Wouldn't it be amazing if you had a piece of software that could help you narrow down your stock search so you could look at just a slice of the stock market? Well, meet FinViz, a popular stock scanner with a number of free features for every kind of investor.
FinViz is a tool investors can use to get a better handle on what's happening in the stock market. It's a way to visually represent trends across stocks and the market at large and a means of drilling down into the data for specific kinds of information.
Beginning stock market investors can look for stocks that meet certain criteria, such as share price or market cap, and more advanced traders can look for more advanced signals, like insider buying. There are also tools for technical traders, with even the free version of the software able to detect technical signals like candlestick patterns and more.
What's a stock scanner?
FinViz belongs to a class of tools called stock scanners. They're designed to help investors and traders make more sense of all the information generated by the stock market during every minute of every trading day by analyzing data, creating more digestible snapshots, and filtering the noise.
Not only can you use a stock scanner to find basic information about your favorite stocks but it can also help you plan future moves if you know your criteria for your purchases or sell-offs. Although they're designed for stock traders, index futures, options, and exchange-traded funds can also be put under the microscope with many stock scanner platforms.
FinViz features
FinViz offers users a wide range of basic features, allowing them to look up stocks and track them. However, the software also has some specific features potential users should consider when making stock scanner choices. These include:
Heatmaps
The FinViz heatmaps help you visualize both U.S. and global stock markets. You can slice these in various ways, from performance over a set period to metrics like the price/earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio, price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, and even dividend yields.
Dividend Yield
For example, in the default view, if you choose the S&P 500 and select "Dividend Yield," you'll see a whole collection of different stocks listed by their tickers and divided into industries and sectors within industries. The best dividend yields are the brightest green, and stocks without dividend yields are in black, making it easy to narrow your search.
Industry analysis
Under the "Groups" tab on FinViz, you'll find what is essentially an industry analysis tool. You can choose the "Group" that corresponds to the industry you're interested in and how you want to visualize that group.
For example, if you choose "Real Estate" and then select "Overview," you can see the different sectors within real estate, including real estate investment trusts (REITs). At a glance, you can then compare the sectors within real estate, using metrics like P/E ratio, PEG ratio, and dividend yield.
Stock screener
Let's take the industry analysis one step further. The stock screener (under the "Screener" tab) can help you filter for the stocks you really want to see.
For example, you could filter under the "Descriptive" tab for just industrial REITs with a dividend yield above 5%, then use the "Fundamental" tab to further narrow that list to stocks with a positive P/E ratio and return on equity. Suddenly, you have just four stocks to evaluate out of the entire market.
Return on Equity (ROE)
Why FinViz matters to investors
FinViz is a tool that can make it easier to visualize your trades and narrow down a field of thousands of stocks to just a handful. You can also track your trades, look for different kinds of signals, and generally feel more in control of your investments.
Related investing topics
FinViz is one of many stock scanners out there. While we don't make particular recommendations for these tools, even the free version is loaded with features.
This can be very helpful for new traders or stock investors who simply don't have much time to dive deep into the particulars of lots of stocks and just want a short list. Whether to use a stock scanner is a personal choice, but tools like FinViz can take a lot of the more tedious legwork out of choosing stocks if you use it as designed.
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