Breakout Tracker

Every name has to clear three gates before it's even considered: liquidity (median 20-day dollar volume ≥ $20M), movement (ADR — average daily high-to-low range — of at least 2.5%; a name that doesn't move can't pay for the risk), and a prior move — up 20%+ in a month, 40%+ in three, or 60%+ in six. That run-up is the pole; breakouts work as continuations of an existing move, not as bottom-fishing.

From the most recent swing high (the pivot) the scan measures the consolidation up to the session before the last bar, so the trigger price was already known before the breakout bar printed: how many days it has lasted, how deep the pullback is off the pivot, whether the daily range is contracting and whether volume is drying up versus the bars that built the pole. Tight, shallow, quiet bases resolve better than wide, loud ones. It also requires price to be holding above the 20-day EMA and the 50-day SMA.

A name is triggered when the last session's high clears the pivot on above-average volume; it's setting up while it is still inside the base and within 8% of the trigger. Gap pivots are a separate setup: a beaten-down name that gaps 7%+ on 2.5× normal volume — a catalyst re-rating a stock nobody owned. The score (0–100) blends pole size, base tightness, volume dry-up, range contraction, trend structure, ADR and proximity to the trigger. Stop is the base low; risk is the distance from the current price down to it.

The star rating turns that score into a rarity: 5 stars is the top 1% of every setup this scan has produced, 4 stars the top 5%, 3 stars the top 20%, 2 stars the top half. The cutoffs are fixed score anchors calibrated once against 632 qualifying setups sampled across two years — not a daily ranking. That matters: grading on the day would always crown a best-of-the-week even when the week has nothing worth trading. With fixed anchors a thin tape simply returns no 4- or 5-star names at all. Research only, not a recommendation.