How to Filter Stocks Like a Pro Using Visual Screeners

While this data boom can create multiple edges for investors, it can also lead to confusion and lower-probability trading decisions. Software solutions designed to make sense of it all are a dime a dozen, but there are good reasons many of them include robust data visualizers like the interactive bubble chart stock screener. Atlantis Data Solutions produces stock analysis tools that include data visualization features like bubble charts to aggregate and analyze market data quickly and efficiently.

How Traditional Stock Screeners Fall Short

Most stock screening tools resemble something of a spreadsheet or a table where rows represent different stocks and columns include information related to company fundamentals. While such a screener is helpful for generating ideas and narrowing down potential investments using a set of criteria like PE ratio, industry, or market cap, they tend to be clunky. Conducting a detailed comparison of several variables can be an exercise in frustration for the busy investor, particularly if they want to analyze a sizeable amount of stocks. The task quickly becomes time-consuming and unwieldy, which is bad news for investors who need all the time they can get to conduct research in an increasingly data-driven economy. Not only do they need to get more done faster, but they need to do it without skimping on depth.

How Visual Stock Screeners Help Simplify Market Analysis

Visual stock screeners solve this problem by graphically representing company statistics as bubbles using colorful charts and other visual representations. Bubble charts are particularly useful because they allow the screener to represent more than two variables in a two-dimensional space. A bubble chart stock screener can use a stock’s x and y coordinates to represent two different data points, pair a third with color, and use bubble size to notate another. So a stock’s position on the chart could represent valuation and growth statistics, its bubble size could represent market cap, and its color could represent volume or profitability (and visually you can process how far apart or close each bubble is within the chart).

The Importance of Data Visualization in Better Investing Decisions

Ultimately, investing is about using data and information to interpret the world around you and make informed bets (or, in many cases, the lack of a bet). While a significant portion of the world of investments is, and likely always will be, driven by short-term trades and gambling on short-term price movements, there are meaningful ways to differentiate yourself over a longer time horizon if you are genuinely investing on a long-term basis.

Seeking Chances in Market Trends

Probably the strongest aspect of visual screening is that it may bring to light trends that would otherwise be missed. Companies that display similar characteristics are likely to be found near one another, which is helpful in assessing the leaders, laggards, and anomalies that can arise between firms in a sector.

As financial markets keep providing more data, investors who can analyze it efficiently will derive value. The visual stock screener is an efficient means of converting data into pointers to the best course, allowing investors to make better decisions while negotiating markets that keep on getting more complicated.