What Can I Do With TickerRisk's Market Scanner and Watchlist?

Updated

TickerRisk's Market Scanner and Watchlist are two ways to work through options risk at scale rather than one ticker at a time. The scanner ranks a broad universe of S&P 500 names by risk level and lets you re-sort that list by volatility and options metrics; the Watchlist lets you save specific tickers and batch-scan them together. Both are aimed at the same job — deciding which underlyings to sell premium on, and which to avoid. Some of the widest coverage (multi-sector scanning and the full S&P 500) is tied to a Pro upgrade, so expect a partial view until you upgrade.

What the Market Scanner does

The scanner covers 500+ tickers across every S&P 500 sector, scored and ranked by risk level. Instead of entering symbols one by one, you get a ranked table you can sort and filter.

Sortable columns include:

Sort by What it tells you
Risk Score Overall risk band for the ticker
Edge The scanner's edge signal
IV % Implied volatility level
IV Rank Where current IV sits versus its own history
Exp. Move Expected move for the expiry window
IV/HV Spread Implied vs. historical volatility gap
Volume Options volume
P/C Vol Put/call volume ratio
Open Interest Options open interest
P/C OI Put/call open interest ratio

The practical use: if you sell premium, you generally want high IV Rank and a wide IV/HV spread, but you also want to know whether a catalyst is inflating that IV for a reason. The scanner surfaces the ranking; the per-ticker report (Risk Score, Catalyst Timeline, earnings, legal, FDA, SEC and IV signals) tells you why a name scored the way it did.

Reading the scanner output

  • Risk Score is scored 0–100 and measures volatility risk — both bullish and bearish catalysts increase uncertainty, so a high score is not a directional call.
  • IV Rank and IV % help you judge whether options are expensive relative to the ticker's own history.
  • Exp. Move gives the market's expected move for the expiry window you selected.
  • P/C Vol and P/C OI show where positioning sits.

A name can rank high on IV Rank and still be a poor candidate if a known catalyst sits inside your expiry window. That is the gap the scanner is designed to close.

What the Watchlist does

The Watchlist is a saved set of tickers you build after scanning. Once tickers are added, you can batch scan them together rather than re-entering symbols each session.

Typical workflow:

  1. Scan the market or search individual tickers.
  2. Add the ones worth tracking to your watchlist.
  3. Run a batch scan across the saved list.
  4. Compare results side by side.

The scanner also supports entering several tickers at once (comma-separated) for a quick comparison table, which is useful before you commit names to the watchlist.

Scanner vs. Watchlist: which to use

Market Scanner Watchlist
Scope 500+ S&P 500 tickers Only tickers you add
Best for Finding candidates you didn't know about Tracking a fixed set you already care about
Sorting Full column set Batch scan of saved names
Access Full S&P 500 / multi-sector tied to Pro Add after scanning

Use the scanner to discover, the watchlist to monitor. They are complementary, not alternatives.

What's gated behind Pro

The page states that Pro unlocks all tickers plus multi-sector scanning and full S&P 500 access. The site is described as free to start, and a pricing page exists at tickerrisk.com/pricing. The exact free-tier limits and Pro price are not specified in the available material, so check the pricing page directly before assuming what your current access covers.

Practical notes

  • Lookback is fixed at 45 days for the risk inputs, and legal & clinical lookforward is the greater of 1 year or your expiry weeks — so the catalyst window scales with the expiry you pick.
  • The scanner's Market Pulse section shows S&P 500 snapshots including Top Gainers, High IV Rank, and Earnings Soon (next 14 days), which is a fast way to seed a watchlist.
  • The "Conservative Wheel" candidates are labeled as examples with estimated premium — confirm in your broker, and treat them as starting points, not recommendations.

If your goal is to sell options with fewer surprises, the scanner answers "what's risky right now across the market," and the watchlist answers "what's risky in the names I already trade."