Options Screener

Barchart for Excel’s Options Screener helps you find the best equity option puts and calls using numerous custom filters. Options information is delayed a minimum of 15 minutes, and is updated at least once every 15-minutes through-out the day. The new day's options data will start populating the screener at approximately 9:05a CT.

Getting Started

Filters

After selecting the Options Screener in the Barchart for Excel ribbon, the Screener dialogue will display with all of the available filters.

Each filter presents different options on which to screen. Many give you the option to enter a greater than or less than "value", or to enter a range of "values":

Last Price => greater than [value] => 10.00
Volume => between [values] => 1,000,000 and 3,000,000

Other filters allow you to identify additional criteria and compare the data to another 'field":

Price Change => 1-Month => greater than [field] => 6-Month Price Change
50-Day Moving Average => less than [field] => Last Price

The New High Date and New Low Date filters allow you to enter a specific date range, or you can perform a screen relative to the current date.

New 5-Day High Date made within the last session (today)
New 52-Week Low Date made within the last 2-weeks

Still other filters ask you to identify a specific value defined in our database:

Index Group => S&P 500
ETF leverage

Once filters are added, you may drag and drop them in the SET FILTERS tab to reorder the way they appear on the RESULTS tab (when using the Filters View). So you can focus on the best options, the screener starts by removing certain puts and calls and applying the below as defaults:

Only Monthly options are shown, with Days to Expiration less than 60.
Only stocks are screened (with the ability to add ETFs and Indices to the mix).
For the US market, the options volume must be greater than or equal to 100, For Canada, volume must be greater than or equal to 5.
For the US market, open interest must be greater than or equal to 500. For Canada, open interest must be greater than or equal to 25.
Moneyness is between -25% to -5% (OTM). Moneyness refers to the relative position of the underlying asset's last price to the strike price. When a call option's Moneyness is negative, the underlying last price is less than the strike price; when positive, the underlying last price is greater than the strike price. When a put option's Moneyness is negative, the underlying last price is greater than the strike price; when positive, the underlying last price is less than the strike price.

Searching For Filters

The Screener lets you either find filters using the different filter categories, or you may search for a filter by entering a keyword in the search box.

Filters with the keyword in their description are displayed, allowing you to choose the one you want. Once you choose a filter, you must still "Add" the filter to the screener.

Markets

The Markets drop down menu allows you to select the overall market to screen on. The Options Screener is only available for the U.S. and Canadian Markets

Depending on the Market selected, different Exchanges can be filtered. For the US market, exchanges support for the Options Screener include AMEX, NYSE, NASDAQ and INDEX. For the Canadian Market, TSX is available.

Selected Columns and Views

Once all filters have been applied, you can now select the data columns to be applied to the results by clicking on the Edit Fields button.

By default the Filter Main view is applied which will display the filters used as data columns after inserting the results. Main View includes the following fields.

Symbol - the underlying equity. Clicking on the symbol will take you to the current quote page.
Price - the delayed stock price for the underlying equity.
Type - Put or Call
Strike - the price at which the underlying security can be bought if the option is exercised.
Moneyness - the relative position of the underlying asset's last price to the strike price. When a call option's Moneyness is negative, the underlying last price is less than the strike price; when positive, the underlying last price is greater than the strike price. When a put option's Moneyness is negative, the underlying last price is greater than the strike price; when positive, the underlying last price is less than the strike price.
Exp Date - the expiration date of the option
DTE - days till expiration
Bid - The highest price that a BUYER is willing to pay, or the price at which you can sell the option.
Midpoint - the midpoint between the bid and ask price.
Ask - The lowest price that a SELLER is willing to receive, or the price at which you can buy the option.
Last Price - the price of the option.
Volume - the total number of options traded in the current day for a contract.
Open Interest - the total number of open option contracts in the market for a particular contract. The more popular the contract is with options traders, the greater the Open Interest. An opening transaction will increase the Open Interest, and a closing transaction will decrease it.
Vol/OI - for the strike price: today's volume / open interest. A higher ratio indicates unusual activity for the option.
Implied Volatility (IV)- the estimated volatility of the option strike over the period of the option.
Last Trade - the date/time of the last trade for the option. Options information is delayed a minimum of 15 minutes, and is updated at least once every 15-minutes through-out the day.

The Dividend and Earnings View includes the following fields:

Dividend - the dividend the equity pays on the Ex-Dividend Date. On the morning of the Dividend Ex-Date, the stock's price is lowered by the amount of the dividend that was just paid.
Dividend Ex-Date - the first day on which the stock trades without the dividend. If you wish to receive the dividend, you must own the stock by the close of market on the day before the Dividend Ex-Date. Many times, a covered call is exercised early so the buyer can own the stock and collect the dividend. This typically happens to ITM options the day before the Dividend Ex-Date.
Earnings Date - The date on which a company is expected to release their next earnings report. The prices are more volatile, which tends to inflate the prices of the near-the-money strikes. During a contract period when there is an earnings report due, the earnings announcement can dramatically shift the range in which the stock has been trading.

The Options View includes the following fields:

Symbol - the underlying equity. Clicking on the symbol will take you to the current quote page.
Price - the delayed stock price for the underlying equity.
Type - Put or Call
Strike - the price at which the underlying security can be bought if the option is exercised.
Exp Date - the expiration date of the option
DTE - days till expiration
Last Price - the price of the option.
Bid - The highest price that a BUYER is willing to pay, or the price at which you can sell the option.
Midpoint - the midpoint between the bid and ask price.
Ask - The lowest price that a SELLER is willing to receive, or the price at which you can buy the option.
Delta - Measures the sensitivity of an option's theoretical value to a change in the price of the underlying asset.
Implied Volatility (IV)- the estimated volatility of the option strike over the period of the option.
Volume - the total number of options traded in the current day for a contract.
Open Interest - the total number of open option contracts in the market for a particular contract. The more popular the contract is with options traders, the greater the Open Interest. An opening transaction will increase the Open Interest, and a closing transaction will decrease it.
Last Trade - the date/time of the last trade for the option. Options information is delayed a minimum of 15 minutes, and is updated at least once every 15-minutes through-out the day.

Save a Screener

After selecting the fields and/or view, you can opt to save this screen by entering a screener name in the 'Title' field in the Parameters.

Once inserted, the saved screener will be available in the Favorites tab.

Delete any individual screeners or all saved screeners using the Clear button located in Favorites.

(Note: any screens saved in Excel will not be available in the Saved Screeners in your Barchart.com account).

Load a Saved Screener

Saved Screeners from a My Barchart account can be accessed in Barchart for Excel through the Load a screener drop down menu.

Once a saved screener is selected, you can insert the screener as is or add additional filtering and save the newly updated screener as a template.

Barchart Screeners

Select a sample screener provided by Barchart. You can modify the filters and save your new screener to your account.

Results

The total number of results from the filters you've added are shown at the top left of the screener.

As you edit, add or remove filters the total number of results will update dynamically. When a screen yields a large quantity of results, you can select the page of results of to be inserted in addition to the number of symbols included using the View and Items options.

To view additional pages of results, click on the screener anchor cell and use the arrows or enter in the page you wish to view. By default, the maximum amount of results inserted per page is 1000 items but you can use the drop down menu to select an lower default.