Several factors decide which stocks qualify as crackers. Foremost are price and volume.

A cracker has a price that trades many shares with a moderate stake, thus mustering decent profit potential. Price is also a proxy for retail trading activity, which is an important factor for crackers.

Volume determines velocity: the rate at which share bars flow. Velocity is the primary factor in determining crackers. Volatility is a secondary consideration.

A ballistic is a stock traded at such a high volume that minuting cannot be done: bars fly by on the main minuting chart too fast to time entry. Losing PryPri leaves only gambling, which is not Dragonfly.

In gambling for a small gain, a ballistic delivers an instant result. Even watching a ballistic from the opening bell can cause data drought, making charts unresponsive.

At the other end of the speed spectrum is a sloth, which takes 6 seconds or more for a bar to form on a 1200-share chart. Perennial sloths regularly trade less than 10 million shares daily. Sloths are offal because there are faster candidates that are minuteable.

A stock with an amenable velocity is ambient.

A projectile is an ambient with a strong trend. A missile is a projectile with low volatility: prime prey. A rocket is a volatile projectile. Whereas missiles move smoothly, rockets move erratically. Projectiles are common for a spell after the opening bell and sometimes near the closing bell. Though tempting, rockets are risky.

A cracker is an ambient with good opportunity density. A prize cracker is a firecracker: a missile with high profit potential. A stock which offers meager returns is a crumb.

The cracker barrel is the list of crackers to minute. The cracker barrel is curated. The first step is logging a stock’s activity at the quantum level. Then, to decide the cracker barrel, extensive statistical analysis is done to determine: opportunity density; stepping and trending tendencies, including payouts and treachery; the speed at which a stock must/can be traded; and how often a stock is minuteable, including how often it is trending versus choppy or idling.

Further, there only needs to be as many crackers in the barrel such that there always something to minute, if the market is tradeable at all: that is, not sideways or random. For apt focus, less is more: fewer good choices is better than more mediocre choices. There are surprisingly few stocks that qualify as good crackers.

The Radar study tells you what in the barrel is minuteable now. So, a dozen or so crispy crackers in the barrel with a Radar to point out which ones are worth looking at in the moment is all you need.

The table below are session-average microstructure and geometric statistics for crackers.

trend%: % of the regular session spent quantum trending.

od: opportunity density for minuting, in trends per hour.

x-t: % of trends which extend more than 2 steps.

trend¢: how many cents a trend extends on average.

setp¢: how many cents a step extends on average.

trends: number of quantum trends.

td: trend average duration in seconds.

steps: number of quantum trend steps.

sd: step average duration in seconds.

fail%: % of single steps: single steps that do not go on to form a trend.

rev%: % of single steps that are immediately reversed: a genuine hazard.

stall%: % of single steps that stall but do not reverse.

chop%: % of the regular session spent in chop.

dead%: % of the regular session that has very little price movement.

phase: The 5 columns of phases (ph 1-5) tell when most of the trend ignitions are made during the regular session.

t1: number of quantum trends during the 1st half-hour.

ph 1: % of a stock’s trends that begin in the 1st half-hour (09:30 – 09:59 ET).

ph 2: % of trends that begin in the 2nd half-hour (10:00 – 10:29 ET).

1+2: % of trends that begin in the 1st hour (09:30 – 10:29 ET).

rev12: % of single steps that are immediately reversed in the 1st hour (09:30 – 10:29 ET).

ph 3: % of trends that begin mid-morning (10:30 – 11:59 ET).

ph 4: % of trends that begin from noon ET into mid-afternoon (12:00 – 13:59 ET).

ph 5: % of trends that begin in the last 2 hours (14:00 – 16:00 ET).

%v/p: resistance to price movement: % of a session’s volume that must trade to move price 10%.

velc: velocity: how many cents a stock moves in a minute when stepping: high = quick; low = wait.

SpB: average seconds per 1200-share bars of live tape (not dead or chop).

ok: % of the live tape bars with a good SpB for minuting.

fast: % of the live tape bars that are ballistic.

slow: % of the live tape bars that are sloth.

$: stock price.

DV: daily volume.

st-br: how many 1200-share bars that are steps print per session.

bars: how many 1200-share bars print per session.

sbr%: % of bars that are step bars.

Members see profiles of the crackers in the barrel: what to know to help them minute well.