Key takeaways · 6
- A thin float amplifies a move without causing it. ADR tells you whether the amplifier is currently loud:
screen float<40m adr>8 rs>80finds thin-supply names whose daily range is already wide open. adris the canonical fieldadr_pct_20d, the 20-day average daily range as a percentage.adr>8means the average gap between a day's high and low, over the last 20 sessions, runs above 8% of price.- ADR measures realized volatility and magnitude only. It says nothing about direction. A high ADR means big moves both ways, so the same wide range that produces a fast markup produces an equally fast drawdown.
- This is the loud phase. Its opposite is the low-float coil,
screen shares<30m coil>85 rs>80, where the same thin supply has gone quiet and the range has compressed. Same supply condition, opposite range condition. - Wide range plus thin liquidity is the most treacherous combination in the market. Bolt on a floor:
screen float<40m adr>8 rs>80 dollarvol>10mkeeps only the high-ADR names that also trade real money. - On the 2026-07-09 low-float leaders board, thin-float names carried double-digit daily ranges, ELOX near 25%, and the median row already ran around 9%. Wide is normal in this corner, which is exactly why the liquidity floor matters.
The loud phase of a thin float
Think of a thin float as an amplifier. It does not generate the signal. It takes whatever demand shows up and makes the resulting move louder, because there are fewer shares available to absorb the buying before the price has to move. That is the whole mechanic behind low-float names: small supply, big reaction. But an amplifier can be turned up or turned down, and the float count alone does not tell you which. A stock can carry a razor-thin float and still be sitting dead quiet, barely moving from one close to the next.
ADR is the knob position. It tells you how far a name has actually been traveling each day lately, which is a direct read on whether the amplifier is currently loud. Pair a thin float with a wide ADR and you get a specific state: not much supply, and a price that is already swinging hard. That is the loud phase. It is the deliberate opposite of a low-float coil, where the same thin supply has gone silent and the range has wound down tight. One screen looks for stored energy; this one looks for energy already being spent.
What ADR actually measures
In the terminal, adr is an alias for adr_pct_20d: the 20-day average daily range, expressed as a percentage of price. Each session has a range, the distance from that day's high to its low. Average that distance across the last 20 sessions, put it in percentage terms, and you have ADR. So adr>8 keeps only names whose average high-to-low gap, over the past month of trading, runs above 8% of price. There is no price or close field anywhere in the terminal, but ADR itself is already a percentage, so it reads cleanly without one.
Here is the part worth being blunt about. ADR measures realized volatility, and volatility is a magnitude, not a direction. A high ADR tells you a stock has been moving a lot. It does not tell you which way, and it never will. The same 12% average range that lets a name mark up fast on demand is exactly what lets it mark down fast when sellers arrive. A wide ADR is a double-edged number, not a green light. Reading it as bullish because the chart happens to be going up right now is a mistake the field itself does not make.
The magnitudes involved are larger than they sound. Take two illustrative stocks. One averages a 3% daily range; the other averages 12%. The first drifts. Over a full week it covers about as much ground as the second covers before lunch. A name averaging a 12% daily range moves more in a single session than a typical stock moves in a week. That is the amplifier, turned all the way up, and it does not care about your entry.
Reading the command clause by clause
screen float<40m adr>8 rs>80 runs three predicates against the whole universe. Space-separated clauses AND together automatically, so all three apply at once, and screen carries no row cap, unlike leaders, which tops out at 100. The result is every thin-float name currently traveling wide, ranked and honest.
float<40m is the supply clause. Float is a share count, aliased flt, the shares actually free to trade once insider and restricted holdings are set aside. Forty million shares is a thin float by any measure, and the m suffix reads in millions. adr>8 is the range clause, the amplifier reading described above. rs>80 is the relative-strength clause: rs is a percentile, so rs>80 keeps names outperforming at least 80% of the universe. Without it, a wide ADR on its own would surface names falling apart just as readily as names leading, since a stock in freefall posts a very wide daily range too. The RS gate is what tilts the screen toward strength rather than pure chaos.
Three clauses, one screen: a thin share count, a 20-day average daily range already above 8%, and relative strength over 80. ADR reports how far, not which way.
Wide range is why you need the liquidity floor
A wide ADR is the exact condition that makes a thin float dangerous, not just exciting, and the reason is liquidity. Wide range plus thin liquidity is the worst pairing in the market: a name that can lurch 15% on the day, on volume so light that getting in or out moves the price against you before you have finished. The ADR promises motion; it says nothing about whether there is enough turnover to act on that motion.
The 2026-07-09 low-float leaders board makes the point with real numbers. ELOX turned up with an average daily range near 25%, a genuinely loud amplifier, while trading about $332,000 of stock that day. The range was real. The liquidity to trade it was not. So the honest version of this screen adds a floor: screen float<40m adr>8 rs>80 dollarvol>10m. dollarvol is the 50-day average dollar volume, and requiring over $10 million a day strips out the names that swing hard on almost no money. On a wide-range thin-float screen, that floor is not optional polish. It is the clause that keeps the list tradeable.
The coil is the same supply, gone quiet
It is worth holding this screen and its mirror image side by side. screen shares<30m coil>85 rs>80 looks for a low-float coil: thin supply whose daily range has contracted into the tightest slice of its own history. screen float<40m adr>8 rs>80 looks for the opposite range condition on the same kind of supply: a range that is already wide open. The supply clause is nearly the same idea in both. The range clause is inverted. One is a spring compressed; the other is a spring mid-release.
Neither is a signal, and neither is better than the other. They answer different questions about where a thin-float name is in its own rhythm. A coil is quiet and might stay quiet for weeks. A wide ADR is loud and might have already spent most of the move before you noticed it. Reading both against the same universe on the same close is how you tell the two states apart, instead of lumping every low-float name into one bucket labeled volatile.
The range is the read, the trade is yours
Everything here is end-of-day and point-in-time honest. float, adr, and rs are all computed from the same close, so the screen reports a condition that was true at the bell, not a live feed you are meant to chase intraday. A thin float with a wide ADR is a fact about supply and realized range. It is not a forecast, and the wide range that makes it interesting is the same wide range that can go against you fast.
On the 2026-07-09 board, wide was ordinary: the median low-float leader already carried a daily range around 9%, and several ran into the double digits. That tells you adr>8 is a real, populated threshold in this corner of the market, not an exotic one. What it does not tell you is which of those names is worth your risk tonight. That depends on the base, the trend, and the liquidity underneath the range, not on the ADR alone. Open the terminal and run screen float<40m adr>8 rs>80 against tonight's close. It ships with tickerstance Pro at $28 a month, grandfathered, so the price you join at is the price you keep.
Frequently asked questions
What does `screen float<40m adr>8 rs>80` do?
It filters the whole universe to three conditions at once: a float under 40 million shares, a 20-day average daily range above 8%, and relative strength over 80. Together they describe a thin-supply stock whose daily range is already wide open while it is outperforming. screen has no row cap, and space-separated clauses AND together automatically.
What is ADR in the terminal?
adr is the alias for adr_pct_20d, the 20-day average daily range as a percentage of price. It is the average distance from a day's high to its low, over the last 20 sessions, in percentage terms. adr>8 keeps names whose average daily range runs above 8%. ADR measures realized volatility and magnitude only, so it tells you how far a stock has been moving, never which direction.
Is a high ADR bullish?
No. A high ADR means big moves in both directions. The same wide range that produces a fast markup on demand produces an equally fast drawdown when sellers appear. It is a double-edged number, not a buy signal. The rs>80 clause is what tilts the screen toward names that are also leading, but even then the ADR itself reports magnitude, not a verdict.
How is this different from a low-float coil?
They are opposite range conditions on the same kind of thin supply. A low-float coil, screen shares<30m coil>85 rs>80, finds names whose daily range has compressed into a tight band, the quiet phase. screen float<40m adr>8 rs>80 finds names whose range is already wide open, the loud phase. One is a spring compressed; the other is a spring mid-release.
Why should I add `dollarvol>10m` to a high-ADR screen?
Because wide range plus thin liquidity is the most treacherous mix in the market. A name can swing hard while trading almost nothing, so getting in or out moves the price against you. On the 2026-07-09 board, ELOX carried a daily range near 25% while trading about $332,000 a day. screen float<40m adr>8 rs>80 dollarvol>10m adds the 50-day average dollar-volume floor that removes those untradeable names.
Is there a price filter I should use instead of ADR?
No. The terminal has no price or close field at all. ADR is already expressed as a percentage of price, so it reads volatility directly. Size is read through mcap, liquidity through dollarvol, and realized range through adr. A low share price is not a stand-in for any of these.