The Cornerstone Growth Screen is a growth screen which combines relative strength, earnings growth and a price-to-sales value measure, as outlined in the third edition of James O'Shaughnessy’s seminal 1996 book What Works on Wall Street. According to his book, O'Shaughnessy found that his growth strategy outperformed the market producing an annual compound return of 18% from 1954 to 1996, compared to 8.3% for the S&P 500 Index (this beat his Cornerstone Value strategy which achieved 15%, although it was more volatile). more »
This screen seeks to replicate the approach of Warren Buffett, arguably the most successful living investor - based on the summary/interpretation by Mary Buffett (a former daughter-in-law) in the best-selling book, "The New Buffettology". In Chapter 13, Mary Buffett outlines a number of screening-type criteria entitled "Warren's Checklist for Potential Investments: His Ten Points of Light", which we summarise out below. Not all of these points are quantitative in nature, admittedly, but there's certainly the beginnings of a good Buffett screen, and one with a slightly different emphasis to that of the Buffett-Hagstrom screen. This version uses the Sustainable Growth method to calculate the "expected return". more »
A hardcore intrinsic value investing screen based on buying with a significant Margin of Safety but not as demanding as Graham's set of Defensive Screen criteria. Despite the name, this is not a growth screen. Graham felt defensive investors should confine their holdings to the shares of large, prominent/important, and conservatively financed companies with long histories of profitable operations. In contrast, entreprising investors could expand their universe outside of these “important” companies. He suggests looking at i) the relatively unpopular large company, ii) “special situations”, and iii) “bargain issues”. more »
John Templeton believed that there were no simple formulae to finding good stocks, with over 100 factors that can be considered at times. However, Templeton did have four criteria which he considered particularly important: i) P/E ratio, ii) Operating profit margins, iii) Liquidating value and iv) Consistency of growth rates. Templeton also looked for any potential catalysts (new markets and products, potential M&A, as well as industry changes). more »
This screen essentially looks for high ROEs at a reasonable price. Ronald Muhlenkamp is a renowned US investor and founder and president of the Muhlenkamp mutual fund. The Muhlenkamp fund averaged a 10.4% annual rate of return over the last 10 years to 2004 while the S&P 500 has returned 8.5%. His approach involves searching for companies with ROEs above the historic average for all companies (c. 14% for US companies since WW2) . In additions, ROEs should have remained stable over the last five years and the Company should be well-priced according to the PE Ratio. The strategy looks for companies with higher earnings growth than that of their industry peers. One should also look at profit and cost control via a factor such as the operating or net profit margin of the firm relative to its industry. The strategy also looks at financial stability, both through liabilities as a ratio to assets and the amount of free cash of the firm. You can read more about Muhlenkamp's investment philosophy here. and here more »
A blue-chip focused screen focused on buying blue-chip stocks whose dividend yields are near the high of their historical ranges and selling when the dividend yield declines to historic lows. Geraldine Weiss was the founding editor of Investment Quality Trends - one of the longest-lived investment newsletters. According to a 2002 Forbes article, she has seven criteria in total (but the last criteria comprises a further six "blue-chips only" conditions). A stock: 1. Must be undervalued as measured by its dividend yield on a historical basis. 2. Must be a growth stock that has raised dividends at a compound annual rate of at least 10% over the past 12 years. 3. Is selling for two times book value or less. 4. Has a P/E ratio of 20-to-1 or below. 5. Has a dividend payout ratio in the 50% area (or less) to ensure dividend safety with room for growth. 6. Debt is 50% or less of total capitalization. 7. Meets all six of our Blue Chip Criteria: dividend raised five times in the last 12 years, carries an A rating from S&P, has at least 5 million shares outstanding, at least 80 institutional investors hold the stock, 25 uninterrupted years of dividends and earnings improvements in seven of the last 12 years. While it’s difficult to replicate this screen exactly for the UK market, we’ve produced a Geraldine Weiss-lite version along similar lines. more »
A combined value and income investing screen inspired by the writings of Stephen Bland on TMF (he also writes the Dividend Letter newsletter for MoneyWeek). It that starts by looking for: "P", i.e. a maximum Price to Earnings ratio of two-thirds that of the market (preferably much, much lower). It then looks for "Yield" preferably 50% above the market (although this is the most flexible criterion). "A" is for "Assets" as the screen looks for a Price to Book Value (P/BV) of under 1. Finally, no Debt is the last criterion, preferably with stacks of net cash. more »
This screen seeks to replicate the approach of Warren Buffett, arguably the most successful living investor - based on the summary/interpretation by Mary Buffett (a former daughter-in-law) in the best-selling book, "The New Buffettology". In Chapter 13, Mary Buffett outlines a number of screening-type criteria entitled "Warren's Checklist for Potential Investments: His Ten Points of Light", which we summarise out below. Not all of these points are quantitative in nature, admittedly, but there's certainly the beginnings of a good Buffett screen, and one with a slightly different emphasis to that of the Buffett-Hagstrom screen. This version uses the Historical Growth method to calculate the "expected return". more »
This is a strategy that aims to zero in on stocks where brokers are downgrading their earnings estimates. In theory, this is a short-selling strategy! The idea is that brokers have a behavioural bias which anchors their new estimates too closely to their previous estimates thus making a high likelihood that earnings estimates will continue to fall in future. Continuing earnings estimate downgrades can be negative for stock prices. However, research has shown that investing on the basis of broker recommendations does not generally work because of the bias in those recommendations. Research suggests that focusing on positive recent changes in broker recommendations may be more fruitful, particularly in combination with other signals, although this doesn't appear to be true for downgrades. You can read more here. more »
This is a growth screen based on the approach of the late Phil Fisher, one of the great investors of all time and the author of the classic book Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. Fisher started his money management firm, Fisher & Co., in 1931 and over the next seven decades made tremendous amounts of money for his clients. Philip Fisher had a famous 15 point checklist for investing in stocks. Even though it includes numerous qualitative factors, it's possible to glean some key quantitative criteria too: Consistently strong profitability; Consistent sales growth; Growth exceeding industry norms; Little or no dividend payout; and Reasonable price compared to future growth prospects You can read more about Philip Fisher's approach here. more »
Tiny Titans is a small/micro-cap strategy developed by O'Shaugnessy that includes both a value component and a momentum component. He suggested it for two reasons: i) Micro-cap stocks have little or no analyst coverage so are often overlooked or ignored, and ii) Micro-cap stocks have low correlation with the S&P 500 (0.66) so they can be included in a diversified investment strategy. It looks for a market cap of $25 to $250 million (£15 - 150m assumed), combined with a price to sales below 1 and is sorted by relative strength. See here for more details. more »
This screen is loosely based on the "Cash Index" approach outlined by James Altucher in his book, "Trade Like Warren Buffett". He suggests a multi-pronged approach to analysing potential bargain/arbitrage stocks in times of market distress (post 2001 bubble / Iraq War). First of all, he suggests that it's important to recognise that these stocks are likely to be trading for less than cash for a reason, namely the market thinks they will eventually declare bankruptcy. Some of the possible risks include: i) Inaccurate reflection of "cash on hand" in their books (leases, severance packages, etc), ii) Business model destined to fail, iii) Management with no incentive to return value to shareholders. To minimise risk of buying a turkey, Altucher looks for eight factors: i) Market cap below cash, ii) Very low leverage, iii) Enough cash headroom to cover the current annual burn-rate, and iv) some stability in revenues and earnings. In addition to these easily-screenable criteria, he suggested looking out for more qualitative factors: v) A reasonable belief that the sell-off in the stock was partly irrational, vi) Favorable arbitrage analysis - , i) Insider buying and viii) Institutional ownership. more »
A demanding intrinsic value-based screen designed for less experienced investors which focuses on “important” companies with long histories of profitable operations and strong financial condition. Graham felt defensive investors should confine their holdings to the shares of large, prominent, and conservatively financed companies with long histories of profitable operations. By this, he meant a firm of substantial size and with a leading position in its respective industry. Additionally, Graham sought companies with: 1) Strong financial position (based on the current ratio & debt to working capital). 2) 20 years of uninterrupted dividends 3) No negative earnings in the last 10 years & a 10-year annual earnings growth rate of at least 3% 4) A reasonable price-earnings ratio & a moderately low ratio of price to assets more »
This screen seeks to identify research-led businesses that are investing significantly in future development in order to try to identify their potential future growth before the market does. As Jack Hough notes, "When a company announces a breakthrough drug or a sudden advance in computer-chip technology, its shares often soar right away. Imagine being able to foresee which companies are due for such lucrative discoveries". Specifcially, the screen looks for R&D investment levels that are increasing and which equal at least 5% of annual sales and 5% of total assets. It also looks for Price to R&D ratios that are below 20x. more »
When companies report earnings significantly higher than analyst's earnings estimates the result is known as an 'earning's suprise'. While earnings surprises often create spikes in the share price on the day of the announcement, they have also been observed to trigger longer term increases in the share price. This effect is known as the "Post Earnings Announcement Drift" and can last for several weeks or even months after the announcement date. The effect is generally attributed to the fact that analysts are slow to revise their forecasts and the market does not fully react to the information about future growth conveyed by the earnings surprises. The idea behind the strategy is to buy stocks that report earnings surprises and hold them over this time period. Positive surprises often happen at the beginning of a turnaround, or a new growth cycle where sales start to accelerate beyond the historical rates, “surprising” the analyst community. You can read more here. more »
This screen implements the Magic Formula value investing strategy pioneered by hedge fund manager, Joel Greenblatt. It is based on buying 20-30 "good, cheap companies" defined as having the best available combined MFI ranking in terms of Earnings Yield and a Return on Capital. Greenblatt argues that return on capital is the best determinant of whether a business is a good one or not (companies that can earn a high ROC over time generally have a special advantage that keeps competition from destroying it, such as a unique business model). Earnings yield is his metric for 'cheapness'. Greenblatt believes that stock prices of a firm can experience “wild” swings even as the value of the company stays relatively constant giving investors opportunities to buy low and sell high. more »
This is a 'fast growers' screen which looks for consistently profitable, relatively unknown, low-debt, reasonably priced stocks with high, but not excessive, growth. Mr. Lynch developed his investment philosophy at Fidelity, and gained his considerable fame managing Fidelity's Magellan Fund. His selection approach is strictly a bottom-up "buy what you know" one. He suggested focusing on companies familiar to the investor, applying fundamental analysis which emphasizes a thorough understanding of the company, its prospects, its competitive environment, and whether the stock can be purchased at a reasonable price. It’s frankly impossible to come up with a screen that exactly replicates Lynch’s multi-faceted investing strategy. Nevertheless, the following approach seeks to emulate some of the key elements of his search for “fast growers”. You can read more here. more »
A value investing screen based on Walter Schloss's dedicated focus on stocks that are hitting new lows and those trading at a price lower than their Book Value per Share. Schloss summarized his own approach as being: “We want to buy cheap stocks based on a small premium over book value, usually a depressed market price, a record that goes back at least 20 years…and one that doesn’t have much debt. You can read more here. more »
This is a short-selling strategy based on the Altman Z-score which combines five weighted business ratios to estimate the likelihood of financial distress. The idea is that, if the Altman Z-Score is close to or below 3, it is wise to do some serious due diligence. The Z-score results usually have the following "Zones" of interpretation: any Z-Score above 2.99 is considered to be a safe company. Anything below 1.80 is in the distress zone, with a strong likelihood of the company going bankrupt within the next two years, while anything between 1.80 and 2.99 is in a "grey zone". In line with Altman's result, this work is based on last annual reported results and does not factor any interim updates. According to the research, the Altman score does experience false positives (i.e. classifying the firm as bankrupt when it does not go bankrupt) in approximately 15-20% of cases. more »
This is a screen for short sellers (avoiding stocks on these lists is advisable). James Montier suggested this screen based on the writings of Benjamin Graham. Graham proposed three primary sources of risk to your investment in shares or any other asset - Valuation Risk, Earnings Risk and Financial Risk - each of which should be seriously considered when purchasing a new position. This screen looks for a Graham and Dodd PE of greater than 16x (valuation risk), it must have current EPS greater than twice the ten year average (business/earnings risk), and it must also have an Altman Z score of less than 1.8 (balance sheet/financial risk). more »
