Qullamaggie AI stock scanner
Every night after the market closes, ThetaPal's AI Market Scout runs a scan modeled on the most famous breakout playbook in modern swing trading: the Qullamaggie setup. Before we show you exactly what the scanner looks for, it's worth telling the story of the trader behind it, because the story is half the reason this strategy has become the default template for momentum traders everywhere.
Who is Qullamaggie?
Qullamaggie is the screen name of Kristjan Kullamägi, a Swedish swing trader with Estonian roots who has become something of a folk hero in the trading world. His origin story is refreshingly unglamorous: he started around 2011 with a few thousand dollars, and by his own account blew up multiple small accounts in his first years while trying almost every style under the sun.
Then he found momentum. Trading a small handful of repeatable setups, he compounded relentlessly, and has documented growing roughly $5,000 in starting capital into a nine-figure fortune, sharing broker statements along the way. He did much of it in public, streaming his actual trading on Twitch for years while hundreds of thousands of people watched him place real trades with real money.
That transparency is why he matters. Most traders with a fraction of his results sell courses. Kullamägi gave the entire playbook away for free: the setups, the scan settings, the position sizing math, the psychology. He has also said he plans to give the majority of his fortune to charity. Whether or not you trade his style, his core message stuck with a generation of traders: you don't need fifty indicators, you need one or two setups that you know so well you could trade them in your sleep.
The setup: three acts, one chart
Kullamägi trades a few variations (breakouts, episodic pivots, and parabolic shorts), but the flag breakout is the flagship. It always unfolds in three acts:
- The move. A stock rips 30 to 100 percent or more in days to weeks. This is the stock announcing it has institutional demand behind it. You are not trying to catch this move, you are watching it happen.
- The pullback. The stock digests its gains for two weeks to two months. Crucially, the pullback is orderly: higher lows, a tightening range, and volume that dries up as sellers lose interest. The whole structure "surfs" the rising 10-day and 20-day moving averages.
- The breakout. One day the range expands and the stock clears the top of the consolidation on a surge of volume. That range expansion is the entry signal.
The exact scan criteria
The beauty of this setup is that most of it can be reduced to numbers. These are the community-verified filters that define the universe, roughly the top 1 to 2 percent of momentum stocks in the market at any given time:
| Filter | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Momentum (any one qualifies) | +25% in 1 month, or +50% in 3 months, or +150% in 6 months |
| Volatility | Average daily range (ADR) above 4 to 5 percent |
| Liquidity | $3M+ average daily dollar volume as a hard floor (he prefers far higher) |
| Trend | Moving averages stacked: 50 SMA above 150 SMA above 200 SMA, with price above the 200 |
Why these numbers? The momentum legs prove the stock can actually move. The ADR filter throws out sleepy large caps that grind 1 percent a day, because a stock that cannot move cannot pay you. The dollar volume floor keeps you out of untradeable illiquid names. And the stacked moving averages confirm the uptrend is established on every timeframe that matters.
Entry, stop, and exit: the whole trade in four sentences
- Entry: buy as the stock clears its opening range highs on breakout day.
- Stop: the low of the breakout day, and never wider than 1 ADR.
- First sell: take a third to half off into strength after 3 to 5 days, then move the stop on the rest to break-even.
- Trail: hold the remainder until the first daily close below the 10-day or 20-day moving average, depending on how fast the stock moves.
That last rule does the heavy lifting. By trailing the 10 or 20-day moving average instead of a fixed target, the winners get room to turn into monsters while the break-even stop makes the trade nearly free after the first partial sell.
A sample breakout, by the numbers
Here's what a textbook trade looks like. Say a mid-cap ripped from $20 to $32 over six weeks, a 60 percent move that qualifies on the 3-month leg. Its ADR is 5.5 percent, dollar volume is well past the floor, and the moving averages are stacked. It then pulls back for four weeks: $32, a dip to $27.50, then a series of higher lows at $28.40, $29.10, $29.60 while volume shrinks week after week. The whole flag rides just above the rising 20-day line.
On breakout day the stock opens at $29.80 and takes out its opening range high at $30.10 on triple its average volume. Entry: $30.10. Low of day: $29.20, so the stop is 90 cents, about 3 percent, comfortably inside 1 ADR. Four days later it's at $33.60, up nearly 4 times the initial risk, so you sell half and move the stop to break-even. The rest trails the 20-day moving average for weeks and finally closes below it at $36.40, roughly 7 times the initial risk on the back half. A single clean setup, four mechanical decisions, and at no point after day four could the trade have turned into a loss.
How ThetaPal's AI Market Scout hunts this setup every night
Scanning for this by hand means flipping through hundreds of charts a night. That's the part we automated. Every evening after the close, AI Market Scout runs a dedicated Qullamaggie scan across 1,000+ stocks in two stages:
- The deterministic funnel. Plain, auditable code applies the hard filters exactly as written above: the $3M dollar volume floor, the 4 percent ADR minimum, the three momentum legs, the stacked moving average trend template, and a setup gate that requires the stock to still be within striking distance of its recent highs and holding its 50-day line. No AI involved, so a stock either passes the numbers or it doesn't. Survivors are ranked by momentum strength and capped to the top 20.
- The AI grade. The fuzzy part, judging the quality of the consolidation, is where the AI comes in. It examines each surviving candidate for the things a human eye looks for: higher lows, a tightening range, volume drying up, price surfing the 10 and 20-day moving averages. Only genuine setups make the cut.
The findings land in your inbox before the open, each tagged with a signal and the exact numbers behind it: the momentum leg it qualified on, its ADR, its distance from the pivot. You wake up to a shortlist instead of a chartbook.
Qullamaggie FAQ
Who is Qullamaggie and what is his net worth?
Qullamaggie is Kristjan Kullamägi, a Swedish swing trader who documented growing a roughly $5,000 account into a nine-figure fortune trading momentum breakouts, episodic pivots, and parabolic shorts. He shared his trading live on Twitch and publishes his methodology for free.
What are the Qullamaggie scan settings?
The community-verified screen: price up 25 percent in a month, 50 percent in three months, or 150 percent in six months (any one qualifies), ADR above 4 to 5 percent, at least $3M in average daily dollar volume, and moving averages stacked with the 50 SMA above the 150 SMA above the 200 SMA.
What is ADR in trading?
ADR is average daily range: how much a stock moves between its high and low in a typical day, expressed as a percentage. Momentum traders filter for high ADR because a stock that moves 5 percent a day can hit a profit target in a week that a 1 percent mover would need months to reach.
How long does a Qullamaggie breakout take to play out?
The consolidation phase typically lasts two weeks to two months. After the breakout, the first partial sell comes after 3 to 5 days, and the remaining position trails the 10 or 20-day moving average, which can keep you in a strong trend for weeks or months.
Can I automate a Qullamaggie breakout screener?
The hard filters, yes: momentum, ADR, dollar volume, and trend are pure math. The consolidation quality is the judgment call. ThetaPal's AI Market Scout combines both: exact code for the numbers, AI grading for the pattern, delivered as a morning email.
Scan it yourself tonight
The Qullamaggie breakout scan is one of the ready-made scouts inside AI Market Scout, alongside custom scouts you describe in plain English. Set it up once and the scanner does the nightly chart-flipping for you. Start free, no credit card required.
ThetaPal is not affiliated with or endorsed by Kristjan Kullamägi. This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Trading involves substantial risk of loss. Always do your own research.