Stock scanning software enables traders to scan the market using either fundamental or technical analysis techniques to find potential trading opportunities.

Scanning software is an essential tool for technical traders. Basically, scanning software lets you scan all possible stocks in the market based on your favourite indicators – which might include Momentum, RSI, Ultimate, Stochastic, CCI’s, OBV and Price Oscillator. It’s then a matter of charting the stocks – possibly combining some fundamental research – and then deciding whether there are any trades worth leaping on.

Most scanning software lets you hone your technical analysts skills by back-testing your favourite indicators against historical market data to arrive at a past performance figure. In other words, had you followed your trading system to the law, you would’ve made 11 per cent a year, for instance. Of course, the past hardly guarantees the future, so always keep this back of mind.