What is the difference between a screener and a ranked screener?

A screener is a set of rules for narrowing the investable universe of stocks down to a much smaller set of stocks that you are interested in researching further based on their financial metrics and/or price performance. A screener is typically made up of a set of filters, and a stock must pass all filters to be included in screener results.

A ranked screener is an advanced type of screener that adds in a weighting option, so that in addition to creating filters, you can also weight certain criteria (weights must add up to 100%). The weights allow Stock Rover to score and rank stocks so that you can see which stock most closely matches the criteria you designate as being important. A key advantage of ranked screening criteria is that they allow you to narrow the universe of stocks to a more digestible population (like regular screeners), but they do so without requiring strict absolute filters.

Weights can also be applied to a portfolio or watchlist so that the stocks in that population can be ranked according to the weighted criteria. Learn more about how they work on our help site.