At any given moment, thousands of companies around the world trade publicly. For investors looking to pick individual stocks, that raises a crucial question: How do you choose which stocks to buy?
While many investors choose to simply buy index funds as an easy way to “invest in the market” and likely earn average historical stock market returns, others aim to beat the market by picking individual stocks.
They may simply look to day trade, darting in and out of the market for quick returns. Or they may seek to buy and hold individual stocks for long-term gains and dividends.
That’s where stock screeners come in handy. Stock screeners help investors narrow down the thousands of stocks available on the market, based on filter criteria.
10 Best Stock Screeners
Try the following best stock screeners, and for the services that charge money, keep an eye on their free trial policies before committing long-term.
- Seeking Alpha Premium
- TD Ameritrade
- Trade Ideas
- Benzinga Pro
- Stock Market Guides
- Stock Rover
- FINVIZ
- TradingView
- TC2000
- Zacks
1. Seeking Alpha Premium
- 🥇 Best Overall
- Cost: $249/year billed annually
- Exchanges: U.S. and foreign exchanges, but the focus is on the U.S.
Seeking Alpha Premium is trusted by seasoned buy-and-hold investors, day traders, and market analysts alike. That’s due in part to its best-in-class stock screeners.
As a Seeking Alpha user, you can access around two dozen proprietary Seeking Alpha screeners, including top growth stocks, top yield monsters, most shorted stocks, top stocks by quant, and sector-specific top stocks.
Or, if you prefer, you can build your own Seeking Alpha screener using the criteria most important to your investment thesis, style, and objectives.
And Seeking Alpha Premium offers far more than an endlessly customizable stock screener. It’s a comprehensive market intelligence suite built to make you better at what you love: investing.
For an annual plan at $19.99 per month, Seeking Alpha Premium gives you these unbeatable features, including unlimited access to premium content from Seeking Alpha’s expert contributors, key metrics like Seeking Alpha author ratings and author performance, proprietary quant ratings and unlimited earnings call audio and transcripts.
Pros
- Can customize screeners
- Provides in-depth stock analysis
- Unlimited access to premium content from experts
Cons
- Limited use for foreign exchanges
- Mostly benefits self-directed investors
From March 27th-April 3rd, Seeking Alpha Premium will be priced at $179 (25% off!)
2. TD Ameritrade
- Best Free Brokerage for Screening Tools
- Cost: Free
- Exchanges: Domestic and foreign
TD Ameritrade is an online brokerage account built and designed around day trading. Schwab has recently acquired them, but you get the same robust features.
However, it offers no fewer than six platforms. Its thinkorswim platform, in particular, combines flexible data analysis with fast, easy trading.
It doesn’t hurt that TD Ameritrade doesn’t charge any commissions on trades, either. It was among the first online brokerages to go commission-free.
Embedded in its platforms lies a wealth of free tools, including its Stock Hacker tool for both filtering and real-time scanning. For instance, you can set up scans for technical patterns like channels, wedges, and flags and immediately act on them by buying within the platform.
All for free. Notably, it lets you practice trading with fake money with its paperMoney feature. But you do have to open a brokerage account with them to access these tools.
Pros
- Robust trading tools
- Large amounts of third-party research
- Can trade stocks and ETFs commission-free
Cons
- No fractional shares
- All TD Ameritrade accounts go through Schwab now
Keep Reading: TD Ameritrade Review
3. Trade Ideas
- Best for Day Trading & AI
- Cost: $84/month – $167/month
- Exchanges: U.S. and Canadian exchanges
LIMITED TIME OFFER: Save 22% off a new Trade Ideas monthly or annual subscription when you use the link here to sign up.
For real-time scanning and screening, it’s hard to beat Trade Ideas.
The platform is exceptionally fast, with its data centers strategically located near major stock exchanges. It also provides a wealth of preset scans, which you can customize and combine with your own unique criteria.
You can connect it with several investment brokerages for convenient, direct trading from the platform. You can also backtest algorithm ideas for investing and trading to see how they would have performed in the past.
Trade Ideas sets itself apart with its artificial intelligence. Its AI tool, named Holly, uses technical, fundamental, and social data to scan thousands of trading opportunities and alert you when it finds one with strong upside potential. That helps you find opportunities you would never have otherwise noticed.
Trade Ideas only works with U.S. and Canadian stock exchanges. Although the service offers a free demo, most features require a premium account, and it’s not cheap: plans range from $84 to $167 per month.
Pros
- Helpful AI assistant
- Powerful backtesting
- Robust stock scanning
Cons
- High cost
- Complex interface meant for advanced investors
4. Benzinga Pro
- Best for Swing Trading
- Cost: $37 – $457 per month
- Exchanges: U.S. and foreign exchanges
Benzinga Pro offers all the usual trappings: real-time data and news alerts, plenty of predefined stock screeners (including a dividend stock screener), integrated charting, sentiment indicators, and a real-time stock scanner.
Arguably, its most interesting feature is its Audio Squawk feature. When relevant market news hits, it doesn’t wait for you to see it — it announces it over audio. If you have this feature turned on, of course.
Benzinga has a reputation for getting financial news to you faster than competitors. In fact, it offers an entire news feed called WIIM: Why Is It Moving? The feed helps you understand the cause behind wild price swings for companies or sectors.
Its customizable calendar suite also helps you track the timing of important news so you never fall behind the eight-ball.
Like many of its competitors, Benzinga offers a freemium model. There’s a limited free account, then several Pro pricing tiers ranging from about $30 all the way to about $450 per month. Yikes. But that latter price point is for options traders and includes mentoring and advanced algorithm trading models, among other perks.
Pros
- Customizable calendar
- Live audio Squawk Box
- Fast real-time news feed
Cons
- No live trading
- Only covers equities
5. Stock Market Guides
- Best Backtesting Software
- Cost: $49/month
- Exchanges: U.S. only
Stock Market Guides offers stock and option picks emphasizing backtesting. They use historical information to determine their picks and send real-time alerts to help you make the most of the opportunities to buy low and sell high.
You choose when you receive alerts, either pre-market (before it opens) or while the market is open. The service works well for swing and long-term traders, with investments available for 3-day holds and up to one year.
You’ll receive a set number of picks daily, and you’ll also receive a newsletter that shares trading analyses and tips. There’s no guessing with the information provided. It’s easy to follow, allowing traders to make fast investing decisions.
Pros
- Options for swing and long-term traders
- Can change settings as often as you’d like
- Easy to use software that isn’t overwhelming
Cons
- High monthly cost
- Information based only on backtesting
6. Stock Rover
- Best for Buy-and-Hold Investors:
- Cost: $7.99/month – $27.99/month
- Exchanges: U.S. and Canadian
Another outstanding option, Stock Rover, excels at U.S. and Canadian stock screening.
The online software offers over 180 screening filters and makes it just as easy to screen exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as stocks and mutual funds. You can create complex equations, combining multiple filters with if-then logic to fine-tune your results.
Stock Rover also provides robust scanning features, with its data, watchlists, and filters updating every minute if you like.
Stock Rover works particularly well for long-term buy-and-hold investors. It can integrate with your brokerage account, including most major brokers, such as Vanguard, Charles Schwab, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, and TD Ameritrade.
Once integrated, it offers more robust reporting, portfolio rebalancing recommendations, correlation testing for your asset allocation, and portfolio analysis.
The Stock Rover rating system creates succinct feedback for you to review. On a scale from 1 to 100, it displays several categories of rating scores for each security: overall, growth, valuation, efficiency, financial strength, dividends, and momentum.
Stock Rover serves day traders less well. Compared to its 400-plus financial indicators, it only offers 22 technical indicators in its screener. It better serves value and income investors.
In a nod to Warren Buffett’s emphasis on fundamental analysis, it even comes with a “Buffettology” screener preset to find companies with a strong margin of safety and fair value indicators.
Like many others, Stock Rover operates on a freemium model. Its free account option works well to help you get started, but you must pay for a premium account for full functionality. Fortunately, they start at only $7.99 per month, and the most expensive is $27.99 per month.
Pros
- 180 stock screening filters
- Offers portfolio rebalancing
- Integrates with brokerage accounts
Cons
- Complex for beginners
- Must link a third-party brokerage for many features
7. FINVIZ
- Best for Beginners
- Cost: $39.50/month or $299.50/year
- Exchanges: U.S. markets
As a stock screener, Finviz (a portmanteau of “financial” and “visualizations”) is largely free.
Its Finviz Elite plan adds a real-time stock scanner, aftermarket data, correlation data between stocks, and backtests, which apply a prospective trading or investing strategy to the past to see how it would have performed. The plan costs about $40 per month, discounted by approximately 40% if you pay annually.
But its free plan requires no sign-up and includes a broad range of screening filters. The only real downside is a delay in updating the data, which impacts day traders more than buy-and-hold investors. The latter can use Finviz after markets close.
With its intuitive, simple online platform, Finviz makes a particularly easy starting point for new traders and investors. Its selection of 67 fundamental and technical criteria is enough to help you learn the ropes but not too many to overwhelm.
Historically, Finviz did not allow users to select multiple options within the same filter field simultaneously. For example, you couldn’t select two economic sectors — you could either select one or all but not a specific few. Finviz has since rectified this for its Elite subscription members, adding more flexibility to the screening platform.
Consider Finviz a perfect platform for learning how to use visual charts. As you become more sophisticated, you can explore more advanced options as needed.
Pros
- Robust filters
- Shares aftermarket data
- Offers a robust free stock screener (Elite is more robust)
Cons
- No preset screeners
- Doesn’t autosave screeners
8. TradingView
- Best for Global Investors
- Cost: $12.95/month – $49.95/month
- Exchanges: U.S. and international exchanges
Although slightly overwhelming for new traders and investors, TradingView offers an incredibly flexible screening platform at a low or no cost.
You can start screening stocks and ETFs with no sign-up required and familiarize yourself with the many options available. With over 150 fundamental and technical filters, you can precisely sort stocks. And if you want to only look at stocks or ETFs, you can switch easily between the two.
One area where TradingView excels is the breadth of securities and investments it includes.
To begin with, it includes international stocks and funds from all over the globe, letting you compare American and foreign stocks with the same set of tools. Beyond international securities, it also provides access to cryptocurrencies and foreign exchange (forex) currency comparisons.
TradingView also offers a simple rating system for securities, indicating whether it’s a “buy,” “sell,” “strong buy,” or “strong sell.”
One particularly neat trick up TradingView’s sleeve is comparing broader economic indicators with company-level data. For example, you can compare a company’s performance with the national unemployment rate over time to look for patterns.
TradingView operates on a freemium model, with both free and premium options. The free version includes ads but also allows most premium functionality. You need a paid subscription to access the real-time scanner feature and export data. However, the platform offers a 30-day free trial, and premium accounts start at around $12.95 per month.
Pros
- Includes international funds
- Large number of built-in indicators
- Works for new and advanced investors
Cons
- Free version is minimal
- The large number of features can be overwhelming
9. TC2000
- Best Desktop Software & Charting
- Cost: $9.99/month – $59.99/month
- Exchanges: U.S. and Canadian markets
LIMITED TIME OFFER: Get $25 off when you sign up for TC2000 using the link here.
For nearly 30 years, TC2000 has excelled at stock screening and scanning.
It offers a broad range of fundamental and technical screening criteria. But TC2000 also allows you to create custom screening criteria, which you can layer on top of existing stock charts. The ability to layer customized data into visual charts makes its charting unsurpassed in the stock screener field.
TC2000 also lets you customize alerts better than most screeners to let you know in real time when your custom combination aligns just right. Combine that with fast real-time scanning, and it makes for an outstanding platform for day traders.
Unfortunately, TC2000 only works with American and Canadian stock markets. It comes as downloaded and installed software, and some users complain its web-based platform fails to live up to the installed version.
Like other screeners, TC2000 offers both a free version and premium options, with the latter starting at around $10 per month.
Note: TC2000 bought FreeStockCharts.com and integrated its features as part of its free service.
Pros
- Also offers robust mobile app
- User-friendly and works for beginners
- Robust enough for advanced traders to create custom screens
Cons
- No crypto
- For best results, high-resolution monitors are necessary
10. Zacks
- Best for Custom Screens
- Cost: $249/year
- Exchanges: U.S. and international
Zacks Investment Research focuses on fundamental analysis, so it’s not a good fit for technical investors. Anyone can access the platform for free, but the free content focuses on past performance.
Access to the stock screener requires a premium subscription. Zacks offers 45 predefined screens or create your own custom screen. They break their screeners down by categories including stock, mutual fund, ETF, basic, and premium.
It comes at a hefty cost per year, but you’ll have access to robust research, Zacks top-ranking list, financial reports, and unlimited use of the stock screener. You can follow Zacks Focus List portfolio of the top 50 stocks and take advantage of ‘surprise stocks’ that others may not have in their portfolio but Zacks recommends.
Keep in mind, though, Zacks doesn’t push through information. You must go to the website and seek out the information you want. Nothing is sent in real time.
Pros
- Custom screeners
- Access to Zacks investment picks
- Access to international exchanges
Cons
- Hefty price point
- No push-through data
Types of Stock Screens
- Preset: Great for beginners, preset stock screens use standard investing strategies to help investors quickly gather a list of attractive stocks.
- Expert: Advanced investors may prefer expert screeners that use more advanced strategies. This is the preferred method for most day traders or those who rely on backtesting.
- Custom: If you have your own set of parameters for picking stocks, you can set your own stock screens to build a robust portfolio.
- Community: Some sites let members share their stock screens to share investing ideas and help investors make faster decisions.
Methodology: How We Select the Best Stock Screeners
Not all stock screeners are created equal. Different screeners excel in different ways, so here’s how we reviewed them.
Screening Filters
First and foremost, look for robust screening filters. A stock screener is only as good as its ability to help you find stocks based on precise criteria. A few standard screening filters include:
- Stock exchange
- Country or region
- Industry
- Market capitalization (cap)
- Dividend yield
- Price
- Target price
- Trading volume (current, average, or relative)
- Volatility
- Price-to-earnings ratio (P/E)
- Earnings per share (EPS)
Markets
Many traders start with U.S. stock exchanges and never expand beyond them. But if you want to trade stocks worldwide, you need a stock screener that supports more than just U.S. markets. Full stop.
Usability
The best stock screeners combine flexibility with ease of use. Stock screeners should ideally let you narrow your search with exact precision without an overly complex or cumbersome interface. Even beginners should find them intuitive to use.
Timeliness
Speed matters for stock screeners. You need up-to-the-second data to know exactly when to get in and out of a trade. That goes for financial news as well. The best stock screeners include intuitive, real-time news flash features to keep you posted about market-moving updates.
Pricing
Most stock screeners charge a fee, so cost becomes a factor. If you’re new to stock screeners, start with free services to familiarize yourself with how they work before shelling out a hefty subscription fee.
FAQs
With thousands of dollars on the line, you need to know what you’re getting into before you start slinging trades.
Ensure you understand the answers to these questions before choosing a stock screener and trading your hard-earned cash.
What Should You Look for in a Stock Screener?
Start by looking at the above factors: screening filters, markets, usability, timeliness, and pricing.
But only you know your exact needs. There’s no singular perfect stock screener — choose one based on your investing strategy, budget, and personal preferences.
Do Stock Screeners Work?
They do, but with limitations. Stock screeners are just data filtering tools. You can use them to narrow a list of stocks based on your search criteria, but that doesn’t mean those stocks will earn you money.
Although they can help with technical analysis, they don’t help you gauge more qualitative aspects of a company, such as the experience of their leadership team, company culture, labor relations, etc. Do your own investment research before buying companies, especially if you plan to buy and hold rather than quick stock trading.
Are Stock Screeners Worth the Cost?
It depends on how much trading you do. Full-time stock traders need the best trading tools available on the market, while someone like me who just does a little swing trading with “fun money” can use a basic brokerage trading platform.
And, of course, it depends on the cost. Most of the solutions above offer free membership levels, and some offer premium tools for just a few dollars per month. Others cost hundreds of dollars each month, so you must understand your needs and priorities.
How to Choose the Best Stock Screener
Day traders and individual stock pickers need access to more complex data analysis than buy-and-hold index fund investors. They need outstanding screeners to sift through the hundreds of thousands of stocks in the global market.
Start with a free stock screener option like Finviz or TD Ameritrade if you’re new to the game. As you grow in confidence and expertise, you can try out more robust screening tools like TradingView and Stock Rover.
There’s nothing wrong with having a little fun trading in the market. But never trade with money you can’t afford to lose. Think of it as gambling, not investing.
Start low and go slow when you start trading with real money rather than pretend dollars.
