How to Master Finviz Stock Screener [Step-by-Step Guide]
The finviz stock screener at finviz.com/screener.ashx is the most widely used free equity screener for U.S. markets. It filters more than 8,500 tickers across the NYSE, Nasdaq, and AMEX using roughly 70 criteria, runs without a login on the free tier, and returns results in under a second. Most investors discover it early and rely on it for years. Few use it to its full capability, and fewer still know where it stops being useful.
This guide treats the finviz stock screener as a professional starting point and shows you the complete workflow from first filter to exported candidate list.
Key Takeaways
- The finviz stock screener divides filters into Descriptive, Fundamental, and Technical tabs. Apply them in that order.
- All active filters operate as logical AND conditions. A stock must satisfy every one simultaneously to appear.
- Free users receive fundamental data from filings (no meaningful delay) but get 15-minute-delayed price quotes. Elite ($39.99/month) adds real-time quotes and alert triggers.
- Finviz does not calculate ROIC, Altman Z-Score, Piotroski F-Score, or intrinsic value. These require a separate tool.
- The map view shows screener results as a sector-organized heat map, the fastest way to detect unintended sector concentration in your output.
- ValueMarkers covers 120 indicators including VMCI Score (Value 35%, Quality 30%, Integrity 15%, Growth 12%, Risk 8%), bridging the gap the finviz stock screener leaves open.
What the Finviz Stock Screener Is and Is Not
Finviz built its screener around a pass/fail filter architecture. Every condition you set is a binary gate: a stock either passes it or does not. The screener then returns only the names that pass every active gate simultaneously.
This is not a ranking system. Finviz does not score or prioritize results. The top row of your output is simply the first alphabetical match, not the highest-quality company in your result set. You are the ranker.
The practical consequence: tight criteria produce short lists, loose criteria produce long ones. Finding the right balance between specificity and breadth is the skill the finviz stock screener rewards.
The Three Filter Tabs Explained
Descriptive filters define the company type. They include market cap, sector, industry, country, exchange, index membership (S&P 500, Dow Jones, Nasdaq 100, etc.), share price range, and average daily volume. Set these before touching a single financial number. They cut the 8,500-ticker universe to a manageable slice without any financial judgment involved.
Fundamental filters cover financial statement ratios and estimates. The full list includes: P/E, Forward P/E, PEG ratio, P/S, P/B, P/Cash, P/FCF, dividend yield, payout ratio, five-year EPS growth, next-year EPS growth, next five-year EPS growth, sales growth, EPS estimate revision (last quarter, current year), shares outstanding, float, insider ownership percentage, institutional ownership percentage, short interest, return on assets, return on equity, current ratio, quick ratio, debt/equity, gross margin, and operating margin.
Technical filters operate on price history and chart signals. Key available filters: performance over 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, and YTD; price relative to 20-day, 50-day, and 200-day moving averages; distance from 52-week high and low; beta; average true range; RSI range; gap percentage; and a set of chart pattern signals including double bottom, ascending triangle, and head and shoulders formation.
Building a Value-Quality Screen
Here is a complete screen designed to surface profitable, moderately priced companies with conservative capital structures:
| Filter | Setting | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Market Cap | Mid ($2B-$10B) or Large ($10B+) | Removes illiquid micro-caps |
| Country | USA | Limits to U.S.-domiciled SEC filers |
| Average Volume | Over 500K | Sets a minimum liquidity floor |
| P/E | 5 to 25 | Below broad market, above distress |
| P/B | Under 3 | Avoids extreme valuation premiums |
| Return on Equity | Over 15% | Filters for genuine profitability |
| Debt/Equity | Under 0.5 | Conservative capital structure |
| EPS Growth (past 5 years) | Over 5% | Confirms earnings track record |
This screen typically returns 80-200 names. If the count drops below 50, loosen P/E to 30 or Debt/Equity to 1.0. If it exceeds 300, tighten ROE to over 20% or add a P/FCF ceiling of 20.
Companies like Coca-Cola (KO, P/E near 24, dividend yield 3.0%) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, dividend yield 3.1%) have historically passed screens with these parameters. They share high ROE, conservative debt loads, consistent EPS growth, and valuations below speculative territory.
The gap this screen cannot close: Finviz shows ROE but not ROIC (return on invested capital). Apple's ROIC of 45.1% and Microsoft's ROIC near 35% reflect capital efficiency that ROE alone does not capture in capital-intensive or debt-heavy businesses. The finviz stock screener cannot distinguish between a 20% ROE driven by genuine profitability and one inflated by heavy debt.
Reading the Results Table Correctly
The default table shows 20 rows per page. Increase this to 50 or 100 using the rows dropdown above the results. Sort by clicking any column header.
The most useful sorts for a value-quality screen:
- P/E ascending to surface the cheapest profitable names first.
- ROE descending to find capital-efficient businesses before moving to price.
- Market Cap descending to start with the most liquid names in the output.
Click the gear icon at the right of the header row to add columns. Add EPS Growth (past 5 years), Return on Equity, and Debt/Equity to the visible table if you did not filter on them. These three columns provide immediate quality context without opening individual stock pages.
Clicking any ticker opens Finviz's full quote page for that stock: a comprehensive data grid, price chart, news feed, and analyst estimates in one view. For a quick first look at any candidate in your results, the quote page is genuinely fast and useful.
The Map View After Screening
After running a screen, click the "Map" tab in the row above the results table. Finviz renders your screener output as a sector-organized heat map where block size reflects market cap and color reflects the selected metric (usually daily performance).
Two practical uses for value investors:
First, sector concentration check. If 65% of your results cluster in Financials, you are running a de facto sector bet. The map makes this visible in three seconds instead of three minutes of table scanning.
Second, identifying outliers. A large block in deep red within a mostly green sector means one major company is significantly underperforming its peers. This is worth a closer look: either it is a genuine deterioration or a temporary overreaction. The finviz stock screener's map does not tell you which; that requires fundamental analysis.
What the Finviz Stock Screener Cannot Do
No intrinsic value calculation. A P/E of 18 could be cheap or expensive depending on growth rate and cost of capital. Finviz shows the ratio; it does not estimate what the company is worth. Our DCF calculator at ValueMarkers runs four valuation models including two-stage DCF and Gordon Growth to give a price range.
No Altman Z-Score. A company with a Z-Score below 1.81 is in financial distress territory regardless of its trailing P/E. The Z-Score uses five accounting ratios to predict bankruptcy probability. Finviz shows debt/equity but not the composite score. Screening in beaten-down sectors without checking Z-Scores is a meaningful analytical risk.
No Piotroski F-Score. The F-Score grades a company 0-9 on earnings quality, cash flow conversion, and debt trends. A score of 7-9 signals strong fundamentals; 0-2 signals deterioration. Finviz does not calculate it.
No ROIC. Return on invested capital separates genuine capital allocators from debt-inflated ROE numbers. Finviz shows ROE and ROA but not ROIC. For capital-intensive businesses or debt-heavy ones, that omission creates a real analytical blind spot.
After the Screen: The Research Workflow
A finviz stock screener output is the top of a research funnel, not a buy list. The steps after export:
- Export results to CSV. Right-click the results table and choose "Export to CSV."
- In a spreadsheet, sort by P/E and P/B simultaneously. Names in the low-P/E, low-P/B quadrant get first attention.
- For each name, check Altman Z-Score and Piotroski F-Score. Remove anything below Z-Score 1.81 or F-Score 3.
- Run DCF estimates on the surviving 10-15 names.
- Read the most recent 10-K for your top five finalists.
Step 3 is the step the finviz stock screener cannot complete. Our screener at ValueMarkers calculates Altman Z-Score and Piotroski F-Score automatically across the full universe, so you do not need to retrieve and compute them separately for each name.
Further reading: SEC Investor.gov · FINRA
Why stock screener free Matters
This section anchors the discussion on stock screener free. 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 stock screener free 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 stock screener free
See the main discussion of stock screener free 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 stock screener free alongside the rest of the 120-indicator composite, with sector percentiles and historical trends shown on every stock profile.
Sector benchmarks for stock screener free
See the main discussion of stock screener free 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 stock screener free alongside the rest of the 120-indicator composite, with sector percentiles and historical trends shown on every stock profile.
Related ValueMarkers Resources
- Piotroski F-Score — Piotroski F-Score captures the reliability of reported earnings versus underlying cash flow
- Altman Z-Score — Altman Z-Score is the metric used to the reliability of reported earnings versus underlying cash flow
- Pb Ratio — Glossary entry for Pb Ratio
- Finviz Futures — related ValueMarkers analysis
- Finviz Screener — related ValueMarkers analysis
- The Tikr — related ValueMarkers analysis
Frequently Asked Questions
what happens if the stock market crashes
A stock market crash is a rapid decline of 20% or more in a broad index like the S&P 500 over a short period. U.S. history includes the 1929 crash (-89% peak-to-trough), the 2000-2002 dot-com decline (-49%), the 2008 financial crisis (-57%), and the March 2020 COVID crash (-34%). Long-term fundamental investors typically respond by checking holdings for genuine impairment rather than price-only declines, and using the finviz stock screener to find quality companies whose prices have fallen further than their fundamentals warrant.
what time does the stock market open
The NYSE and Nasdaq open at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time on weekdays. Pre-market trading runs from 4:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Eastern on most brokerage platforms. The opening auction window begins at 9:28 a.m. Eastern. Most meaningful price discovery on a given day happens in the first 30 minutes after the 9:30 open and in the 30 minutes before the 4:00 p.m. close.
are stock markets closed today
U.S. stock markets close on nine federal holidays: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents' Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The NYSE and Nasdaq also close early (1:00 p.m. Eastern) on the trading day after Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve when it falls on a weekday. The NYSE publishes a full holiday calendar annually at nyse.com.
what time does the stock market close
The NYSE and Nasdaq close at 4:00 p.m. Eastern on regular trading days. After-hours trading runs from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern on most brokerages, with the most meaningful volume concentrated in the 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. window. The 4:00 p.m. print is the official closing price referenced by all financial data platforms including the finviz stock screener.
when does the stock market open
The U.S. stock market opens at 9:30 a.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday, excluding market holidays. Pre-market trading begins as early as 4:00 a.m. Eastern on most major brokerage platforms. Futures markets (E-mini S&P 500, Nasdaq, Dow) open Sunday at 6:00 p.m. Eastern and trade nearly continuously through Friday, giving investors a read on expected opening direction before regular session trading begins.
why is the stock market down today
The market falls on a given day for identifiable reasons: disappointing macro data (jobs report, CPI, retail sales), a negative Federal Reserve statement, earnings misses from large-cap names with heavy index weight, geopolitical events, or sector-specific news that spreads through risk-off sentiment. Single-day moves below 1% are statistical noise. Moves above 2% typically have a traceable macro or company-level catalyst. The finviz stock screener's news tab surfaces the headlines driving the most activity by sector on any given day.
Find out how the finviz stock screener compares to alternatives built for deeper fundamental analysis at ValueMarkers Compare.
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.