Fidelity Active Trader Pro Stock Screener: A Step-by-Step Tutorial for Investors
The Fidelity Active Trader Pro stock screener is one of the more capable broker-native screening tools available, with access to both technical signals and a decent set of fundamental filters. It runs inside the Active Trader Pro desktop application, which Fidelity offers free to all brokerage clients. This post walks through every step of using the fidelity active trader pro stock screener effectively, and explains where you need a dedicated fundamental tool to go deeper.
Key Takeaways
- The Fidelity Active Trader Pro stock screener is available free to all Fidelity brokerage clients through the downloadable desktop platform.
- It covers around 140 filter criteria, split between technical indicators and fundamentals, making it one of the broader broker screeners available.
- Key gaps include ROIC, Piotroski F-Score, Altman Z-Score, and composite quality scores, all of which require a dedicated fundamental screener.
- Saved screens update automatically overnight, so you can run the same scan each morning without rebuilding it.
- Pairing Fidelity's screener output with the ValueMarkers screener gives you 120+ fundamental indicators to validate each candidate.
- The platform only covers U.S.-listed equities, which excludes 73 global exchanges worth of opportunity.
Step 1: Download and Open Active Trader Pro
Go to Fidelity.com and log in to your brokerage account. From the top navigation, select "Trading" and then "Active Trader Pro." Download the desktop installer and run it. The platform requires a Windows or Mac machine with at least 4 GB of RAM.
Once installed and logged in, find the Screener by navigating to "Research" in the top menu bar, then selecting "Stock Screener." The screener opens as a panel within the application window.
Step 2: Choose Your Starting Universe
Fidelity lets you filter by exchange (NYSE, Nasdaq, AMEX, OTCBB), country, market cap tier, and industry sector before you apply any specific criteria. Setting the universe correctly saves time by eliminating irrelevant results from the start.
For a value-oriented scan, start with Large Cap and Mid Cap (market cap above $2 billion), NYSE and Nasdaq only, and exclude financials and utilities if you prefer to apply different valuation frameworks to those sectors. Set minimum average daily volume to 300,000 shares.
Step 3: Work through the Filter Categories
The fidelity active trader pro stock screener organizes its 140+ criteria into six categories:
| Category | Number of Filters | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Price and Volume | 22 | 52-week range, volume vs. average, price change |
| Fundamentals | 48 | P/E, P/B, EPS growth, dividend yield, revenue growth |
| Technical Indicators | 35 | RSI, MACD, moving averages, stochastics |
| Analyst Ratings | 12 | Consensus rating, number of analysts, target price |
| Earnings | 14 | EPS surprise, earnings date, estimate revisions |
| Ownership | 9 | Institutional ownership, insider ownership |
The Fundamentals category is where Fidelity pulls ahead of most broker screeners. With 48 fundamental filters, you can screen for P/E ratio, price-to-book, return on equity, EPS growth rates (1, 3, and 5 year), revenue growth, profit margins, current ratio, and debt-to-equity. That covers more ground than Power Etrade, Schwab's screener, or TD Ameritrade's legacy tools.
Step 4: Build a Value-Quality Screen
Here is a specific filter configuration for finding quality companies at reasonable prices using the fidelity active trader pro stock screener:
Value filters:
- Trailing P/E: 8 to 25
- Price-to-Book: 0.5 to 4.0
- EV/EBITDA: below 15
Quality filters:
- Return on Equity: above 15%
- Operating Profit Margin: above 10%
- Debt-to-Equity: below 1.0
- 5-year EPS growth: above 5%
Size and liquidity:
- Market Cap: above $2 billion
- Average Volume: above 300,000
This screen typically returns 30-80 names depending on market conditions. During expensive markets, the P/E ceiling of 25 may cut results to fewer than 30. That is usually a signal that quality companies are hard to find at fair prices, not that the screen is broken.
When we ran this configuration in early 2026, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) appeared consistently at a P/E near 15.4, 3.1% dividend yield, and a debt-to-equity below 0.5. Berkshire Hathaway B-shares (BRK.B) appeared at a P/E near 9.8 and price-to-book of 1.5.
Step 5: Review Results and Sort
The results table shows all stocks matching your criteria. Click any column header to sort. Double-click any ticker to open the full research page for that stock inside Active Trader Pro.
Fidelity's research pages pull in Equity Summary Scores from third-party providers, StarMine ratings, and analyst reports, which gives you a quick qualitative overlay on top of your quantitative screen results.
Sort by Return on Equity descending to surface the most capital-efficient names first. Then check each name's debt-to-equity to verify the high ROE is not driven purely by use.
Step 6: Save and Schedule Your Screen
Click "Save" in the top left of the screener panel to name and save your filter configuration. Fidelity allows an unlimited number of saved screens per account. Saved screens refresh with overnight data each morning before market open.
To get notified when a stock enters your screen, you need to set price alerts separately. Active Trader Pro does not offer "new entry" alerts for screener results directly.
What Fidelity's Screener Cannot Do
The fidelity active trader pro stock screener is strong by broker standards, but it has three meaningful gaps for serious value investors.
Gap 1: No ROIC filter. Return on invested capital is arguably the most important single measure of whether a business creates or destroys value. Fidelity's screener offers ROE, which is easier to game with use. Apple's ROIC of 45.1% and Microsoft's ROIC of 35.2% reflect genuine capital efficiency. You cannot screen for that in Active Trader Pro.
Gap 2: No composite quality score. The Piotroski F-Score combines nine financial health signals into a score from 0 to 9. High F-Score stocks (7-9) have historically outperformed the market by several percentage points annually. The screener does not include it.
Gap 3: U.S.-only. Active Trader Pro screens U.S.-listed equities. That excludes international markets where valuations have historically been lower and where undervalued quality businesses exist across Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
Combining Fidelity with ValueMarkers
The practical workflow is simple. Use the Fidelity screener to generate a candidate list using available fundamentals. Then run each candidate through the ValueMarkers screener to check ROIC, Piotroski F-Score, Altman Z-Score, and the VMCI Score.
The VMCI Score at ValueMarkers weights Value at 35%, Quality at 30%, Integrity at 15%, Growth at 12%, and Risk at 8%. A stock that looks cheap on P/E but scores below 40 on the VMCI usually has a structural quality or integrity problem that the P/E alone does not reveal.
This two-platform approach takes about 20 minutes to set up and saves hours of manual research per stock.
Further reading: SEC Investor.gov · FINRA
Why fidelity stock screener Matters
This section anchors the discussion on fidelity stock screener. The detailed treatment, formula, and worked examples appear in the body of this article above. The points below summarize the most important takeaways for value investors who want to apply fidelity stock screener in real portfolio decisions. ValueMarkers exposes the underlying data on every covered ticker via the screener and stock profile pages, so the concepts in this article translate directly into actionable filters.
Key inputs for fidelity stock screener
See the main discussion of fidelity stock screener in the sections above for the full treatment, including the inputs, the calculation methodology, the typical sector benchmarks, and the most common pitfalls to avoid. The ValueMarkers screener lets value investors filter the full universe of 100,000+ stocks across 73 exchanges using fidelity stock screener alongside the rest of the 120-indicator composite, with sector percentiles and historical trends shown on every stock profile.
Sector benchmarks for fidelity stock screener
See the main discussion of fidelity stock screener in the sections above for the full treatment, including the inputs, the calculation methodology, the typical sector benchmarks, and the most common pitfalls to avoid. The ValueMarkers screener lets value investors filter the full universe of 100,000+ stocks across 73 exchanges using fidelity stock screener alongside the rest of the 120-indicator composite, with sector percentiles and historical trends shown on every stock profile.
Related ValueMarkers Resources
- Roic — Glossary entry for Roic
- Piotroski F-Score — Piotroski F-Score captures the reliability of reported earnings versus underlying cash flow
- Pb Ratio — Glossary entry for Pb Ratio
- Free Stock Screener With 120 Value Indicators — related ValueMarkers analysis
- Best Stock Screeners For Value Investors In 2026 — related ValueMarkers analysis
- Zacks Investment Research — related ValueMarkers analysis
Frequently Asked Questions
what happens if the stock market crashes
When the stock market crashes, diversified portfolios with high-quality companies tend to recover faster than those concentrated in speculative names. During the 2020 COVID crash, the S&P 500 fell 34% in 33 days but recovered fully within six months. Companies with low debt, positive free cash flow, and strong competitive positions, like JNJ or KO, fell less and recovered sooner than leveraged or unprofitable names.
what time does the stock market open
U.S. stock markets open at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, excluding federal holidays. Active Trader Pro shows pre-market quotes starting at 7:00 a.m. Eastern. Pre-market volume is typically 5-10% of regular session volume, so prices can move on thin trading.
are stock markets closed today
U.S. markets are closed on nine federal holidays per year. The NYSE and Nasdaq publish their annual holiday schedules in January. Active Trader Pro displays a market status banner at the top of the platform indicating whether trading is open, in pre-market, in after-hours, or closed for the day.
what time does the stock market close
The regular U.S. trading session closes at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Active Trader Pro's after-hours session extends to 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Liquidity thins sharply after 4:30 p.m., and bid-ask spreads on most stocks widen by 5-20 cents compared to regular hours.
when does the stock market open
The stock market opens at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time on business days. The first 30 minutes of the session, known as the opening range, is often the highest-volume period of the day and can see exaggerated price moves as institutional orders clear. Many active traders avoid placing market orders in the first 5-10 minutes of the session.
why is the stock market down today
Markets fall when new information shifts expectations about corporate earnings, interest rates, or economic growth. A hotter-than-expected inflation report can trigger a 1-2% index drop in minutes. A single large-cap earnings miss, like a surprise revenue shortfall from a Dow component, can subtract 50-100 points from the index. The fidelity active trader pro stock screener's real-time scanning tools can help you see which sectors are leading the decline.
Run your first Fidelity screen today, collect 20-30 candidates, then verify each one against 120+ fundamental indicators in our screener before committing any research time.
Written by Javier Sanz, Founder of ValueMarkers. Last updated April 2026.
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Disclaimer: This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation, or an offer to buy or sell any security. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.