Best Stock Screeners for May 2024

May 7, 2024
best-stock-screeners-for-may-2024

According to our research, Trade Ideas is the best overall stock screener for traders and investors due to its AI functionality, customizable screens, and integration with several popular brokerage platforms. We researched 30 stock screeners and evaluated them based on several key criteria, including ease of use, selection of basic and technical filters, customization, and additional features. 

Best Stock Screeners for May 2024

Best for Day Trading : Trade Ideas

Key Specs

  • Cost: Free to $228 per month with a discount if paid annually
  • Key Features: Customized server-based technology connects directly to the exchanges and online brokerage firms; access to a live trading room
  • Exchanges: Limited to U.S. and Canadian exchanges

Why We Chose It

With its lightning-fast platform and AI-driven functionalities for screening hundreds of criteria, Trading Ideas makes our list as the best stock screener for day trading.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Stock screener with AI functionalities

  • Integration with brokerages

  • Customizable screens

  • Live trading room

Cons

  • Only works with U.S. and Canadian stock exchanges

Overview

Day traders need access to real-time data, and they need it now. That’s what you get with the Trade Ideas Pro stock screener. Powered by a high-end artificial intelligence machine, the tool uses technical, fundamental, and social data to scan thousands of trading opportunities to find the ones with the most substantial upside potential quickly. That makes Trade Ideas our choice as the best stock screener for day trading.

Trade Ideas was founded in 2003 by a group of financial technology entrepreneurs in response to the growing demand for DIY investing. The customized server-based technology connects directly to the exchanges, enabling it to track every single stock and ETF that’s traded. Every tick is analyzed and tested, measuring a securities behavior against the past in real time. That’s the kind of edge that day traders need.

The stock screener employs leading-edge backtesting and automated stock trading features with multiple filters. Traders can use pre-configured layouts to start off strong. With more experience, traders can choose to customize their screens with their own criteria.

Traders also have access to a live trading room, real-time streaming trade ideas, and simultaneous charts. Trade Ideas connects directly to online brokerage firms such as E-Trade to allow traders to move between simulated trading and real-world trading.

As you might expect, having access to proprietary, high-end technology doesn’t come cheap. But $228 a month is a worthwhile investment for the edge that traders seek. A standard plan is available for $118 a month without full access to AI technology, and a further discount is available if you pay annually. A third, baseline option called TI Strength Alerts for $17 a month gives you five new trade ideas every Sunday.

If you still aren’t convinced about the service, Trade Ideas now offers a free version that can be used to test the pre-built layouts, scans, and screeners. However, as you develop as a day trader, you might also outgrow the free version. If that time comes, you will have the ability to upgrade anytime.

Best for Swing Traders : FINVIZ

Key Specs

  • Cost: $39.50 per month or $299.50 a year; free plan is available but it’s not real time
  • Key Features: Comprehensive toolset using historical data; interactive charts
  • Exchanges: Not limited

Why We Chose It

FINVIZ offers the right combination of swing trading tools, including a large selection of fundamental and technical criteria, real-time quotes, charts, backtesting, pre-market data, and email alerts. All this makes it our pick as the best stock screener for swing trading.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Highly visual approach to screening

  • Ease of use

  • Good selection of fundamental and technical screening criteria

  • Access to global stocks

  • Free version is sufficient for many swing traders

Cons

  • Fewer fundamental metrics than other screeners on this list

Overview

FINVIZ’s stock screener has been a popular choice for investors since it was created in 2007. But what makes it stand out for swing traders is its comprehensive toolset that includes real-time data, interactive charts, pre-market data, and backtesting using years of historical data. FINVIZ is a great choice for all types of investors and traders, but it’s our pick as the best stock screener for swing trading. 

FINVIZ is short for Financial Visualizations, a reference to the unique and compelling way it presents information, making it easy and fun to navigate. Users can access a stock chart simply by hovering over the stock symbol in the screener.

But its real claim to fame is the way it has stacked its screener with many useful tools and features. Its Elite screener is a powerful research tool with access to real-time data, advanced charts, pre-market data, customized filters, and data export capabilities.

Its charts are interactive, allowing users to use a crosshair cursor to pinpoint exact data points or check a stock’s relative strength indicator. You can also compare a stock’s performance with the S&P 500 index. Everything is saved to your portfolio. You can use the screener for up to 100 portfolios and up to 200 screener presets.

FINVIZ*Elite is an excellent value at $39.50 per month or $299.50 a year. It also offers a free plan, but the data is not real time. That might be okay if you’re more of a buy-and-hold investor or you set up your swing trades pre- or post-market.

Best Free Option : ZACKS (NASDAQ)

Key Specs

  • Cost: Free version available; premium membership $249 per year with free 30-day try-it membership
  • Key Features: Enter your own segmentation criteria; extensive EPS metrics
  • Exchanges: Not limited

Why We Chose It

Zacks Investment Research has a comprehensive stock screener solution with high functionality supported by a massive number of metrics. The free version offers enough tools to conduct thorough and informed filtering of stocks, which is why we picked Zacks as the best free option for a stock screener.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Well-equipped free stock screener

  • Hundreds of fundamental metrics

  • Extensive stock database

  • Extensive EPS metrics

  • Low cost paid plan

Cons

  • Limited technical screening

Overview

Zacks has built a reputation as a reliable source of stock data for investors looking for a stock picking edge, Zacks’ free stock screener has almost everything investors need to make well-timed and informed stock picks. That’s why Zacks is our choice as the best free option for a stock screener.

In addition to the hundreds of metrics that Zacks provides, one of its key features is users’ ability to enter their own segmentation criteria. You can enter a customs value or range as a filter, giving you more opportunities for precise screening results.

Another standout feature is the extensive earnings per share (EPS) metrics, allowing you to delve more deeply into a company’s relative performance compared to its EPS history.

All but some of its more advanced features are available on the free plan. You can dig deeper with more than 96 predefined screens or use the Custom Screener that shows you the best Zacks Rank stocks to match your personal interests and trading style such as Value, Growth, Momentum, or Income, with Zacks Premium membership for $249 a year. You can try Zacks Premium Screener, plus several additional powerful tools and research, with a free 30-day membership. 

Best for Buy-and-Hold Investors : Stock Rover

Key Specs

  • Cost: $7.99 to $27.99 per month with a free start-up plan
  • Key Features: Almost 500 screening filters for financial indicators; linkable to your brokerage account
  • Exchanges: Limited to U.S. and Canadian exchanges

Why We Chose It

Investors have access to nearly every fundamental criterion you can think of through Stock Rover, as well as an extensive database of company financial statements. That’s why it’s our pick as the best stock screener for buy-and-hold investors.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Vast selection of fundamental screening criteria

  • Hundreds of value, growth, and dividend screeners

  • 10-year historical fundamental database

  • Integrates with most brokerages

  • Stock scoring system

Cons

  • Limited day trading functionalities

  • Only works with U.S. and Canadian exchanges

Overview

Stock Rover offers limited technical indicator filters, which wouldn’t make it a good choice for day traders, but you’ll love the robust research and analysis tools offered if you’re a long-term investor with buy-and-hold tendencies. That, coupled with its very reasonable pricing, makes Stock Rover our choice as the best stock screener for buy-and-hold investors.

Stock Rover was founded in 2008 by software engineers who have a passion for investing. They created an advanced web application to simplify how investors can research, select, and track investments. Its platform offers almost 500 screening filters for financial indicators for screening and comparing stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds. Users can finetune their results by creating complex equations and combining multiple filters. 

Investors love Stock Rover’s rating system, which scores securities on a scale from 1 to 100 in several categories. These include growth, valuation, efficiency, financial strength, dividends, and momentum. Followers of Warren Buffet will especially like the preset fair market value and margin of safety screeners.

Investors can link Stock Rover to their brokerage account for more robust reporting, portfolio analysis, and portfolio rebalancing recommendations.

Stock Rover offers a free account that’s sufficient to get you started, but you can start with the Essentials plan for $7.99 a month to access more functionality. Essentials provides over 275 financial metrics, five years of historical data, watch list tracking, customizable views, and fast stock screening. The Premium plan adds substantially more features for $17.99 per month, including more financial metrics, 100 charts, and 10 years of historical data. The Premium Plus includes more than 700 financial metrics and top priority email support for $27.99 per month.

Best for Interactive Charting : TC2000

Key Specs

  • Cost: $9.99 to $59.99 per month, discounted when paid annually; $25 monthly discount if you have an account balance over $30,000 or place a trade at least once a month.
  • Key Features: Screens for both ETFs and options; interactive charts
  • Exchanges: Limited to U.S. and Canadian exchanges

Why We Chose It

The TC2000 stock screening package is as robust and powerful as you’ll find after more than 25 years of refinement, making it our top pick for interactive charting.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Wide selection of fundamental and technical screening criteria

  • Nearly three decades of refinement and improvement

  • Ease of use

  • Screening for ETFs and options

  • Interactive charts with chart drawing tools

Cons

  • Only works with U.S. and Canadian exchanges

Overview

The TC2000 stock screener is as comprehensive as it gets. With its excellent selection of fundamental and technical screening criteria and powerful options and exchange-traded fund (ETF) screening, this award-winning stock screener has long outpaced the competition, which is why we picked it as the best overall.  

The entry-level Silver plan costs $9.99 per month, providing users with the opportunity to begin testing the EasyScan stock screener’s capabilities. But you can unleash its real power with the Gold and Platinum plans for $29.99 and $59.99 per month, respectively. All plans are discounted when paid annually. 

The Gold plan provides full access to the EasyScan screener, including a simple step-by-step wizard for creating conditions. Users can jump from chart drawing tools into sortable watchlists that can set up to 100 alerts with simultaneous tracking. 

The Platinum plan adds historical condition testing, automatic refresh intervals on scans, and sorts with up to one thousand alerts that can be simultaneously tracked. Users can receive up to $25 in monthly discounts if they have an account balance over $30,000 or place a trade at least once a month.

Its ease of use masks the power and robustness of its screening, scanning, and filtering. Integration is flawless if you open a TC2000 brokerage account for trading, allowing you to effortlessly move from screening on a wide range of fundamental and technical screens to managing your watchlists to executing trades. The same power and maneuverability apply to its ETF and options screening.

The only downside of TC2000 is that it’s limited to U.S. and Canadian exchanges. That aside, the powerful TC2000 stock screener coupled with its solid customer support makes it hard to beat.

Best for Global Investing : TradingView

Key Specs

  • Cost: $14.95 to $59.95 per month with a 30-day free trial
  • Key Features: Highly interactive chat room with traders from all over the world
  • Exchanges: Keyed to global investing

Why We Chose It

TradingView stacks up well with any of the stock screeners on this list, but where it excels is the breadth of securities it covers, including international stocks and funds from all over the globe. That makes TradingView our pick as the best stock screener for global investing.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Excellent selection of fundamental screening criteria

  • Extensive charting capabilities

  • Expansive selection of global stocks

  • Interactive trading room

  • 30-day free trial

Cons

  • Light on historical data

Overview

As a stock screener, TradingView has it all, including a solid offering of fundamental, economic, and financial screening criteria and extensive charting functionalities built on advanced HTML5 technology. But where it stands out is its broad coverage of international stocks across 70+ global exchanges. That’s why we chose TradingView as the best stock screener for global investing. 

TradingView is the innovative brainchild of a group of traders and software developers who were intent on creating a trading platform for the masses. It’s effortless, powerful, and accessible to everyone. TradingView’s global reach is unparalleled with more than 50 million active worldwide users.

The stock screener includes more than 100 fundamental and technical criteria with the ability to customize filters and views to your liking. One of its outstanding features is the ability to map and compare economic indicators with a company’s financial indicators to see how a company has performed in various economic conditions.

Another standout feature is its highly interactive chat room, bringing together traders from all parts of the world to share ideas.

You can start screening stocks and ETFs with TradingView for free, which includes access to the screener, list alerts, and advanced filter customization. Paid plans with more complete access to TradingView’s powerful tools start at $14.95 a month and go up to $59.95. All paid plans include a 30-day free trial.

Final Verdict

Day traders and stock investors need access to complex data analysis to be able to sift through the tens of thousands of stocks in the U.S. and global markets. They need access to high-quality stock screeners to do that.  

The best stock screeners combine ease of use with flexibility without sacrificing data accuracy or quantity. The best screeners have a broad range of stocks in their databases that can be filtered with precision using both preset and custom criteria. The interface should be intuitive, even for beginners. 

Compare the Best Stock Screeners

Stock Screener Monthly Price Limited Free Version Best Features Exchanges Followed
Trade Ideas Best for Day Trading Starts at $118/mo.  Yes AI-driven stock screener  U.S. and Canada 
FINVIZ Best for Swing Trading Starts at $39.50/mo.  Yes Vivid graphics and interactive charts  U.S. and global 
Zacks Best Free Option $249/yr. Yes Massive number of metrics  U.S. and global 
Stock Rover Best for Buy & Hold Investing Starts at $7.99/mo.  Yes Stock rating system  U.S. and Canada 
TC2000 Best Overall Starts at $9.99/mo. No Powerful screening tools  U.S. and Canada 
TradingView Best for Global Investing Starts at $14.95/mo.  Yes Follows 70+ global exchanges  U.S. and global 

Best Free Stock Screeners

Utilizing premium stock screeners can give investors a sizable edge when trading in the market. Premium stock screeners are the way to go when it comes to getting the most out of a larger selection of tools and data. However, some of these high-profile screeners come with a learning curve as well as costs that are simply too high for inexperienced traders to justify. Below are some of the best free screeners novice traders can use while learning the ropes of trading. 

  • Zacks (Nasdaq): Zacks is the best free option for stock screeners. Beginning traders will find that they will be equipped with everything they need to research the stock market and execute timely trades. When traders are ready to upgrade to the premium version, they can easily do so without changing to another platform.
  • Finviz: Finviz is an excellent stock screening platform, but there is a learning curve that traders must overcome. The platform is a good stepping stone for traders to understand how complex screeners operate and the amount of information that traders will need to cipher before spending money on a premium stock screener. 
  • TradingView: TradingView is another excellent option that traders can use before committing to a premium stock screener. The free version of TradingView offers an exceptional stock screener and a wide range of free indicators and market analyses that traders will appreciate. However, this stock screener might also have a learning curve for newer traders, but once traders get the hang of the platform, they can start considering upgrading, which is easy to manage.

Why You Should Trust Us

Investopedia collected vital data points for 30 companies offering stock screeners to identify the most essential factors. We used this data to review each screener for associated costs, functionality, available chart patterns, and other features to provide an unbiased, comprehensive review to ensure our readers decide on the right stock screener. Investopedia launched in 1999, and has been helping readers find the best best stock screeners since 2021.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • A stock screener is an essential tool used by stock traders and investors to sift through thousands of stocks so they can find those that best meet their criteria. Users can apply any number of filters based on fundamental and technical metrics to narrow down their lists. The more robust the screening filters, the more quickly the screener can find you a match.

    Users can also apply their own customized criteria to find a more precise match. The screener will instantly display the results in the categories you choose when criteria are applied.

    Stock screeners are used to identify stocks based on different investing scenarios, such as creating an asset allocation strategy, long-term buy-and-hold strategies, or day trading in and out of the market for quick returns.

  • Stock screeners are relatively straightforward. After opening the screener, you choose the filters you want to use based on specific criteria, such as price, trading volume, price-to-earnings ratio, volatility, chart patterns, and other fundamental or technical metrics. You can layer on more filters until you get the results you want to further narrow down your choices.

  • Roaming the vast universe of stocks to find just the right one can seem daunting and complex. A good stock screener is well organized and easy to use, enabling you to find the filters you need and start the process with a few clicks. It’s essential to use a stock screener with a wide range of filters and the ability to quickly sort your results so you can drill down further. 

    You should look for a stock screener that’s most suited to your investing style. Some are more ideally suited for day trading, while others are more appropriate for long-term investing. Some only follow U.S. stock exchanges, while others have a global reach. 

    Additional must-haves include accurate data. Always check to make sure that the data comes from a reputable and reliable source, Make sure the screener has the capability to save your screens or you’ll have to continually re-enter your criteria. 

  • Google removed its stock screener in 2022. It replaced it with a more bare-bones tool, eliminating many key features.

  • Investors who actively trade on the market will find that there are several stock screeners to choose from. Although a good stock screener will be able to handle a wide range of demands, certain stock screeners are better equipped to handle different trading styles. For instance, there are stock screeners that focus on day trading, swing trading, and option trading. If traders do not adhere to a particular style, they can reap the benefits of a free stock screener either from an external screener or their preferred brokerage.  

Guide to Stock Screeners

Learn more about stock screeners:

Methodology

Our initial search revealed 30 stock screeners for our consideration. We narrowed the list to 16 by running them through our criteria of ease of use, selection of fundamental and technical filters, depth of filter criteria, customization, and extra functionality. After a more rigorous comparison, we identified the best stock screeners in six distinct categories.

Investopedia / Julie Bang

Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work. These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts. We also reference original research from other reputable publishers where appropriate. You can learn more about the standards we follow in producing accurate, unbiased content in our editorial policy.

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