Stock Screeners: A quick way to find stocks of interest

4,200 stocks

Currently, there're over 4,200 publicly listed stocks in the US [1, 2].

When we're looking for investment ideas, we're obviously not going to scan the entire list.

Note: Actually, scanning the entire list is exactly what Warren Buffet does [3]. So... if you want to scan, you're in good company!

That's why we have stock screeners.

What's a stock screener?

Stock screeners are tools that allow us to quickly find companies that match specific criteria.

If we think the best companies are ones that have no debt, we can quickly find companies with no debt.

If we want to compare companies with similar revenue, we can quickly find companies with similar revenue.

If we just want to exercise our curiosity and creativity, screeners are great for that, too.

Where to run a screen

There're a lot of tools out there for running stock screens.

We'll take a quick look at a couple free ones. They don't even require creating an account. We can just jump right in and have some fun.

Let's say we want to find companies with no debt and high margins...

Yahoo Finance

Link: Yahoo Finance Stock Screener.

To set up a screen, we just clear the default filters and click “Add another filter”:

Then, hit “Find Stocks” and we get our results:

One neat feature is that we can save our stock screen. Just click the “Save Filters” button. It's probably obvious, but using this feature requires having an account.

Another cool thing we can do is share our stock screen with others. The URL for each stock screen we create is unique. So, we just need to copy it and send it to others. Then, whomever we sent it to will be able to open it and view our stock screen.

finviz

Link: finviz Stock Screener.

For this one, we start by picking the category (“Descriptive”, “Fundamental”, etc.). Then, set values for any of the filter fields we want to use:

finviz has awesome views of data. Check out the “Valuation” view. This allows us to easily compare valuation metrics between the companies, like price per sales (P/S), price per book value (P/B), etc.:

Like with Yahoo Finance, we can save our stock screen if we have an account. And, we can share our stock screen with others by sending them the URL.

Stock Analysis

Link: Stock Analysis Stock Screener.

To add filters, we click on “Add Filters” and select the ones we want:

Then, set the values:

It's pretty fun to see the results update automatically as we adjust the filter values.

Like with finviz, we can select various views of the data. Or, even build a custom view by selecting fields from the “Indicators” drop-down.

Awesome!

So, there we go.

We have a way to quickly find companies of interest. Plus, the ability to compare the resulting companies on various dimensions.

Hope you have fun with these tools! (And, hope you find your 10x!)

References

1. 2024 Outlook: Private Equity. Morgan Stanley. Retrieved 2024-07-23.

2. Listed domestic companies, total - United States. The World Bank Group. Retrieved 2024-07-23.

3. Mohnish Pabrai. Mohnish Pabrai's Q&A Session at Boston College, Carroll School of Management on October 12, 2023. Retrieved 2024-07-23.

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