Software Sunday: I build a small-cap research tool to stop me from manually jumping between 10 different tabs
Happy Software Sunday, everyone.
Over the last couple of years, I have been working on a small-cap stock research project. I build it out of necessity, like most small-cap traders, I kept seeing stocks that run 100%-200% plus, seemingly out of nowhere. I was wasting way too much time manually jumping between scanners, SEC filings, news and charts, just trying to answer one question: "Could I have spotted this setup earlier?"
That sent me down a rabbit hole of tracking momentum, catalysts, volume patters, dilution, and sentiment. The goal wasn't to predict the future, just to build a system that surfaces unusual oppotunities before they become obvious to everyone else.
Instead of just giving a raw list of tickers hitting new highs, the tool takes technicals, fundermentals, sentiment and market activity and runs them through a scoring system to build a ranked daily watchlist.
Because I focus on micro and small-caps, I found that standard scanners miss a lot of nuance, so I specifically build in tracking for dilution and offerings (crucial for avoiding bad setups), short interest, borrow data, and bullish vs bearish volume, alongside news and momentum detection. I also setup push alerts, so i dont have to stare at the screen all day waiting for a setup to trigger.
The StockWatch showing the daily ranked watchlist and scores
Stock's details showing all nesseary data for trading small-caps
One thing I learned the hard way, finding the ticker is only 10% of the battle. THe real work is still validating the setups, managing risks, and actually trading your plan. This is meant to be an idea geneeration tool, not a "buy these signals" service.
To keep myself accountable, I have been posting weekly performance reports on how the flagged stocks actually performed. For example, in a recent week 31 stocks identified by the system massive short-term spikes, but plenty of others completely tanked. No scanner is a magic bullet, and there will always be false positives.
Last weeks, weekly performace report header
I will be hanging out in the comments to answer any questions about how the scoring works, data sources, or the tech stack behind it. I also really want to pick the brains of active traders here:
What data do you wish scanners actually gave you that most dont?
What makes you instantly ignore a stock idea?
What features would genuinely make a research tool fit into your daily workflow?
Appreciate any honest feedback, roasts or suggestions.
If anyone wants to see what I am working on, just ask below and I will share it.
(Research and analytics only. Not Investment advice)