• This sort's for you
• Scanning the lists

There is a lot of data on our next-generation lists. They are long and wide. However, you can narrow them using the show/hide feature. And long doesn't matter, because you can sort by any column, or even multiple columns. Here are some sorting tricks that I use, depending on what I am looking for:

By Return

The default list-sort will rank plays on a list by the Flat Return, unless you have sorted them differently (which your CW cookie will remember).

By Stock Price

If you have a smaller account, or are trying to find a trade for a corner of your account, then sort by stock price. Clicking the Stock Price column header will sort stocks by price, highest on top. Want a more expensive stock? Then hit the column header again and it sill sort  with the highest prices on top. You can accomplish the same thing if you sort by the Net Debit column, which is little more precise (this is the actual net cost).

By Company

If you are looking for a particular company, a sort by the Stock Name column lines them up aphpabetically. It also groups together multiple plays for the same stock. If you want to see the different plays available on a stock for the expiration month, this is the sort for you.

By Strength Measures

I don't often sort by Open Interest, volume or market capitalization. However, I do so when I'm on a list with a lot of (or all) small to medium-cap stocks. Sort by high Open Interest, since if it has that it probably has decent volume and market capitalization.

By MADI or VMI

There isn't time to really go into this here, but for bullish setups I look for:

MADI: Negative 20-day value and 50-day value of -01, 00 or +01. VMI: Either one green bar, one red bar or a sideways bar.

This shows me plays that are testing or have tested support on volume, but where the volume has already tailed off. If the VMI arrow has several green bars, then it is in the middle of of the test of support. Since I pick not wine before its time, I prefer the support test to be over.

By Dividend or Ex-Date

Those looking for fat dividends or for dividend plays will sort by the Div Yield or ExDate columns,

By Historical Volatility

If you want stocks in a certain range of historical volatility, sort by one of the three volatility columns.

By Sector or Industry

I will sometimes sort by sector or industry, once I have gotten a handle on the strongest-performing industries, looking for stocks in those industries. Then I do a secondary sort by price or MADI.

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There are many other approaches to sorting the lists, of course. These are the "money" sorts that make it easier to find likely trades.

The next-gen lists are segmented into column groups of related data. You can show or hide a column group by checking/unchecking the box.

Because the lists, fully expanded, contain so much data, I frequently hide one or more of the list column segments. For example, when I am looking for a bullish trade, I tend to hide the call return columns, because I am looking at the strength measures columns.

The return is not the most important thing to me, to put it mildly. I am looking for good trade setups - see the Approaching the Lists help page.

A few times each month I review industry strength to see which industries are performing well in the market on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis. I do this by opening the Research Page and clicking on the Ind. Rank link at the top of the page. You can sort the different industries by any time period. A stock may not be doing as well as its industry, mind. And I tend to avoid industries that are too "hot" - meaning they've been hot for months and a correction could be due. I make a note of the good ones.

I then sort the lists industry, sometime by sector, to see if I find anything of interest.

I hide column segments I don't need for purposes of the visual scan I'm doing.