IB Scanner

Find instruments with Interactive Brokers' market scanner: the biggest percentage gainers, the most active options, the highest implied volatility, and so on, across stocks, futures and indices, without leaving SOAP2. The scanner asks TWS to run the scan and lists the matching contracts in rank order.

Premium, WhiteLabel and Free Trial editions only (or Developer mode). Freeware and Regular users see the menu item greyed out; hover it for the reason. See the Licensing & Editions guide.

Related:

• SOAP2 Help Guide
• Main toolstrip

Opening the scanner

• SOAP2 must be connected to TWS.
• On the main toolbar, click the IB button, then IB Scanner.
• No Options Analysis window needs to be open. Closing the scanner window hides it, and any scan that is running is cancelled.

Running a scan

1. Instrument — the kind of contract to scan (for example US stocks, futures, indices). The Location and Scan type lists change with this choice.
2. Location — the market or exchange group to scan (for example STK.US.MAJOR).
3. Scan type — what to rank by (for example TOP_PERC_GAIN, the biggest percentage gainers).
4. Stock type — available for stock instruments: all, corporate shares, ADRs, ETFs, REITs or closed-end funds.
5. Rows — how many results to ask for (1 to 50, the most IB returns).
6. Click Run scan. The results appear when IB has sent the whole list.

Keep scan live — normally the scan runs once and is then released (a snapshot). Tick this box to keep it running: IB refreshes the list and the grid updates each time. Cancel scan stops it.

Filters

Optional extra conditions that narrow the scan, for example a minimum price or market capitalisation. Pick a filter name (the drop-down lists the filters IB offers; you can also type one), enter a value, and click Add. Select a row and click Remove to drop it. Filters apply to the next scan you run. A filter IB does not accept for the chosen instrument is reported in the status line.

Reading the results

• Rank / Contract — the position in the scan and the contract found.
• Exchange, Currency, Local symbol, Market — which listing the row refers to.
• Distance, Benchmark, Projection, Legs — IB fills these only for a few scan types (bonds, combos and similar). SOAP2 shows a column only when at least one row has a value, so for most stock scans they are absent.

The scanner tells you which contracts qualify and in what order. It does not return the figure that produced the ranking (the percentage gain, the volume, and so on).

The status line under the grid shows the number of rows, the time they were received, and any informational message from IB.

Where the lists come from

The Instrument, Location, Scan type and Filter lists are not fixed: TWS describes everything it can scan in a parameters document. SOAP2 requests it the first time you open the scanner, saves a copy, and reuses the copy on later openings, so the lists are available even before you connect. Click Reload to request a fresh copy (for example after an IB update adds scan types). The Parameters (XML) tab shows the raw document.

Limitations and messages

• "25 out of 12913 items retrieved" (IB message 165) is informational: IB returned the top rows of a much larger match set. The scan carries on.
• Any other IB error stops the scan and is shown in the status line.
• Scanning needs the market-data permissions of the markets scanned. A scan on a market you are not subscribed to returns an error or no rows.
• One scan runs at a time; running a new scan cancels the previous one.
• IB limits how many scanners can be live at once; this is separate from the market-data lines used by Options Analysis windows.

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