How to Use Finviz Growth Stock Screener for Better Investment Decisions [Tutorial]

How to Use Finviz Growth Stock Screener for Better Investment Decisions [Tutorial]

The Finviz growth stock screener is a widely used starting point for filtering U.S. equities by basic growth metrics, but most investors who rely on it heavily end up with one of two problems: too many results because the filters are too broad, or missed opportunities because the platform lacks the depth indicators that separate genuine compounders from temporary growers. This tutorial shows you exactly how to use the Finviz growth stock screener effectively, and where to go when its indicator set runs out.

Finviz covers approximately 8,500 U.S.-listed equities with free and Elite tiers. The screener is built for speed, not depth.

Key Takeaways

• Finviz's growth filters work well for an initial pass: EPS growth, sales growth, and return on equity are all available in the free version.
• The free version of Finviz updates data with a 15-minute delay and lacks ROIC, 3-year CAGR, and composite quality scores.
• The PE ratio filter in Finviz uses trailing earnings. Cross-checking with a forward PE is essential before acting on any result.
• Finviz does not cover international exchanges, which means the entire European, Asian, and emerging market opportunity set is invisible.
• For a rigorous growth screen that includes ROIC, Piotroski F-Score, and VMCI Score, the ValueMarkers screener covers 73 exchanges and 120+ indicators.
• Finviz is a useful first-pass tool. It is not a sufficient research platform for serious value-growth investors.

Step 1: Access Finviz Screener

Go to finviz.com and click "Screener" in the top navigation. No account is required for the basic version. The interface opens with three tabs: Descriptive (company characteristics), Fundamental (financial metrics), and Technical (price and volume signals).

For a growth screen, you will work primarily in the Fundamental tab. Avoid the Technical tab entirely for this purpose. Growth investing decisions should be driven by business fundamentals, not moving average crossovers.

Step 2: Set Sales Growth Filters

In the Fundamental tab, find "Sales growth qtr over qtr" and "Sales growth past 5 years."

Set "Sales growth qtr over qtr" to "> 10%" as a momentum check. Set "Sales growth past 5 years" to "> 10%" as a durability check. These two filters in combination eliminate businesses posting one-quarter revenue spikes with no underlying trend.

Note: Finviz uses quarterly comparisons for its short-term growth filters, not trailing twelve-month comparisons. This can create noise if a company had an unusual quarter in the comparable period. Always verify the underlying trend in the actual financials before acting.

Step 3: Set EPS Growth Filters

In Finviz's Fundamental tab, find "EPS growth this year" and "EPS growth past 5 years."

Set "EPS growth this year" to "> 15%." Set "EPS growth past 5 years" to "> 10%." This combination targets companies where current earnings growth outpaces the historical average, a signal that the business is accelerating.

Finviz uses consensus analyst estimates for forward-looking EPS fields. These estimates carry analyst bias and should be treated as directional rather than precise.

Step 4: Apply Return on Equity

In the Fundamental tab, find "Return on equity" and set it to "> +15%."

This is one of the more reliable quality filters available in the free Finviz tier. At 15% ROE, you are above the cost of equity for most businesses, which means the company is creating value for shareholders rather than destroying it. Microsoft's ROE of 38.4% and Apple's ROE of 147% (artificially elevated by share buybacks reducing book equity) illustrate the upper range.

Be aware that Finviz does not offer an ROIC filter. Return on invested capital is more reliable than ROE for capital-intensive businesses where debt inflates equity returns. You will need a second platform to check ROIC.

Step 5: Add a Valuation Ceiling with PE Ratio

Find "P/E" in the Fundamental tab and set it to "Under 50."

Finviz's PE filter uses trailing twelve-month earnings, so it works best for mature growers with stable earnings. For high-growth pre-profit companies, this filter is less useful. Set it to "Under 50" rather than a tighter threshold to avoid filtering out legitimate growth names that temporarily trade at high multiples during reinvestment phases.

For tighter value discipline, lower this to "Under 30" and accept that you will miss some genuinely fast-growing businesses. That is an acceptable trade-off if your goal is growth at a reasonable price rather than pure growth.

Step 6: Set Market Cap and Country Filters

In the Descriptive tab, set "Market cap" to "Mid ($300M to $2B) or Large (Over $2B)" to exclude micro-caps with thin liquidity. Set "Country" to "USA."

Finviz does not cover international exchanges at all in the screener, regardless of tier. This is the platform's biggest structural limitation. As of April 2026, the MSCI World Index includes 23 developed markets, and many high-quality dividend growth companies trade exclusively on European or Asian exchanges. A Finviz-only workflow misses all of them.

Finviz vs. Alternative Screeners for Growth Investing

The table makes the structural difference clear. Finviz is fast and accessible. It is a quick first-pass filter, not a research platform. The indicators that most reliably predict long-term compounder quality, ROIC, Piotroski F-Score, 3-year revenue CAGR, and composite scoring are unavailable in either Finviz tier.

Reading and Interpreting Finviz Results

After applying all filters, Finviz returns a list of tickers. Click "Charts" to see price thumbnails or "Tickers" for a simple list. Click any ticker to open a quote page with a summary of fundamentals.

The quote page shows trailing P/E, P/B, ROE, debt-to-equity, and current ratio. These are useful cross-checks, but they are point-in-time snapshots rather than trend data. A P/B of 4.2 on a growth stock tells you little without knowing whether P/B was 3.1 five years ago (valuation expanding) or 7.8 (valuation compressing to fair value).

For any Finviz result that passes your criteria, the next step is to check the 5-year trend on all metrics. This requires opening the company's financial history in a separate tool.

Where Finviz Falls Short for Value-Growth Investors

The PE ratio in isolation is the screen's weakest metric for growth investors. A company with a PE of 28.3 (similar to Apple's current level) might be cheap or expensive depending on its growth rate, return on invested capital, and competitive moat. Finviz shows the ratio but not the context.

Second, Finviz screens cannot be saved and re-run automatically in the free tier. Elite users can save screens, but alert functionality is limited. For ongoing portfolio monitoring and watchlist tracking, a more capable platform is necessary.

Third, earnings quality is invisible in Finviz. Two companies can show identical EPS growth, one from genuine operational improvement and one from aggressive accounting. The Piotroski F-Score, available in the ValueMarkers screener, addresses this by scoring nine accounting-quality signals. Finviz does not.

Combining Finviz with the ValueMarkers Screener

The most efficient workflow uses Finviz for initial shortlisting and ValueMarkers for deep qualification.

Run the six-step Finviz screen above. Export or note the resulting 30 to 60 tickers. Open the ValueMarkers screener, enter those tickers as a watchlist, and add ROIC above 15%, Piotroski F-Score above 6, and VMCI Score above 6.5 as additional filters. The intersection typically returns 8 to 15 names. Those are the ones worth full research.

This two-platform workflow exploits Finviz's speed and ValueMarkers' depth without paying for Finviz Elite.

Further reading: SEC Investor.gov · FINRA

Why finviz screener tutorial Matters

This section anchors the discussion on finviz screener tutorial. 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 finviz screener tutorial 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 finviz screener tutorial

See the main discussion of finviz screener tutorial 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 finviz screener tutorial alongside the rest of the 120-indicator composite, with sector percentiles and historical trends shown on every stock profile.

Sector benchmarks for finviz screener tutorial

See the main discussion of finviz screener tutorial 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 finviz screener tutorial alongside the rest of the 120-indicator composite, with sector percentiles and historical trends shown on every stock profile.

Related ValueMarkers Resources

• Pb Ratio — Glossary entry for Pb Ratio
• Debt To Equity — Glossary entry for Debt To Equity
• Pe Ratio — Glossary entry for Pe Ratio
• Stock Screener Vs Stock Analyzer Which Do You Need — related ValueMarkers analysis
• Dividend Investing Vs Sp 500 — related ValueMarkers analysis
• Stock Less Than Book Value Screener — related ValueMarkers analysis

Frequently Asked Questions

what happens if the stock market crashes

A stock market crash affects growth stocks screened through Finviz or any other platform. The difference between surviving a crash well and suffering permanent capital loss often comes down to the quality of the businesses you owned. Finviz's growth filters do not check balance sheet strength, earnings quality, or ROIC. Adding those quality filters before a crash, rather than after, is the protection mechanism. Companies with ROIC above 20%, debt-to-equity below 1.0, and strong cash flow coverage are historically more likely to recover earnings-per-share within 12 to 24 months after a market crash.

what time does the stock market open

U.S. stock markets open at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time. Finviz free tier updates quotes with a 15-minute delay, so the screener reflects data that is at least 15 minutes old during market hours. Finviz Elite offers real-time data. For growth stock screening purposes, the data delay rarely matters: you are filtering on fundamentals that update quarterly, not intraday price movements.

are stock markets closed today

U.S. markets are closed on federal holidays: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents' Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Finviz is accessible on market holidays to browse fundamentals, but price data will show the prior session's close. The ValueMarkers screener covers 73 exchanges globally with individual holiday calendars per market.

what time does the stock market close

NYSE and Nasdaq close at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time on regular trading days. After-hours trading continues until 8:00 p.m. Eastern on most platforms. Finviz's screener data resets and updates with the official market close figures, making after-market hours a reliable time to run growth screens against final session prices.

when does the stock market open

The NYSE and Nasdaq open at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. Pre-market trading begins at 4:00 a.m. Eastern on most brokerage platforms. For Finviz users, the 15-minute data delay means your screener results are current from the moment data feeds update after the prior close until real-time data resumes at market open.

why is the stock market down today

Markets fall on macro data surprises, rate movements, earnings misses, or broad risk-off sentiment. Growth stocks, because they trade on future earnings expectations, tend to fall more sharply on risk-off days than value stocks or dividend payers. If you ran a Finviz growth screen that returned names now down significantly, check whether the decline reflects deteriorating fundamentals or just multiple compression. Deteriorating fundamentals (falling revenue, margin compression, rising debt) change the investment thesis. Multiple compression in a rising-rate environment does not, as long as the business is still compounding.

Use the Finviz screen as your starting gate, then bring the results into the ValueMarkers screener to add ROIC, quality scores, and global market coverage before committing to research.

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.