Whether you're watching megacaps like Nvidia, Tesla and Alphabet or newer IPOs like Robinhood Markets, Reddit and Duolingo, effective stock analysis involves multiple factors, including having the right tools to identify and evaluate the best stocks to buy and watch. From unbiased stock ratings and stock lists to customizable stock screens and more, the tools highlighted here – all based on The IBD Methodology — help investors spot promising stock picks and track the performance of each company in their portfolio.
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•Stock Ratings •Stock Checkup •Stock Lists •Stock Screens •Market Exposure & Risk Management Subscription Products •IBD Digital •IBD Live •IBD Leaderboard •MarketSurge •SwingTrader •MarketDiem |
Stock Ratings To Enhance Your Stock Analysis
As outlined in the section on how to buy stocks, IBD's stock ratings help streamline your stock analysis and research.
With The IBD Methodology as the foundation, these unbiased, computer-generated ratings provide a comprehensive assessment of a company and its stock. That includes how it stacks up against its industry peers and all other publicly traded companies.
Key to a truly holistic review, the ratings cover both fundamental factors focused on the company, and technical analysis focused on the stock. Take the Earnings Per Share (EPS) Rating and SMR Rating as examples. They evaluate a company's sales and earnings growth, as well as profit margins, return on equity and other factors. To gauge demand, the Accumulation/Distribution Rating tracks buying and selling over the last 13 weeks.
The Composite Rating measures all three of these scores, as well as the Relative Strength Rating, then rolls them up into a single, overall grade. As a general rule, when looking for the best growth stocks, focus on those with a 95 or higher Composite Rating. A score of 95, for example, means the company is outpacing 95% of all stocks in terms of the most-important stock-picking factors. From Magnificent Seven stocks like Nvidia, Google stock, Apple to lesser-known IPOs, this rating lets you instantly diagnose any stock.
The Power Of Relativity: Except for the Accumulation/Distribution Rating, all of the main IBD stock ratings are relative. That is, they show how your stock compares to all other stocks, instantly separating the leaders from the laggards without the need to manually compare thousand of companies. For example, a 99 Composite Rating — the highest possible — indicates a stock's fundamental and technical performance is outpacing 99% of the more than 8,000 companies in IBD's database.
Google And Nvidia Share Three Traits. One Is A Cautionary Tale.
IBD Stock Checkup
Is your stock an A+ or D-? Find out with an instant diagnose of any stock using IBD Stock Checkup. Just put in the ticker to get a detailed checklist of the stock's fundamental and technical performance.
The ratings related to fundamental analysis measure metrics such as quarterly and annual earnings growth, sales performance, return on equity, profit margins and more.
On the technical analysis front, Stock Checkup also tracks metrics such as share price, trading volume, percentage off the 52-week high and market capitalization. The tool also showcases related stock ratings, including the Accumulation/Distribution Rating. To help spot any heavy buying or selling by institutional investors, this metric tracks large-lot trading over the trailing 13 weeks.
You'll also find the up/down volume ratio, another measure of demand. With the higher the number the better, any score above 1.0 points to demand.
Find Top-Rated Stocks In Each Industry: Stock Checkup also identifies the true leaders in each of the 197 industry groups IBD tracks based on unbiased, computer-generated stock ratings. This helps investors spot the true leaders, which are not necessarily the best-known or household names. This feature can help uncover younger companies with rising demand due to a new product or industry trend. It works just as well for more established firms.
View a sample IBD Stock Checkup for Nvidia (as of Oct. 24).
Stock Lists To Jump-Start Your Stock Analysis
To save time and jump-start your stock research, regularly scan the top-rated names on IBD's unique stock lists.
Depending on market conditions at any given time, companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, Google and Tesla may come in and out of favor on Wall Street. But whether a household name or an under-the-radar IPO, the top-performing stocks — those showing leading relative strength and strong demand among large investors — will show up on these stock lists.
Each screen targets a different criteria. That enables an investor to drill down on his or her area of interest. The IBD 50 highlights leading growth stocks while the IBD Big Cap 20 showcases more liquid, well-established large caps. IPO Leaders showcases the newer crop of promising stocks to watch.
The IBD Sector Leaders screen, our most stringent, focuses on top-rated stocks that are clear leaders among their industry peers and across the general stock market.
IBD Long-Term Leaders highlights companies that have shown relative strength and earnings stability across multiple market cycles.
Stocks On The Move: Updated in real-time throughout each trading day, Stocks On The Move highlights stocks moving up (or down) in volume.
Click here to browse all the IBD stock lists.
More From MarketSurge And IBD Live: For even more stocks to watch, subscribe to MarketSurge and IBD Live. From the MarketSurge 250 and Stocks Breaking Out Today, MarketSurge provides a wide range of names for your watchlist. And in real-time each morning, the panel of experts on IBD Live also pinpoint and evaluate noteworthy stocks on the move.
Stock Screens
With thousands of publicly traded stocks to choose from, finding a way to streamline your hunt for the best stocks to watch is critical.
Scanning IBD's stock lists, as noted above, is one way to do that. But you can take your research to the next level with IBD Stock Screener. This tool allows you to filter those lists based on your own criteria.
You can also create your own custom screens based on factors most important to you. Using filters based on sales and earnings growth rate, EPS estimates, earnings due date, IPO date and much more, you can easily build your own library of stock screens to run anytime. You can also create and run custom screens based on IBD's stock ratings.
Screen Of The Day: Alongside stock ideas and analysis with IBD Stock Of The Day, the IBD Screen Of The Day points out stocks to watch based on screens run by the IBD markets team.
Top-Rated Stocks Under $10: While lower-priced stocks can bring more risk, this screen can also uncover market gems. You'll find the Top Rated Stocks Under $10 tab inside the Stock Screener.
Learn More About The IBD Stock Screener
MarketSurge — Advanced Screens And Pattern Recognition: While the Stock Screener tool is included with a subscription to IBD Digital, MarketSurge provides an even more robust stock screening platform. MarketSurge also includes pattern recognition, which expedites your research by identifying chart patterns and optimal buy points.
Market Exposure & Risk Management
As one of the four pillars of The IBD Strategy, risk management should play a key role when researching a stock.
Investors should use technical analysis to evaluate the potential upside and downside of an individual stock. But it's also important to monitor the recommended market exposure level for the market as a whole.
Ranging from 0-20% to 80-100%, this five-tiered system helps investors gauge how aggressive or defensive they should be given the current health of the major indexes and leading stocks.
Used in conjunction with the stock ratings and stock lists discussed earlier, the stock market exposure level helps you manage how to buy stocks and when to sell stocks to remain both protected and profitable.
