This screen seeks to emulate the style of Bill Miller, manager of Legg Mason Value Trust. Miller’s strategy focuses on identifying securities that are trading below their intrinsic value, but differs from many value managers in that he focuses on cash earnings, not accounting earnings. He looks for firms that may be undervalued based on the present value of future cashflows, although this is not easy to screen for in detail. He says: "Ideally, what we want is a company... that has tremendous long-term economics and those economics are either currently obscured by macroeconomic factors, industry factors, company-specific factors, or just the immaturity of the business." Diversification is a crucial element in Miller’s strategy but he aims for diversification among the stocks it incorporates, rather than the sheer quantity. By focusing on companies that are being shunned by the market, this strategy takes on higher risks in hope of higher returns. The value moniker for his Fund is perhaps misleading because Miller has bought many Internet “growth” stocks. You can read more about Miller's approach here. more »
Kirkpatrick’s Value Screen combines quantitative filters for relative price strength and relative reported earnings growth, with a value criterion - using relative price-to-sales percentiles, Kirkpatrick arbitrarily selected only those stocks in the 30th percentile or lower. Despite the success of his Growth Model, Kirkpatrick was concerned about the fact that its performance had occurred during one of the strongest bull markets in history. He wanted to strengthen the system against capital loss to protect against the inevitable market reversal. He believed relative price strength would not be effective during a market downturn and could lead to significant capital losses. For Kirkpatrick, the alternative was to reduce the risk of the portfolio by beginning with a group of stocks with low valuations. Kirkpatrick also looks for growth companies with market capitalizations of at least $500 million and share prices of at least $10. You can read more here. more »
A momentum screen based on buying stocks with rising analyst earnings estimate revisions in light of empirical findings that stocks with their estimates revised often outperform the market over at least the next 12 months. Although investing on the basis of broker recommendations alone does not appear to be a successful strategy because of the bias in those recommendations, research suggests that focusing on recent changes in broker recommendations is more fruitful, particularly in combination with other signals. You can read more here. more »
This is a dividend-focused strategy loosely on the "Growth & Income Winners" screen outlined by Kevin Matras in his book, entitled Finding #1 Stocks. The approach starts out looking for solid growth parameters then drills down to the best dividend payers of the group. In Matras' version, however, the primary filter is the US-focused Zacks Rank (a proprietary metric analysing analyst forecasts for i) Agreement, ii) Magnitude, iii) Upside Potential, Surprise). However, we simplify this to just look for a positive change in analyst forecasts over the last quarter instead. Matras envisages the top 7 by dividend yield, but with no more than 2 in each sector - although it's hard to find 7 such stocks qualifying on the UK market. more »
David Dreman champions a contrarian investment approach based on interpreting market psychology and using value measures to pick stocks that are out of favour with the market. Dreman invests in out-of-favour stocks, often in out-of-favour industries, that he identifies using relatively straightforward metric criteria. "I buy stocks when they are battered. I am strict with my discipline. I always buy stocks with low price-earnings ratios, low price-to-book value ratios and higher-than-average yield. Academic studies have shown that a strategy of buying out-of-favor stocks with low P/E, price-to-book and price-to-cash flow ratios outperforms the market pretty consistently over long periods of time." more »
This screen is loosely based on the influential work of Richard Sloan from the University of Michigan, published in 1996 documenting what is referred to as the “accrual anomaly”. A pound of earnings can be comprised of assumed non-cash earnings called “accruals.” His landmark 1996 paper revealed that shares of companies with small or negative accruals vastly outperform (+10%) those of companies with large ones His paper found that investors focus too heavily on earnings and not on cash generation. They value the earnings of a high accrual company just as highly as the same earnings of a low accrual company, even though the high accrual company’s earnings are more likely to reverse in future years. When future earnings reverse, investors are “surprised” and sell off the stock causing the stock price to decline. Similarly, when a low accrual company’s earnings accelerate in future years, they are surprised in a good way. more »
The Piotroski F-Score screen aims to identify deep bargain-bucket stocks that are in recovery. Josef Piotroski, a finance professor, recognized that, while it has long been shown that bargain stocks (having a low Price to Book Value) have strong collective returns, there is very wide individual variability. “Embedded in that mix of companies, you have some that are just stellar. Their performance turns around [but] half of the firms languish; they continue to perform poorly and eventually de-list or enter bankruptcy.” What he wondered was whether it was possible to weed out the poor performers and identify the winners in advance. He therefore sought to develop a simple accounting-based scoring system for evaluating a stock’s financial strength. Piotroski's F-Score looks at value stocks, i.e. the bottom 20% of the market in terms of price to book value, and tests nine variables from a company’s financial statements. One point is awarded for each test that a stock passes. Piotroski regards any stocks that scored eight or nine points as being the strongest. more »
This is a strict value strategy based on the writings of David Dreman and focusing on low P/E stocks. David Dreman champions a contrarian investment approach based on interpreting market psychology and using value measures to pick stocks that are out of favour with the market. Dreman invests in out-of-favour stocks, often in out-of-favour industries, that he identifies using relatively straightforward metric criteria. He says: "I buy stocks when they are battered. I am strict with my discipline. I always buy stocks with low price-earnings ratios, low price-to-book value ratios and higher-than-average yield. Academic studies have shown that a strategy of buying out-of-favor stocks with low P/E, price-to-book and price-to-cash flow ratios outperforms the market pretty consistently over long periods of time." You can read more about David Dreman here. more »
David Dreman champions a contrarian investment approach based on interpreting market psychology and using value measures to pick stocks that are out of favour with the market. Dreman invests in out-of-favour stocks, often in out-of-favour industries, that he identifies using relatively straightforward metric criteria. "I buy stocks when they are battered. I am strict with my discipline. I always buy stocks with low price-earnings ratios, low price-to-book value ratios and higher-than-average yield. Academic studies have shown that a strategy of buying out-of-favor stocks with low P/E, price-to-book and price-to-cash flow ratios outperforms the market pretty consistently over long periods of time." more »
In 2012, the team at Soc Gen introduced their so called ‘SG Quality Income Index’ - an index that aims to track stocks with strong fundamentals and good yields. Many in the market now appreciate that both higher ‘quality’ stocks and higher yielding stocks tend to outperform, but according to the research note, stocks that share both qualities put together standout total returns that have averaged 11.6% per year since 1990, more than doubling the return of the global equity markets at a significantly reduced volatility. But what is more striking is the return of the portfolio from when the market topped in 2000 to 2012 - a sideways market and a genuinely miserable time for all. While the total return of stock markets has actually been negative in that time period, the Quality Income index almost tripled. Read the full article. more »
This is a mixed-criteria GARP screen inspired by the enjoyable best-seller by Robbie Burns, "The Naked Trader: How Anyone Can Make Money Trading Shares". His approach is primarily value / fundamentals driven: "My investment strategy has always been quite simple: find excellent companies and hold them until the value comes out". While he does appear to use a fair amount of technical analysis in order to time the entry, he appears sceptical about pure TA: "I strongly believe charts are very important to look at.. but I also believe it is simply crazy to buy and sell shares on the basis of looking at a chart and nothing else at all". more »
This is loosely based on AAII's Dividend (High Dividend Yield) Screen. As they note, screening for relative high dividend yield is essentially all about buying low and selling high but, to succeed at this strategy, it's important also to identify which which high yielding stocks have the strength to bounce back. The screen looks for a consistent dividend payment and dividend growth track record, as well as a payout ratio below 2/3rds, a dividend growth CAGR above 3% and a yield above the historical average.. more »
Warren Buffett is the greatest living investor whose investing style was best modelled in the books by Robert Hagstrom. Buffett's approach is a highly fundamentals-focused one blending both Graham-esque value investing principles and an emphasis on the calibre of the business franchise. In essence, it looks for simple, understandable companies that have a monopoly position and pricing power (for example, through strong brand recognition), so as to ensure consistent profits and a good return on equity, but where there is significant unrecognized value. Our quantitative model here cannot aim to replicate the qualitative work and understanding that Buffett brings to stock selection, but aims to highlight the kinds of companies showing the longer term fundamental strength and cashflow generation that attracts him. more »
Cornerstone Value is a five criteria large-cap dividend yield-focused value screen outlined in James O'Shaughnessy’s seminal 1996 book What Works on Wall Street. His work showed that a large-caps stock portfolio with above average stock liquidity and cash flow per share which was ranked for high dividend yields performed best over the long term. Accordiing to his work, this value strategy outperformed the market producing an annual compound return of 15% from 1954 to 1996, compared to 8.3% for the S&P 500 Index (his Cornerstone Growth Strategy achieved 18% but with greater volatility). more »
This is a screen that picks the stocks that are appearing most frequently across all the other screens tracked on Stockopedia - be they value, bargain, growth, quality, income or momentum (excluding short screens). By definition, this tends to be a list of relatively defensive stocks because they exhibit good fundamentals across a wide range of investing strategies. This strategy is especially interesting as the stocks on this list will by definition be being looked at by a broad range of investors - value, growth, income, momentum, quant. more »
A dividend screen mirroring the famous "Dogs of the Dow" approach which selects the ten FTSE-100 stocks whose dividend is the highest fraction of their price. This version uses the consensus forecast dividend yield, rather than the historic yield. more »
This screen is inspired by a similar screen devised and backtested here by the Old School Value blog for the US market. It looks for stable, cash rich companies growing their FCF, yet selling at a cheap multiple to FCF. Free cash flow is defined as cash from operations minus capital expenditure. The idea is that FCF is the ultimate driver of intrinsic value - the more FCF a company can generate and reduce debt, the higher the intrinsic value of the company becomes. more »
A combined value screen developed by Richard Beddard, editor of leading UK finance site, Interactive Investor. It selects 30 UK-listed companies (with a market value of more than £500 million), using an approach that assesses three key criteria: i) value, as measured by the earnings yield; ii) profitability, measured by return on capital; and iii) financial strength, as measured by Piotroski’s F-Score. Essentially Piotroski plus the Magic Formula. This screen is not to be confused with the Thrifty Thirty, which is Beddard's own stock picks, as described on the Interactive Investor Blog. more »
Some companies trade so cheaply that their cash balance is worth more than the company's enterprise value (i.e. the sum of the market cap and total long term debts). This is known as a negative enterprise value (EV) and searching for such companies is a common bargain stock strategy. While, in theory, a negative EV may seem to be an easy arbitrage opportunity, whereby one could buy all of the debt and equity in a firm and use its cash balance to cover costs and keep the difference, there are a number of reasons to be cautious: Firstly, the enterprise value may not have captured all of the debt outstanding in the firm (e.g. the present value of lease commitments) and secondly the cash balance is from the balance sheet (rather than stated at the today's date used for the market cap). Given how quickly firms burn through cash, what you see on the balance sheet may not reflect what the firm has as of today as a cash balance so be careful! You can read more here. more »
Josef Piotroski came up with a simple nine criteria scoring system to help identify bargain stocks in recovery. It is known as the F-Score and is used extensively throughout Stockopedia on Stock Reports and in screens as a measure of an improving financial health trend. But while his now famous original strategy (which we have modelled here) focused on applying the F-Score filter to only the cheapest stocks in the market, other analysts have discovered that the highest F-Scoring companies in the market in aggregate also outperform. We have filtered the market in this strategy to just highlight the companies showing a Piotroski F-Score of 9. more »
