Finviz Stock Screener Tutorial: A Step-by-Step Tutorial for Investors
The finviz stock screener tutorial investors actually need covers more than filter names. Finviz (Financial Visualizations) is one of the most widely used stock screeners for U.S. equities, and for good reason: the free tier covers nearly every fundamental and technical filter a beginning investor needs, the heat map is genuinely excellent for sector-level context, and the interface is fast. Understanding how to use all of it, and where the tool reaches its limits, saves you from building a research process on the wrong foundation.
This is a step-by-step walkthrough. You will finish it knowing exactly how to set up a value-focused screen on Finviz, which features to pay for in the Elite tier, and which metrics you need a separate tool to access.
Key Takeaways
- Finviz's free screener covers U.S. equities only; the Elite plan adds real-time data, backtesting, advanced alerts, and some additional filter options.
- The finviz stock screener tutorial most investors need starts with the Descriptive, Fundamental, and Technical tabs in that order.
- Finviz covers roughly 65 screening filters; it does not natively compute ROIC, Piotroski F-Score, Altman Z-Score, or EV/FCF.
- The Finviz heat map is the best free sector visualization tool available; use it to identify which sectors are lagging before running a stock screen.
- For value investors who need 120+ fundamental indicators including ROIC, Piotroski, and VMCI Score across 73 global exchanges, our screener fills the gap.
- Finviz works best as a broad initial filter; always verify results with deeper fundamental tools before making capital commitments.
Step 1: Understand the Finviz Interface
Work through to finviz.com and click "Screener" in the top navigation. The screener opens to a default view showing all U.S. equities, approximately 8,500 names. The interface has three core sections.
At the top are filter tabs: Descriptive, Fundamental, Technical, and All (which combines everything). Below the filters is the results table, sortable by clicking any column header. At the bottom-right you will see a page count: Finviz limits free users to 100 results per page with delayed data (15-20 minutes for U.S. equities). Elite subscribers see real-time data and can export unlimited results.
The most important setting before you apply any filters: check the "Exchange" filter under the Descriptive tab if you want to limit results to NYSE, Nasdaq, or AMEX specifically. The default includes all three, which is usually what you want.
Step 2: Set Descriptive Filters First
The Descriptive tab controls the universe of stocks before you apply any valuation or quality criteria. Start here to define the type of company you are looking for.
Market Cap filter: set to "Mid+" to focus on companies with market caps above $2 billion. This removes micro-cap and nano-cap stocks where fundamental data is often unreliable or where liquidity makes entry and exit difficult. For value investors focusing on the large-cap space, set to "Large" or "Mega."
Country filter: Finviz defaults to the U.S. If you want foreign companies listed on U.S. exchanges as ADRs, leave this as-is. Finviz does not cover international exchanges directly; it covers U.S.-listed securities only.
Sector and Industry filters: if you have a sector preference or want to exclude specific industries (financials are particularly hard to screen with standard P/E and P/B metrics, for example), set these before moving to fundamental filters. Financial companies like banks and insurance companies use different accounting frameworks, and P/E comparisons across financial and non-financial companies produce misleading results.
Average Volume filter: set a minimum of 500,000 shares per day. Below this threshold, stocks may be illiquid, and your orders can move the price. For most individual investors, 300,000+ is the floor; for institutional-size positions, 1,000,000+ is more appropriate.
Step 3: Apply Fundamental Filters
The Fundamental tab is where the core finviz stock screener tutorial work happens. Finviz provides dropdown-based filter ranges, not free-form inputs. You choose from pre-set ranges like "P/E Under 15" or "ROE Over 15%." This is less flexible than typed inputs but faster for standardized screens.
Recommended value investor fundamental setup:
| Filter | Setting | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| P/E Ratio | Under 20 | Target below-market earnings multiples; MSFT at 32.1 would not pass this screen |
| Forward P/E | Under 15 | Forward earnings multiple more predictive than trailing |
| P/B | Under 2.0 | Berkshire (BRK.B) at 1.5x book is the benchmark for reasonable value |
| P/FCF | Under 20 | Price-to-free-cash-flow filters out companies reporting earnings but not generating cash |
| Debt/Equity | Under 0.5 | Conservative balance sheet screen |
| ROE | Over 15% | Eliminates businesses with weak return profiles |
| EPS Growth Q/Q | Over 5% | Confirms earnings trajectory is positive |
| Dividend Yield | Over 2% | Optional; add only if screening for income alongside value |
This combination typically returns 30-80 names from the U.S. universe, depending on market conditions. In a high-valuation environment (P/E on the S&P 500 above 22), the list shrinks. In a post-crash recovery, the list expands.
Step 4: Layer Technical Filters for Entry Timing
Finviz's technical filters are genuinely useful for value investors who want to add a price momentum or price dislocation layer to a fundamentally driven screen. Fundamental quality is the primary criterion; technical setup is the entry-timing criterion.
Technical filters worth considering:
- Performance (month): filter for "Down 10% to -20%" or "Down More Than 20%" to find quality companies that have sold off recently. Combined with strong fundamentals, this setup targets temporary mispricing.
- 20-day Average Volume: filter for "Over Current Volume" to identify stocks where current trading volume is lower than average, which can signal a quiet accumulation period before a potential price move.
- Relative Volume: filter for "Over 1.5" on specific scan days to catch stocks experiencing unusual volume, which often precedes significant price movement.
- RSI (14): filter for "Oversold (Under 30)" to identify technically depressed names. An oversold reading combined with strong fundamentals is the technical complement to a value screen.
Step 5: Use the Finviz Heat Map for Sector Context
Before acting on any screen result, open the Finviz heat map at finviz.com/map.ashx. This visual shows every major U.S. stock sized by market cap and colored by daily, weekly, or YTD performance.
The heat map answers a question fundamental screening cannot: which sectors are broadly under pressure and which are outperforming? If the healthcare sector is broadly red (down 8-12% from highs) while your fundamental screen surfaces three healthcare names, those names are interesting precisely because they are sector-level dislocations rather than company-specific problems.
Use the heat map before every screening session, not after. It provides context that changes how you interpret screener results.
Step 6: Save, Export, and Build a Repeatable Workflow
Finviz free users can save screener URLs manually by bookmarking the result page. The filter parameters are encoded in the URL, so the bookmark preserves your exact screen setup. This is clunky but functional.
Finviz Elite users can name and save screens directly in the interface, receive email alerts when new stocks pass a filter, and export results to CSV for further analysis.
For a repeatable weekly workflow:
- Open the heat map. Note which sectors are lagging the market over the past month.
- Apply your fundamental filters. Run your saved value screen.
- Sort results by P/E or P/B to see the cheapest names first.
- Export the list (Elite) or manually note the top 10-15 tickers (free).
- Take those tickers to our screener to check ROIC, Piotroski F-Score, and Altman Z-Score. These metrics Finviz does not provide are often the difference between a genuinely high-quality undervalued stock and a value trap.
- For names passing all quality checks, run a DCF valuation before committing capital.
What Finviz Does Not Cover (and Why It Matters)
Finviz covers approximately 65 screening metrics. For most retail screening tasks, that is enough. For value investing as practiced by Graham, Buffett, and their intellectual descendants, three omissions matter.
ROIC (Return on Invested Capital): Apple's ROIC of 45.1% and Microsoft's 35.2% are not available in Finviz. ROIC measures how efficiently a company converts invested capital into profit. A business with a 20% ROE funded by debt looks fine on ROE; ROIC shows you the actual capital efficiency of the operating business. This is not a minor omission for value investors.
Piotroski F-Score: a 9-criterion financial health score covering profitability trends, use changes, and operating efficiency. Scores of 7 or above indicate financially healthy companies. AAPL scores 7. This systematic quality filter is absent from Finviz.
Altman Z-Score: a composite bankruptcy predictor. AAPL's Z-Score of 8.2 indicates extremely low distress risk. Any score below 1.8 signals elevated bankruptcy probability. Finviz does not compute this.
Our screener covers all three, plus the VMCI Score (Value 35%, Quality 30%, Integrity 15%, Growth 12%, Risk 8%) and 115+ other indicators across 73 global exchanges that Finviz does not support at all.
Further reading: SEC Investor.gov · FINRA
Why finviz screener filters Matters
This section anchors the discussion on finviz screener filters. 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 filters 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 filters
See the main discussion of finviz screener filters 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 filters alongside the rest of the 120-indicator composite, with sector percentiles and historical trends shown on every stock profile.
Sector benchmarks for finviz screener filters
See the main discussion of finviz screener filters 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 filters alongside the rest of the 120-indicator composite, with sector percentiles and historical trends shown on every stock profile.
Related ValueMarkers Resources
- Debt To Equity — Glossary entry for Debt To Equity
- Roe — Glossary entry for Roe
- Roic — Glossary entry for Roic
- Stock Screener Comparison Hub — related ValueMarkers analysis
- Tradingview Stock Screener Tutorial — related ValueMarkers analysis
- Google Stock Comparison Tool — related ValueMarkers analysis
Frequently Asked Questions
what happens if the stock market crashes
A market crash produces a paradox for screener users: more stocks pass value filters (P/E under 20, P/B under 2), but the risk that those "cheap" stocks are cheap for legitimate reasons also increases. The Piotroski F-Score and Altman Z-Score become especially important during crashes because they help distinguish temporarily depressed quality businesses from companies facing genuine financial stress. During the 2020 crash, many stocks appeared cheap on P/E screens before earnings collapsed and made them appear even more expensive. Quality filters prevent this trap.
what time does the stock market open
U.S. stock markets open at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time Monday through Friday. Finviz free users see delayed data (15-20 minutes), so opening price data on Finviz lags real-time. For fundamental screens where you are filtering on quarterly and annual data rather than current prices, this delay does not affect your results. For technical screens using current price levels, Finviz Elite's real-time data matters more.
are stock markets closed today
U.S. markets are closed on federal holidays including New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents' Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day. Finviz still loads when markets are closed and shows the last trading day's data. Running a fundamental screen on a weekend or holiday produces the same results as Friday's close, which is perfectly fine for non-time-sensitive analysis.
what time does the stock market close
U.S. markets close at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Finviz updates its data incrementally during the trading day. The most reliable time to run a Finviz screen for a settled data snapshot is after 4:15 p.m. Eastern when closing prices have propagated through. After-hours price moves are not reflected in Finviz free data; they appear on the Elite tier.
when does the stock market open
The U.S. stock market opens at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time. For Finviz users, the most useful screen-running windows are before open (using previous close data), right after 4:00 p.m. Eastern (using the day's closing data), or on weekends when you have time to analyze results without the pressure of immediate price action.
why is the stock market down today
Broad market declines typically trace to one or more of: Federal Reserve policy signals, economic data surprises (inflation, jobs, GDP), corporate earnings below expectations, sector-specific crises, or geopolitical events. For Finviz screener users, a down market day is worth checking: pull your saved value screen and look for quality names that have dropped in sympathy with the market despite no company-specific news. These are the names most worth investigating further.
Finviz is an excellent starting point for U.S. equity screening. When your shortlist needs ROIC, Piotroski, Altman Z-Score, and 120+ indicators across global exchanges, bring it to our screener to complete the picture.
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.