Overview

The Yahoo! Finance Stock Screener allows investors to quickly and easily search for stocks and generate new investment ideas. To use the tool, either click of the preset screen links in the upper-left side of the page, or make your selection from the 16 different screening parameters in the "Screener Settings" section of the page. When you are satisfied with your selections, click the "Find Stocks" button at the bottom of the page to view the results.

Note that if you set particularly restrictive settings on a stock screen, you will likely receive either a short list of matches or none at all. On the other hand, too general of a search will result in large numbers of matched results. Experiment with the screener settings to obtain the results you desire.

Search Criteria:

• Industry
  The category describing a company's primary business activity. This category is usually determined by the largest portion of revenue. Hemscott (our source for this data) has grouped its company universe into more than 200 distinctive industries. These industries have been developed to contain those companies that operate along similar lines of business.
• Share Price
  This is the Closing or Last Bid Price. It is also referred to as the Current Price. For NYSE, AMEX, and Nasdaq traded companies, the Price is the previous Friday's closing price. For companies traded on the National Quotation Bureau's "Pink Sheets" and OTC bulletin boards, it is the bid price obtained at the time the report is updated.
• Average Daily Volume
  This is the monthly average of the cumulative trading volume during the last 3 months, divided by 22 days.
• Market Capitalization
  The total dollar value of all outstanding shares. Computed as shares times current market price. Capitalization is a measure of corporate size.
• Dividend Yield
  This value is the current percentage dividend yield based on the present cash dividend rate. It is calculated as the Indicated Annual Dividend divided by the current Price, multiplied by 100.
• 1 Year Performance
  Synonymous with the 52-week percent change. This figure represents the gain or loss in stock price over a rolling one-year period.
• Beta
  The measure of a fund's or a stock's risk in relation to the market or to an alternative benchmark. A beta of 1.5 means that a stock's excess return is expected to move 1.5 times the market excess returns. For example, if market excess return is 10%, then we expect, on average, the stock return to be 15%. Beta is referred to as an index of the systematic risk due to general market conditions that cannot be diversified away.
  The beta used here is the monthly price change of a particular company relative to the monthly price change of the S&P500. The time period for beta is 5 years when available, and not less than 2.5 years.
• Sales Revenue
  This is the sum of all revenue (sales) reported for all operating divisions.
• Profit Margin
  Indicator of profitability. The ratio of earnings available to stockholders to net sales. Determined by dividing net income by revenue for the same 12-month period. Result is shown as a percentage. Also known as net profit margin.
• Price/Earnings Ratio
  Shows the multiple of earnings at which a stock sells. This ratio is calculated by dividing the current Price by the sum of the Primary Earnings Per Share from continuing operations before Extraordinary Items and Accounting Changes over the last four quarters.
  A higher multiple typically means investors have higher expectations for future growth, and have bid up the stock's price.
• Price/Book Ratio
  Compares a stock's market value to the value of total assets less total liabilities (book value). This is the Current Price divided by the latest quarterly Book Value Per Share.
• Price/Sales Ratio
  Determined by dividing current stock price by revenue per share (adjusted for stock splits).
• Price/Earnings Growth Ratio
  PEG stands for price/earnings growth and is calculated by dividing the P/E by the projected earnings growth rate. The idea behind the PEG Ratio is to relate price to growth. A value of less than 1 implies that the stock might well be undervalued; a value of more than 1 implies that it might be overvalued.
• Estimated 1 & 5 Year EPS Growth
  Consensus estimates from analysts following a particular company. Based on anticipated earnings growth over a specified period of time.
• Average Analyst Recommendation
  The five recommendations a broker gives to a stock are "Strong Buy," "Moderate Buy," "Hold," "Moderate Sell," and "Strong Sell." For ease of understanding, these recommendations are sometimes assigned numbers ranging from 1 to 5. A number "1" represents a "Strong Buy" recommendation, and a number "5" represents a "Strong Sell" recommendation. Here, the numbers represent the average recommendations of all the brokers following the stock and the change in the average since the previous week.

Results Display Setting
This feature allows you to modify the display output for a screen. Default setting is to display "Actively Screened Criteria." This means that only screener criteria that are selected from the list show up in the results display. Other options correspond to the groupings on the screener settings pages. If, for instance, you select "Share Data" from the list, the share price, average volume, market capitalization, and dividend yield are all displayed. Note that you can also toggle this setting from the results page.

Results Page
The results page displays screener matches sorted alphabetically by company name. To sort by a different column, simply click the linked column header. Click the same column header a second time to reverse the order.
Tip: To save a screen that you particularly like, simply bookmark the page.

Preset Screens
A number of preset screens are available in the upper-left column of the Stock Screener page. Simply click of these links to view the results. Results pages for the presets include a short description of the screening formula used along with the rationale for the screen. Preset screens are a great way to learn how to use the screener and come up with useful screens of your own.