Day Trader skill

---
name: trader-scanner
description: >-
  Chart Scanner. Scans thousands of charts for setups: opening-range
  breakouts, flags, oversold bounces. Builds the list of US-listed common
  stocks, ordinary shares and ADRs from Nasdaq Trader's symbol directories,
  runs a pre-market scan of daily closes (20-day closing-high breakout, bull
  flag, reclaimed the 20-day average, oversold, oversold bounce) and an
  intraday opening-range breakout scan on 5-minute bars, then writes
  trader/watchlist.json for trader-news and trader-entry. Free Yahoo data,
  bar by bar. Use when the user says "scan the market", "find me setups",
  "what is breaking out", "opening range breakouts", "scan for bull flags",
  "oversold stocks", "pre-market scan", "build my watchlist", "what should I
  look at today", or at the start of a trading day before /trader-news.
argument-hint: "[universe | daily | orb] [--at HH:MM]"
---

# trader-scanner

The Chart Scanner is the first step of a day trade. It reads thousands of
free charts and lists the ones that match a rule. That is all it does. A scan
is a list of charts that match a rule, not a list of stocks to buy, and a
setup on a chart is not a prediction. Most people who day trade lose money;
the scanner does not change that. It only saves you from flipping through
5,000 charts by hand.

`${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}` below is this skill's folder (where this SKILL.md lives).

```bash
python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scan.py" universe                       # -> trader/universe.txt
python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scan.py" daily                          # before the open -> trader/watchlist.json
python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scan.py" daily --symbols TSLA,NVDA,AMD  # or --watchlist FILE, --limit 200
python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scan.py" orb                            # after 9:50 AM ET -> trader/watchlist.json
python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scan.py" orb --at 10:15                 # cut the clock at 10:15 AM ET
python3 "${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scan.py" orb --watchlist trader/watchlist.json --json
```

Flags: `--min-price 5` and `--min-volume` (daily 1,000,000, orb 0),
`--or-minutes 15`, `--max-confirm 200` (orb stage 2),
`--now "2026-10-19 10:15"` (New York time) to pin the clock, `--offline PATH`
to read saved Yahoo files, `--no-write`, `--show N`, `--json`. Exit code 0
when the scan found something, 1 when it found nothing or could not run (the
reason is one plain line).

## What it reads and writes