Scanz claims they have built the premiere stock discovery platform for traders. But with this newly evolved subscription stock scanning service’s commanding price premium, everyone has just one question:
Is Scanz worth it?
It’s never been easier to become an investor. With all the tools, trading platforms, apps, and investing sites, all you need is an hour or two to set up an account and start trading. Being a successful trader, however, takes as much or more effort as it always has. Hunches and hot tips aren’t enough to produce the kind of returns you need to go from dabbler to full-time day trader anymore; you need some serious computational help.
You need three things to be a successful trader: information, timing, and luck. There aren’t any tools or services that can increase your luck—other than voodoo, of course—or guarantee timely trades, but information is another story.
There are tons of services, websites, and investing tools out there that promise to keep you up to date on all of the most important data and news stories that might affect your portfolio. Some of these resources are free, browser or app-based services. Others are standalone programs that cost as much as the average phone bill. All services and tools aren’t created equal, and figuring out which one is right for you can be a hard and potentially expensive process.
One of the higher-end stock scanners out there comes to us from Scanz, previously known as EquityFeed. Keep reading to find out more about what Scanz does, how well it does it, and how it stacks up to the competition.
What is Scanz?
Scanz bills itself as “the ‘all in one’ market scanning platform made for day traders and swing traders.” Their standalone software platform combines customizable stock scanners—both “Pro” and “Easy”—a news scanner, a “Breakouts” feature that delivers real-time trading signals, advanced charting features, and access to real-time Level II data.
Features Summary:
- Pro Scanner
- Easy Scanner
- News Scanner
- Breakouts
- Charting
- Level II data
Before we get into the specifics, let’s take a look at Scanz’s pricing.
Scanz Pricing
Scanz offers a 7-day free trial to its service. After that, a membership to Scanz will run you $169/month. Memberships include full coverage of the Nasdaq, NYSE, and AMEX markets, real-time market data, the Pro, Easy, and News scanners, Level 2 quotes, (some) broker integration, ETFs, SPAC’s, Warrants, and Preferred shares, a pre and post-market scanner, and more features that aren’t listed on the page.
You aren’t alone if you think $169/month is an aggressive price point. Reviews and user testimonies almost all list the price point as the main downside to Scanz, and there’s wide agreement that only high-rolling traders with big portfolios and a lot of experience will get enough value out of it to legitimize the price.
But before you write Scanz off or give them your credit card information, let’s break down the features and services they offer.
Scanz Features and Services
Pro Scanner
Scanz lists the Pro Scanner at the top of its Features page, and for good reason. The Pro Scanner, as its name suggests, lets you scan several different stock markets to find trading opportunities and track stock performance in real-time.
The Pro Scanner’s interface is straightforward, flexible, and designed with customization in mind. It’s surprisingly easy to set up scans, and its wide range of options lets you filter for stocks by type, price, liquidity, fundamentals, and technical indicators like moving averages, MACD, and Bollinger bands. It’s a very self-directed experience, and will undoubtedly be more useful to veteran traders than newbies.
Real-Time Scanning
- Scans markets from 4am to 8pm daily
- Scans markets individually or all at once
- Scans based on stock type, ETFs, foreign stocks, preferred shares, etc
- Auto-sorting function for identifying stocks with high volatility, liquidity, etc
Filters
- Price filters by over 50 variables including last price, bid, ask, net change, highs, and lows
- Liquidity filters for scanning by volume, dollar volume, # of trades, and other variables
- Technical filters for scanning based on a library of technical indicators
- Fundamental filters for scanning based on financials, share structure, float, etc
Customizable Scans
- Easy-to-use interface for setting up simple or multi-rule scans
- Unlimited saved scan profiles for easy access to previous scan profiles
Easy Scanner
The Easy Scanner is Scanz’s answer to people who are intimidated by the sheer number of options the Pro Scanner offers. Instead of meticulously setting up scans with extremely specific criteria, the Easy Scanner lets you start scanning for actionable insights within a minute or two.
You obviously can’t get the same kind of granularity with the Easy Scanner as you will with the Pro Scanner, but it still offers an impressive array of filters and features. You can filter by market, stock type, sector, index, ETFs, and other criteria, plus get real-time data on all your watched stocks in one window.
Zero Effort Scanning
- Only takes a minute or two to set up
- Displays real-time data in one window
- Auto-sorting/ranking feature lets you scan for volatility, liquidity, momentum, and other factors with just a couple clicks
Sector Scanner
- Lets you narrow down scan to certain sectors and industries
Short Squeeze Scanner
- Gives you a list of potential short squeeze candidates
Index Scanner
- Focuses specifically on certain indexes
Filters
- Filter by market, including by stock exchange and OTC penny stocks
- Stock type filter lets you narrow down to ETFs, foreign stocks, bankrupt stocks, regular stocks, etc
- ETF scanner for finding top performing ETFs in different sectors
- Customizable filter for scanning by price, volume, market cap, float, etc
Custom Data Columns
- Lets you add custom data columns to your interface that display technicals, fundamentals, short interest, and other quantitative factors
Breakouts
The Breakouts feature is the name Scanz gave to its built-in alert system. It’s a useful feature for day traders who want to be able to act on signals and thresholds in real time, but it takes a good deal of setup to get anything useful out of it. That said, it is a fairly flexible system that offers a lot of options for customization.
Breakouts
- Price alerts
- Block trade alerts
- New high/low alerts
- Volume breakouts triggered when stocks experience above average volume
- Watchlist alerts
- Alert count tracking notifies you when a stock triggers multiple alerts
Customization
- Specify by market
- Specify by stock type
Instant Sorting
- Lets you sort alerts by time, quantity, etc
Custom Filters
- Lets you tailor alerts to your personal investing strategy
News Scanner
Scanz isn’t the only news aggregator out there, nor is it the best. The News Scanner isn’t bad, however, and it’s definitely a nice bonus on top of the other features Scanz offers.
Real-Time News
- Over 60 news providers
- Over 50 financial sites/blogs
Real-Time SEC Filings
- Picks up relevant SEC filings as soon as they’re filed
Customizable Interface
- Sleek, easy-to-parse interface with options for changing everything from form to function
Custom Filters and Keywords
- Keyword customization makes it easier to find specific stories
- Filters let you narrow down news to stories involving penny stocks, certain indices, etc
Montage
The Montage feature is basically a customizable window that lets you squeeze as much pertinent information into one window as possible. Instead of flipping back and forth between open charts, Level 2 data, news, and other information, Montage lets you combine them all into one window. It’s a useful feature, particularly for traders who like having the whole picture in front of them, but it’s nothing too exciting.
Modular Window
- Lets you look at multiple sources and types of data at once
Chart Drawing Tools
- Lets you look at live charts
- Tools for drawing in annotations, trendlines, Fibonacci retracements, moving averages, RSI, and a ton of other indicators.
Integrated Trading
- Lets you connect to your brokerage (if you use TD Ameritrade or Interactive Brokers) and make trades right from the Montage window
Multiple Tabs
Lets you make and click between multiple Montage windows
Level 2
Any old service can display live Level 1 data like bid, ask, and order size data. That’s enough for most investors. Scanz, however, goes another level deeper. Its Level 2 feature gives you real-time access to the data behind the data, letting you track order books, monitor which orders are actually executed, and lets you set up alerts for when a market maker makes significant changes to their orders.
This is the kind of feature that can be either useless or invaluable, depending on how you trade. New traders will have no idea what they’re looking at. Veterans may be able to leverage the insights it provides to time their trades and recognize risks and opportunities before anyone else.
Order Book Summary
- Designed to let you gauge order supply and demand at a glance
- Time and Sales Window
- For tracking which orders are actually executed and when
Market Maker Activity Log
- Scanz’ proprietary Level 2 service that alerts you to big changes in the Level 2 window
Conclusion
Scanz has a lot to offer traders who already know what they’re doing, so their free trial, why not try it?
It’s less of an enabler than an accentuator; you wouldn’t want to use it if you’re just getting started as a trader or if you’re more of a long-term and/or value investor, but for veterans and day traders, Scanz is totally worth it.
