Kristjan Kullamägi — known online as Qullamaggie — screens for momentum leaders in TC2000 using a compact set of criteria: the biggest multi-month gainers, a high average daily range, and a tight consolidation riding the rising 10- and 20-day moving averages. This guide compiles the settings he has published on qullamaggie.com, including the exact ADR formula he shares for TC2000, so you can rebuild the scan yourself and understand what each condition is actually filtering for.
Who is Qullamaggie, and why TC2000
Kullamägi is a Swedish-Estonian swing trader who has documented his method publicly at length. In his own FAQ he lists TC2000 as his primary charting tool, alongside Sterling Trader for execution and eSignal for intraday charts near the open. The reason TC2000 keeps coming up in momentum-trading circles is its scanner: EasyScan runs server-side and returns results across thousands of symbols quickly, which suits a workflow built around ranking the day's strongest stocks.
A note on integrity before we go further: InvestingPaths is an independent research site and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Kristjan Kullamägi. Everything below is our summary of his publicly documented material, attributed as such. Trading involves substantial risk of loss, and nothing here is financial advice or a promise of any result. Setups that work for a full-time professional in one market regime can and do fail for everyone else.
The core momentum criteria (as documented on qullamaggie.com)
Kullamägi's breakout scan is really a ranking exercise: he wants the small slice of the market that is moving the most, then filters that list by hand on the chart. In his post "My 3 Timeless Setups" he describes looking for the "1 or 2% of stocks that are up the most" over one-, three-, and six-month windows.
| Criterion | Kullamägi's published guidance | How it maps to TC2000 |
|---|---|---|
| Prior move | A big move of 30–100%+ sometime in the past 1–3 months; screen for the top 1–2% of gainers | Sort or scan on 1-month, 3-month and 6-month % change |
| Average daily range | Wants a high ADR; publishes a 20-session ADR% formula (below) rather than one fixed cutoff | Personal Criteria Formula (PCF), which requires the Premium plan |
| Trend / moving averages | Price "surfs" the rising 10- and 20-day MAs, "sometimes the 50-day" | Price above MA10 / MA20 conditions in EasyScan |
| Consolidation | 2 weeks to 2 months of higher lows and a tightening range | Reviewed visually on the chart, not fully automatable |
| Liquidity | Sizes positions by liquidity rather than publishing a hard dollar-volume floor | Optional minimum price / minimum volume condition |
Two honest caveats about that table. First, the 30–100%+ move and the top 1–2% framing are his words. Second, Kullamägi does not publish a single hard ADR cutoff — he emphasizes wanting a high ADR and gives you the formula so you can rank candidates yourself. Screens built by the community on his method commonly filter for ADR above roughly 5%, but treat that number as a convention rather than his stated rule.
The exact ADR% formula for TC2000
This is the one hard number Kullamägi does publish. In the FAQ he defines ADR as "the average daily range in % over the past 20 sessions" and gives this Personal Criteria Formula for TC2000:
100*((H0/L0+H1/L1+H2/L2+H3/L3+H4/L4+H5/L5+H6/L6+H7/L7+H8/L8+H9/L9+H10/L10+H11/L11+H12/L12+H13/L13+H14/L14+H15/L15+H16/L16+H17/L17+H18/L18+H19/L19)/20-1)
Read plainly, it takes the high-to-low ratio for each of the last 20 daily bars, averages those ratios, and expresses the result as a percentage. A stock with an ADR% of 5 moves, on average, about 5% from its daily low to its daily high — enough range for a swing trade to develop quickly, which is the whole point of favoring high-ADR names.
One practical detail worth knowing: this formula measures only the intraday low-to-high range and does not account for overnight gaps. That is by design — Kullamägi is measuring how much a stock travels within the session, not how far it jumps between sessions.
Personal Criteria Formulas like this one are a Premium-tier feature. If you are on TC2000's Basic plan, you can chart and scan on built-in conditions, but writing and screening on a custom PCF such as the ADR formula above requires the Premium plan. If you want the mechanics of building saved conditions step by step, see our companion guide on EasyScan setups.
Building the scan in TC2000's EasyScan
In practice, most people implement Kullamägi's approach as a two-stage funnel rather than one perfect scan:
- Rank for momentum. Use EasyScan to surface stocks up the most over 1, 3, and 6 months, narrowing toward that top 1–2%.
- Filter for range. Add the ADR% PCF as a condition or a displayed column so you can favor the higher-ADR names.
- Confirm the trend. Require price above the rising 10- and 20-day moving averages so you are looking at leaders that are still in an uptrend, not broken-down former winners.
- Read the consolidation by eye. The "2 weeks to 2 months of higher lows and a tightening range" step is judgment, not a formula. This is where the scan hands off to you.
That last point matters: the scanner produces a watchlist, not trade signals. Kullamägi's edge is in what he does with the shortlist — waiting for a tight setup near the moving averages and entering on an opening-range breakout — not in the scan alone.
The three setups the scan feeds
The momentum scan mainly feeds his breakout setup, but he documents three, and it helps to see how the criteria differ.
| Setup | What he looks for | Entry & risk (as published) |
|---|---|---|
| Breakout / continuation | 30–100%+ move over 1–3 months, then 2 weeks–2 months of tight consolidation along the 10/20-day MA | Enter on opening-range highs; stop at the low of the day; sell 1/3–1/2 after 3–5 days, then trail the rest with the 10- or 20-day MA |
| Episodic pivot (EP) | A gap up of 10%+ on unexpected good news (usually an earnings beat with strong EPS/revenue growth) in a stock that has not already rallied over the prior 3–6 months, on big volume | Enter on opening-range highs if it keeps moving up; stop at the low of the day; trail with the 10/20-day MA |
| Parabolic short | A stock already up 50–100%+ in days/weeks (large cap) or 300–1000%+ (small cap), extended 3–5+ days in a row | Short on opening-range lows using VWAP as the key intraday reference; stop above the high of the day; target the 10/20-day MA |
For position sizing, his FAQ describes risking most often 0.3–0.5% per trade and rarely more than 1%, with position sizes generally 5–25% (most around 10–15%) and never more than 30% of the account overnight in a single name. We reproduce these as documented figures, not recommendations.
What this scan does not do (an honest look)
No screener is a strategy, and TC2000 has real limits worth stating plainly:
- US and Canada only. TC2000 covers US and Canadian stocks and options. There is no crypto, forex, or international-exchange coverage, so this workflow simply does not apply to those markets.
- The interface shows its age. TC2000's UI is functional and fast but dated compared with newer web-first tools — a common critique in our TC2000 review and in the TC2000 vs TradingView comparison.
- No automation or AI pattern-matching. EasyScan screens on conditions you define; it will not detect a consolidation or draw a setup for you. The judgment steps stay with you.
- The scan can only rank the past. A list of the biggest recent gainers is, by definition, backward-looking. It surfaces candidates; it makes no claim about what happens next.
Frequently asked questions
Does Qullamaggie use TC2000? Yes. In his published FAQ, Kullamägi lists TC2000 as his primary charting tool, alongside Sterling Trader for execution and several data services for fundamentals.
What is the exact ADR formula Qullamaggie uses in TC2000?
He defines ADR as the average daily range in percent over the past 20 sessions and publishes the PCF 100*((H0/L0+…+H19/L19)/20-1). It measures intraday range only and ignores overnight gaps.
Do I need the Premium plan to run these scans? For the custom ADR Personal Criteria Formula, yes — PCFs are a Premium feature. You can chart and run built-in scans on lower tiers, but writing your own formula conditions needs Premium. See our TC2000 pricing breakdown.
Is a high-ADR momentum scan enough to trade? No. In Kullamägi's own framing the scan produces a watchlist; the entry, stop, and trade management are separate, discretionary steps. Treat the scanner as the first filter, not the decision.
Rebuild the scan yourself
Kullamägi's method is unusually transparent for a professional trader, and the parts that are quantifiable — the multi-month momentum ranking and the ADR% formula — are straightforward to reproduce in EasyScan once you have Personal Criteria Formulas available. If you want to build the ADR screen and the momentum ranking, you can start with a TC2000 Premium plan here, or read our hands-on EasyScan setups guide first to see the scanner in action. Whatever you build, remember the honest caveat: the scan finds candidates, and the risk stays yours.