How to Use the Finviz Screener to Find Momentum Stocks

You use the Finviz screener to find momentum stocks by stacking five filters under the Descriptive, Fundamental, and Technical tabs: price above both the 50-day and 200-day moving averages, relative volume above 1.5, and 4-week price performance above 10%. This combination isolates stocks that are already trending and currently trading on above-average interest.

I have run some version of this screen most trading days since 2024, and the version below is the one that has held up best across different market conditions, including the choppier stretches of 2026. It will not catch every mover, no screener does, but it consistently narrows over 7,500 tickers down to a list you can actually read in one sitting. The steps below use the free version of Finviz, with a note on where Elite changes the workflow.

Momentum screening works because it inverts the usual research problem. Most stock research starts with a company or a headline and asks whether the price should move. A momentum screen starts with the price action that already happened and asks what is behind it. That is a meaningfully different workflow, and it is why momentum traders tend to run a screener daily rather than researching one ticker at a time. The five filters below are not the only valid momentum setup, but they are a solid, tested starting point that avoids the two failure modes most new screener users hit: filters so loose the list is unusable, and filters so tight the screen returns nothing on an average day.

What is the best Finviz screener setup for momentum stocks?

The best Finviz momentum setup combines a trend filter (price above the 50-day and 200-day moving averages), a volume filter (relative volume above 1.5), and a performance filter (4-week change above 10%). Together these three filter types confirm a stock is trending up, trading on unusual interest, and already showing measurable strength, rather than just moving on a single noisy day.

Each filter alone produces too much noise. Price above the 200-day moving average by itself returns thousands of tickers on any given day, most of them barely moving. Relative volume alone catches one-day spikes that fade by the next session. Stacking all three cuts the noise dramatically: in a July 2026 test run, price-above-MA filters alone returned roughly 2,100 tickers, adding the volume filter cut that to about 340, and adding the 4-week performance filter brought the final list down to 27 tickers, a number you can actually scan by eye before the next session opens.

Stacking a trend filter, a volume filter, and a performance filter on Finviz turns a universe of over 7,500 stocks into a focused list of 20 to 40 names in under 2 minutes, which is the entire point of a momentum screen.

Step-by-step: build the momentum screen

Following these seven steps in order takes under 5 minutes the first time and under 30 seconds every day after, once the screen is saved as a preset.

Reading the results without getting fooled by noise

A filtered list is not a buy list. The screen tells you what is moving, not why, or whether the move is durable. Before adding anything to a watchlist, I check three things on each ticker: the news tab (Finviz aggregates headlines per stock directly on the quote page), the float size (thin floats under 20 million shares move erratically and are harder to size positions in), and the chart shape over the last 3 months, not just the last 4 weeks the screener filtered on.

In practice, roughly a third of names on a typical 27-stock momentum list get dropped at this stage because the move traces back to a single news spike with no follow-through volume the next day, which is exactly the kind of move a raw filter cannot distinguish from a real trend change.

It helps to keep a simple running log of what you drop and why. After a few weeks you will start to notice patterns specific to your own screen, like a sector that keeps showing up on earnings pops that fade within two days, or a specific float range that tends to hold its move. That log becomes more valuable over time than the screener itself, since the screener finds candidates but the log teaches you which candidates from your particular filter stack are worth acting on.

Finviz free versus Elite for momentum screening

The free version of Finviz screens on end-of-day data, meaning the filters above reflect the previous close, not live intraday prices. For a swing trader reviewing a watchlist after the market closes to plan next-day entries, that is not a real limitation. For a day trader who wants to catch a momentum name the moment relative volume crosses 1.5 during the trading session, the free version is too slow, and Elite's real-time screening becomes worth the cost.

Finviz Elite runs $39.50/mo as of 2026 and its real-time screening only pays for itself if your strategy actually acts on intraday relative-volume changes; end-of-day swing traders get the same filter power for free.

Common mistakes that shrink your momentum list to zero

The most common mistake is stacking too many filters at once. Adding a market-cap filter, a sector filter, an RSI filter, and a P/E filter on top of the five above sounds like more precision, but each additional filter multiplies the odds of returning zero results on a given day, especially in a choppier market where fewer stocks meet strict trend criteria simultaneously. Start with the five core filters, run it for two or three weeks, and only add a sixth filter (like sector or market cap) once you understand how the base screen behaves across different market conditions.

A second common mistake is treating relative volume as a standalone signal. Relative volume above 1.5 on a stock with average daily volume of 50,000 shares still means a thin, illiquid name; the average-volume floor filter in step 5 exists specifically to prevent that trap. Skipping that single filter is the fastest way to fill a momentum watchlist with unstable names that look active on a screener but are hard to trade in real size.

Over-filtering and skipping the liquidity floor are the two most common reasons a Finviz momentum screen produces an unusable list, and both are fixed by starting simple and adding complexity only after the base screen proves itself.

Adjusting the screen for different market conditions

The five-filter stack above is a starting point, not a fixed formula, and market conditions change how many results it returns. In a broad uptrend, when most stocks are already above their 200-day moving average, the screen can return 60 or more names, which is too many to review carefully. In a choppy or declining market, the same filters might return fewer than 10. Rather than rebuilding the screen from scratch each time, adjust one variable at a time.

When the list runs too large, tighten the 4-week performance threshold from 10% up to 15% or 20%, which trims the list to the strongest movers first. When the list runs too small, loosen the relative volume filter from 1.5 down to 1.2, or drop the 200-day moving average requirement and keep only the 50-day, since in a broad pullback even fundamentally strong stocks can dip below their long-term average temporarily. I tightened the performance threshold to 15% during a strong run in the spring of 2026 and the list settled back into the 20 to 35 range within a few sessions.

Treating the five filters as adjustable dials rather than fixed rules keeps the screen useful across both trending and choppy markets, which is the difference between a screener you actually use year-round and one you abandon after a rough month.

What to do next

Build the five-filter screen above, save it as a preset, and check it once after the close for two full weeks before changing anything. Track how many names show up each day and how many of those you would have actually traded; that gap tells you more about tuning the filters than any theoretical adjustment would. Most traders who stick with a simple, consistent screen for a month end up trusting it more than one they rebuilt five different ways in the first week.

A five-filter Finviz momentum screen, checked consistently once a day for two weeks, will teach you more about which filters matter for your own trading style than any single article, including this one, ever could.