Concepts

Liquidity

How easily a stock can be bought or sold without moving its price — high-volume, tight-spread names are the most liquid.

ask (sellers)bid (buyers)tight spread = liquid
Schematic of a liquidity — illustrative geometry, not a live price chart.

Liquidity is a function of volume and the bid-ask spread. A liquid stock trades millions of shares a day with a penny spread, so you get filled near the quoted price; an illiquid one can gap on small orders and is costly to enter and exit.

Liquidity matters for risk: a thin, low-float name can move violently and trap you in a position you can't exit at a fair price. Most traders set a minimum average-volume and price filter to stay in tradable names.

On StockSetups

StockSetups' admin filters and screener let you set minimum average-volume and price thresholds, and the board sorts the universe most-liquid-first so you focus on names you can actually trade.

Related terms

See liquidity on tonight's board.

StockSetups scans the whole US market after the close and draws the patterns, levels and indicators on every chart.

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