

• Market Crossed Up Alert (MCU): Find stocks where the bid just crossed above the ask, as it happens. Market Crossed Up (MCU) reports the first cross in each group to cut noise.

Market crossed down

• Market Crossed Down Alert (MCD): Find stocks where the ask just crossed below the bid, as it happens. Market Crossed Down (MCD) reports the first cross in each group to cut noise.

Market locked

• Market Locked Alert (ML): Find stocks with a locked market (bid equals ask) as it happens. Market Locked (ML) is filtered so repeated locks show as one alert.

Large spread

• Large Spread Alert (LSP): Find NYSE stocks whose bid-ask spread suddenly widens to 50 cents or more. Large Spread (LSP) alerts the first time only, not on every change.

Trading above

• Trading Above Alert (TRA): Find stocks where buyers are paying above the ask, a leading sign of a fast move. Trading Above (TRA) counts repeat prints above the offer as they hit the tape.

Trading below

• Trading Below Alert (TRB): Find stocks where sellers are hitting below the bid, a leading sign of a fast drop. Trading Below (TRB) counts repeat prints under the bid as they hit the tape.

Trading above specialist

• Trading Above Specialist Alert (TRAS): Find NYSE and AMEX stocks printing above the specialist's offer in regular hours. Trading Above Specialist (TRAS) is a subset of Trading Above.

Trading below specialist

• Trading Below Specialist Alert (TRBS): Find NYSE and AMEX stocks printing below the specialist's bid in regular hours. Trading Below Specialist (TRBS) is a subset of Trading Below.

Offer stepping down

Bid and Ask filters

Spread

• Spread Filter (Spread): Find stocks with a tight bid-ask spread, or skip wide-spread stocks. The Spread filter measures the gap between bid and ask in pennies (10 = $0.10).

Bid Size

• Bid Size Filter (BS): Find stocks with a large bid size, where buyers are bidding for big share counts at the best bid. Set a minimum such as 1,000 shares in the Bid Size filter.

Ask Size

• Ask Size Filter (AS): Find stocks with a large or small ask size, the number of shares sellers are offering at the best ask. Set a range such as 200 to 1,000 shares.

Bid / Ask Ratio

• Bid / Ask Ratio Filter (BAR): Find stocks with an unusual bid/ask ratio, where bid size heavily outweighs ask size or the reverse. Set a range such as 0.5 to 2.0 in the filter.

Distance from Inside Market

• Distance From Inside Market Filter (DNbbo): Find prints that trade at or between the bid and offer, and skip bad prints. The filter compares the last print to the NBBO. Enter 0 as the maximum.

Filters to narrow Bid and Ask alerts

• Average Daily Volume (10 day) Filter (Vol): Find stocks with high average daily volume over the last ten days, such as 250,000+ shares a day. Screen out thinly traded stocks before you trade.
• Relative Volume Filter (RV): Find stocks with high relative volume today. A ratio of 1 is normal for this time of day, 2.5 is 2.5x normal. Watch them in real time in Streaming Alerts.
• Volume (1 min) Filter (Vol1): Find stocks with a volume spike in the last 1 minute. 300 means three times the volume expected for 1 minute, based on the 10-day average.
• Price Filter (Price): Find stocks under $5, under $10, or between $5 and $100 that are moving now. The Price filter screens by last print, with no smoothing or averaging.

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Related categories

• Single Print Stock Alerts (5 shared)
• NYSE Listed Stock Alerts (4 shared)
• All alert and filter categories

FAQ