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I'm new to Interactive Brokers (and day trading), I am trying to setup my different charts etc.

How can I have alerts/monitor for any stock that is trading at above average volume - compared to X?

Where X can be last 30 days or yesterday or other benchmark.

I am following an introduction to day trading, and they explain the below:

There are a few techniques for making sure we are trading the right stocks. The most obvious technique is to simply look at the daily volume. If a stock trades an average of 500k shares per day and has already traded 2 million shares, there is above average interest. The other option is to use stock scanning software to scan for stocks with high relative volume. The relative volume for the day is translated into a number, a ratio. ‘1’ is average and ‘2’ being 2x average. Stocks can trade on any multiple of relative volume, so anything above a ‘2’ is interesting.

Is there any way to do this with the IB Trader Workstation?

I had a look at the Mosaic Market Scanner but I'm not sure what the change % is and if it relates to the above? (is this in the right direction, or something completely different..) See here:

enter image description here

Finally I found here https://www.interactivebrokers.co.uk/en/software/tws/usersguidebook/thetradingwindow/high_low_volume.htm that it explains Relative Volume, but I'm not sure how to use this in TWS (or if there is a better/free option).

Relative Volume

Requires a subscription to eSignal market data. Compares today’s volume with volume from the previous trading day. Indicator grows toward the right as today’s volume increases.

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  • $\begingroup$ My experience with IBTW is that it is very limited and really designed for executing a few trades and showing some graphs. I don't know for sure but I think they try to encourage people to use the API and develop custom features on the client side. This is quite sensible from a business point of view. It minimises their code base, relieves them of responsibility and allows customised solutions for customers. $\endgroup$
    – Attack68 ♦
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 15:46
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for that, that's good to know! Great so I'll use IBTW to execute and look elsewhere for my insights, good to hear someone else say it, thanks again $\endgroup$
    – Blundell
    Commented Mar 12, 2018 at 19:12
  • $\begingroup$ Did you ever manage to find a solution to this? I'm unable to find the Hot Contracts metric used below. $\endgroup$
    – Jonesy
    Commented Jan 22, 2021 at 12:59
  • $\begingroup$ I never did, iirc I just used a 3rd party website, but also I didn't take this very far - should really pick it up again! $\endgroup$
    – Blundell
    Commented Jan 24, 2021 at 20:32

1 Answer 1

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You can use in IB market scanner, hot contracts by volume - you have this also in the api.

today'sVolume/avgDailyVolume is highest - for hot contracts by volume

avgDailyVolume is a 30-day exponential moving average of the contract's daily volume.

This is for the entire day, but I don't see something to calculate for 1min, 3 min, or 5 min. Did you find something better? (sorry for the question but I don't have reputation to comment)

Thanks

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