A stock screener for value stocks is a tool that helps traders identify value stocks. It takes the thousands of stocks available to trade on the market and picks out the tickers that match your filtering criteria. This results in a handful of stocks that you can look into further to decide whether they’re worth trading.
This is the way value stocks are supposed to work — you buy them at a lower price, then sell them when the market price rises to meet their perceived intrinsic value.
Here’s the tricky part: not all value stocks will have their prices meet their perceived value.
What are the best stock screeners for value stocks, and how can they help you find them? Let’s jump right in!
What Are Value Stocks?
Value stocks are assets trading at a lower price compared to fundamentals like dividends and earnings. Essentially, they’re stocks that traders think should be priced higher because they think the company’s value is higher.
Traders and value investors often buy value stocks expecting to reap profits when their prices catch up with their perceived value.
How to Evaluate Value Stocks
You can evaluate value stocks by doing fundamental analysis. Common traits of value stocks include high dividend yield and low price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio.
A low P/E ratio usually signifies a low share price compared to the company’s earnings — which shows the stock might be undervalued. Meanwhile, a high dividend yield delivers value to investors in a different way than stock gains.
Here’s what you have to understand regarding these stock gains…
The price of a value stock can either catch up to its “value” or not. There’s a saying to keep in mind here — the market is a discounting machine. That means that every angle, every metric and forecast, quickly gets factored into the share price.
Why might a stock be priced cheaper than its “value?” It might have a bad growth forecast or operate in a downtrending industry.
That’s why doing due diligence is important. Check the company’s financials and determine the share’s value prospects before trading. Learning a company’s ins and outs improves your likelihood of making smart trading decisions.
What Is a Stock Screener for Value?
A stock screener for value is a tool that helps you pick out value stocks. You plug in your preferred criteria, and the screener scours the market to find the stocks that fit these parameters.
From there, you can dive deeper into the company’s track record to determine whether they’re worth trading or investing in.
Importance of Using a Value Stock Screener
Using a stock screener for value investing lets you hone in on the value stocks that fit your criteria and nothing else. Focusing on a handful of stocks to research is important because you can’t possibly research every single stock…
Research is important when trading, but it applies even more so when it comes to value investing. You need to know the details of a company to determine whether its stock price will rise to meet its perceived value.
The right stock screener parameters are one of the keys to finding the stocks that fit your strategies. Read my guide to the best stock screener queries to learn more.
Why Do You Need a Stock Screener for Value
You need a stock screener for value to weed out the stocks that don’t match your preferences. Weeding out irrelevant stocks helps you focus on the value stocks that actually matter to your strategy.
Your stock screener is like a sieve. You pour all the stocks available to trade and let the ones that don’t match your criteria fall through. All you should be left with are the stocks that match your criteria.
You also need a stock screener for value because it gives you fine control over your screens. You can customize your stock filters to ensure you only get the stocks that fit your criteria — which might include stocks you haven’t considered before.
Different stock screeners fit different types of traders. Check out my picks of the best stock screeners for undervalued stocks and the best stock screeners for options trading. I also have an article on the best overall stock screeners.
Advantages of Value Stock Screeners
One of the primary advantages of value stock screeners is being able to screen stocks according to your chosen criteria. This narrows your pool of potential trades from thousands into a manageable handful that match your trading strategy.
Reducing the size of your potential trading pool is essential for research. Not being able to do research according to a specific trading strategy will lead to random trading.
Read this article to see why random trading doesn’t work.
How We Evaluated These Best Stock Screeners for Value
Different stock screeners excel at different things — and not all of them are cut out to screen for value stocks. You gotta know what you’re looking for to pick the right stock screener for your needs.
Here are two value stock screener criteria I use when making these picks:
- Pricing: Most of the best value stock screeners are paid products. Find the screener that fits your budget while still fulfilling your trading needs.
- Customizability: A stock screener is only as good as its indicators. Pick a stock screener that you can customize according to your needs.
Check out my guide to the best stock screener criteria for more ways to refine your stock screener search.
Best Value Stock Screeners
Here are my picks for the best value investing stock screener tools:
- StocksToTrade — Best Overall Value Stock Screener
- MarketScreener — Best Value Stock Screener for International Markets
- TrendSpider — Best Value Stock Screener for Automated Trading
- Trade Ideas Pro — Best AI-Powered Value Stock Screener
- Finviz — Best Free Value Stock Screener
You’re not getting married to one of them — try multiple stock screeners and pick whichever works best for you!
1. StocksToTrade — Best Overall Value Stock Screener
My first value stock screener pick is StocksToTrade.
I can go on and on about why StocksToTrade is my top pick. It’s insanely customizable, comes with trader-built screens right out of the box, and so much more. It’s also killer for screening value stocks — you can use indicators like EPS and P/E ratio for that.
StocksToTrade is strongest in trading, though. So, if you have a strategy that mixes long-term and short-term trading, it’s the screener for you!
StocksToTrade users also get Oracle, a powerful algorithm-based chart analysis tool. Oracle gives you trade signals based on the day’s most tradable stocks. Get a taste of Oracle right now by signing up for NO-COST trade alerts!
StocksToTrade changed the way I trade — see if it can do the same for you. Try StocksToTrade in a 14-day trial for only $7 now!
2. MarketScreener — Best Value Stock Screener for International Markets
My second value stock screener pick is MarketScreener.
MarketScreener has a web-based stock screener that lets you screen for stocks from dozens of countries, making it a great option if you’re branching out from American stock exchanges.
The screener lets you filter for stocks by the requisite parameters like sales growth, EPS, P/E ratio, and more. Once you lock onto a handful of companies, you can drill further down into its details and check out news catalysts, financial reports, company performance, and more to help you make educated trading decisions.
3. TrendSpider — Best Value Stock Screener for Automated Trading
My third value stock screener pick is TrendSpider.
TrendSpider’s trading bots are both powerful and easy to use. You don’t need to code — or even have any programming skills. All you need to do is set the bot’s trading requirements, and it’ll make trades on its own.
TrendSpider also offers a market scanner that’s as robust as most other alternatives on the market. You can use its many pre-built scans or build custom scans according to your requirements.
4. Trade Ideas Pro — Best AI-Powered Value Stock Screener
My fourth value stock screener pick is Trade Ideas Pro.
Trade Ideas stands out from the crowd thanks to Holly, its trading AI. Yes, it’s named after the Holy Grail — that shows the team’s confidence in it.
That said, that confidence is well-earned. Holly can scan the day’s stocks and analyze potential setups to give you trading recommendations based on your strategy. While you still shouldn’t let Holly take control entirely, it can still give you trade ideas to work with. Just keep in mind to research Holly’s picks before committing to a trade.
5. Finviz — Best Free Value Stock Screener
My fifth value stock screener pick is Finviz.
Finviz has a free ad-supported plan that isn’t light on features. Its screener is robust and lets you filter with multiple criteria. You also get 50 saved screener configurations as a registered account.
Finviz color codes its fundamental data tables. In addition to giving you a comprehensive view of a company’s fundamentals, you can get a good feel for its fundamental indicators at a glance.
Final Thoughts
A stock screener for value stocks helps you identify stocks that are trading below their perceived value. It controls the flow of information, so you only research the stocks that match your trading strategy.
Always exercise caution when hunting for value stocks. Sometimes, the share price just won’t rise to match the company’s perceived value.
That’s why I prefer trading. The investing perspective is tied to the idea of growth coming on a limitless upward curve for “good” companies… That was a nice idea in the ‘80s, but now we all know that isn’t what happens!
Trading acknowledges that swings in value are mostly due to the market’s perceptions. Instead of concentrating on the company, traders concentrate on the chart.
If you want a technical analysis screener, you need to try millionaire trader Matt Monaco’s Alpha Scanner. Matt brought his software engineering skills to the table when building this stock screener based on his profitable trading style.
He’s packed the platform with live mentoring sessions, trading alerts, and so much more. Can Matt’s life’s work be your trading edge? Find out here…
Sign up for the next Alpha Scanner LIVE broadcast to learn more!
