Let me throw you into a nightmare you may have as a trader. You wake up, you've got your coffee, you open your trading platform, and suddenly it feels like you're standing in the middle of Times Square with a thousand blinking lights screaming at you.
Too many stock symbols, too much noise, and your brain's going. Okay, which of these do I trade today? That's the trap that most traders fall into. They react to the noise instead of narrowing in on the few stocks that actually matter.
But here's a secret. You don't need to scan 5,000 NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange stocks manually or burn yourself out scrolling through social media.
The Power of AI
You've got a powerful new tool sitting right there: AI. Today, I'm going to give you my top five prompts that you can plug directly into AI, and it'll spit out a tight, short list of trade ideas for the day.
These aren't gimmicks. These are exact kinds of filters I've used for decades to find setups. Just so happens now, it's so much faster and easier with a digital assistant that never sleeps.
Before we dive in, a quick disclaimer: these AI models, like ChatGPT, Grok, and Anthropic. They can't predict the future. I don't care what anybody says.
It's not whispering tomorrow's stock price in your ear. If it could do that, trust me, I'd be on my mega yacht somewhere, not here making YouTube videos.
What AI can do is act like your intern. You’re the boss. You make the decisions. You pull the trigger. AI just speeds up the research and organizes the chaos. Let's treat it like the digital trading assistant it's designed to be, and let's get into these prompts.
Prompt #1
Prompt number one is all about the pre-market action. Here's the prompt:
“Give me today's top pre-market movers on the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange with the biggest percentage gains and the biggest percentage losers, plus the volume of each.”
Why does this work? Because pre-market tells you the story before the story.
If a stock is gapping up 10% before the bell, there's usually a reason. News, earnings, an upgrade, maybe even a rumor. And where there's smoke, there's usually a fire. These stocks often carry momentum into the regular session.
Now, a quick tip: don't just look at the percentage move. Make sure that the stock has a volume.
A stock up 12% on 3000 shares is meaningless. A stock up 12% on 2 million shares, that's a crowd gathering. That's your clue.
Think of it like walking into a casino. You want to sit at the table where the crowd is loudest, not the one with one or two people yawning.
Prompt #2
Prompt number two digs into the big money footprints. Here it is:
“List today's unusual options activity with the ticker symbol, the volume, and whether it's mostly calls or mostly puts.”
Options traders, especially institutional ones, aren't guessing. They're placing six and seven-figure bets.
If you can see where the call volume spikes or where the put volumes are stacking up, you can get a sneak peek into where the smart money thinks the move is headed.
It is like standing behind someone at the track and noticing they just dropped a hundred thousand dollars on horse number seven. Are they always right? No. But are you going to go at least check out horse number seven? Of course you are.
When AI organizes unusual options flow for you, it's basically saying: “Hey boss, here's where the sharks are circling.” Then you decide whether you want to swim with them.
Prompt #3
Prompt number three is a classic, but it's super powerful, and it's so important to know this. Here it is:
“What stocks have earnings today or tomorrow with expected volatility and the analyst sentiment?”
Earnings are catalysts. It doesn't matter if you trade momentum or you trade breakouts like we do at EZBreakouts, or you even trade news. Earnings can give you the volatility you need, and here's why this prompt works.
You're not just asking who has earnings. You're also laying in the volatility expectations and the sentiment.
Real quick, if this is already sparking ideas for you, download The Ultimate Guide to Trading Stocks here. In this book, I describe what I consider to be the easiest methodology for day trading stocks.
Prompt #4
Alright, prompt number four is a trader shortcut. Here it is:
“Show me the strongest and weakest sectors today. And the top three stocks in each.”
If you know the strongest sector, you can ride the leaders. If you know the weakest sector, you can short the laggards.
This is a trading equivalent of surfing. Don't try to create your own wave. Just grab your board and ride the biggest one that's already forming.
AI hands you the map. The strongest sector, the weakest sector, and the top stock symbols are inside. Boom! That's your trade direction in minutes.
Prompt 5
Prompt number five, and here's the heavy hitter. This is the one that makes all the difference. Here it is:
“Give me a list of the US stocks with high relative volume that are breaking out of key technical levels like resistance, support, or trend lines.”
Now, this is where traders usually burn hours manually scanning charts, including me.
When you combine relative volume with technical breakouts, you're easily filtering for stocks that not only look good on the chart, but also have the gas in the tank to actually move.
This is how you separate the fake outs from the true momentum plays.
Here's a tip: Once AI gives you that list, don't just trust it blindly. Pull up the individual charts, confirm the setups, and confirm your chart patterns.
This is your edge. Using AI to shrink the ocean into a pond and then fishing that pond is the secret. Don't leave it all to AI; you're going to get burned.
Final Thoughts
Here's a quick recap:
- Prompt for pre-market movers. That’s where the action starts.
- Prompt for unusual options flow. You want to follow what the elephants are doing, and many times that shows up in the options.
- Prompt for an earnings filter. You want to know what stocks have earnings coming out because that's where the fireworks and the catalysts are.
- Prompt for which sectors are in play. You want to ride the tide.
- Prompt breakout candidates with volume. That is your pro-level secret.
Those are the Top 5 AI playbook prompts to generate trade ideas every single day. Super-fast, organized, and laser-focused.
I can tell you after 38 years on Wall Street, the traders who last aren't the ones chasing every shiny object. They're not chasing the news.
They're the ones with a system, a repeatable process for narrowing down the noise, blocking out the noise, and filtering down into opportunities.
AI just made that process 100 times easier.
Don’t forget to download The Ultimate Guide to Trading Stocks here if you really want to learn a method for trading stocks that blocks out all the noise and helps you succeed with the least number of variables. You won't be sorry.
May the trend be with you.
