Docs · Getting started · 6 min read

Market basics

You don’t need a finance degree to use BreakoutScan, but a few words come up on almost every page. Learn these once and the whole app reads like plain English.

The trading day has three sessions

All times are US Eastern. Pre-market and after-hours trading is thinner, so prices can jump further on fewer shares.

Pre-market — 4:00 to 9:30 AM. Early trading, often driven by overnight news.
Regular session — 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM. When most shares change hands.
After hours — 4:00 to 8:00 PM. Earnings reports and late news land here.
Half days — a few days a year (like the day after Thanksgiving) the regular session ends at 1:00 PM. The app’s clock knows them, and every holiday.

Moves are measured from yesterday’s close

When a stock is “up 20%”, that’s against the previous close — the last price of the prior regular session. In after hours, moves are measured from today’s close instead, so you see what happened since the bell.

Volume: how many shares traded

Volume — the number of shares that changed hands. A big move on tiny volume can vanish as fast as it came.
Relative volume (× normal) — today’s volume compared with what’s normal for that stock. “8×” means eight times busier than usual — a sign that something is going on.
Dollar volume — shares × price. $50,000 traded in a stock is a handful of people; $50 million is a crowd.

Size: market cap and float

Market cap — what the whole company is worth at today’s price. Small caps (under about $300 million) move further and faster than giants.
Float — the shares that are actually available to trade (not locked up by insiders). A small float plus a lot of buying can send a price up very quickly — and down just as fast.

Why stocks move: catalysts

A catalyst — an event that can change what a company is worth — trial results, a regulator’s decision, a contract, earnings, a merger. Some are scheduled (you can see them coming on the calendar), some arrive as a press release or a filing. BreakoutScan reads the filings and releases for you and keeps the upcoming ones on one board.

The risk most beginners miss: dilution

Dilution — when a company sells new shares to raise money, every existing share becomes a smaller slice of the company. Small companies that are burning cash often do this right after a big run-up. Warning signs include a short cash runway (how long their cash lasts) and paperwork already filed that lets them sell shares quickly.

Short interest and squeezes

Short interest — shares borrowed and sold by traders betting the price will fall. If the price rises instead, they may have to buy back in a hurry — a short squeeze that can push the price up fast. Heavy short interest is fuel, not a guarantee.

The POC: the day’s busiest price

A volume profile turns the chart sideways: how many shares traded at each price. The longest bar is the point of control.

A volume profile — a sideways bar chart of how many shares traded at each price over a stretch of time. Its longest bar is the POC (point of control) — the price where the most shares changed hands — a level the market often treats as “fair”. Price above the POC means buyers are paying up; price taking the POC back after a dip is a sign buyers are returning. The value area is the band of prices where most of the trading happened.

Halts

Exchanges pause trading in a stock when it moves too far too fast, or when news is pending. A Halted badge on a row means nobody can trade it until the pause ends — usually five minutes for a volatility pause.

Good to know

BreakoutScan is a research tool, not financial advice. It finds what’s moving and why; whether to trade it — and how much to risk — is always your call.