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How To Generate Stock Ideas With SGX Stock Screener

Investments, SG, Stocks

Written by:

Alvin Chow

Stock screeners with useful financial data can be expensive, but did you know that SGX has a free stock screener that you can use to generate stock ideas?

And its UI looks downright amazing (btw, it's no longer called StockFacts... we just call it SGX Stock Screener). 

As a new investor, part of what you should be doing is leveraging on tools to improve your decision-making, save time and effort. One important tool that can help you achieve that is a stock screener.

Today, you will learn about what a stock screener is and how you can use the free SGX Stock Screener to discover investment opportunities.  

So let’s begin!

What is a Stock Screener?

Before we get into SGX Stock Screener, let’s talk about what a stock screener is and why you should use it.

A stock screener is a investment tool used by investors to filter stocks based on a pre-determined sets of metrics. Instead of spending considerable amount of time looking through 800+ stocks in SGX individually, a stock screener allows you to hack the manual work and delivers a list of stocks that meet your criteria — all done with just a few clicks.

There are many online screeners nowadays, some are free and most are paid.

Do take note that that free screeners are quite prone to data errors. Ironically, even paid screeners may vary in results, especially on data that are subject to data provider's classification.

One example is Gross Profit because not all companies state that in their income statement. Hence, data providers will have to make educated guesses as to which item constitute as Cost of Goods Sold in order to derive Gross Profit.

Here are some popular stock screeners:

Singapore-based 

Overseas

Of course there are many more than what we listed above.

Alternatively, you may get access to free stock screeners via your Singapore online stock trading platforms

What is SGX Stock Screener? And Why Use a Stock Screener

Singapore Exchange is the most technologically advanced financial market in Asia. 

It is a great place to start investing since Singapore's regulations require companies to have high standards of corporate government, transparency in order to comply with the stringent Financial Reporting Standards in Singapore

SGX Stock Screener is a free online tool developed by SGX in 2014 by collaborating with data provider Refinitiv.

They realized that although investors could use Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance to get a quick sense of a stock’s revenues, profits, cash flow and P/E, there wasn’t one screener that could help investors to generate stock ideas, assess stock valuation or make comparative analysis.

Aside from saving time through stock screening, investors can also set their own filters and conduct unique screen of the entire SGX. Something that is impossible to do it manually by their own. Here’s a good illustration: 

"The value investor looking for cheap stocks can also add a number of other conditions. For example, one can screen for all the stocks in the market that earn revenues of more than S$1 billion annually, trading below 15 times earnings, with a dividend yield of at least 2 per cent (The answer: about 25 stocks as at Tuesday). This is far more efficient than checking each of SGX's 700-odd stocks, and far cheaper than using a Bloomberg terminal that can cost at least S$25,000 a year."  — BTinvest

Once you have generated the initial list of stocks, you could spend your time studying the businesses on that list and evaluating their fair value. Your time will be better spent this way, instead of wasting time searching for stock ideas. 

How To Use SGX Stock Screener

SGX Stock Screener is free.

To access it, all you have to do is head over to SGX website, hover over the ‘Securities’ section, then hover over ‘Prices and Screener' and select the second item:

The free version is pretty extensive for most investors and no login is required.

Once you get to the page. You will see a range of useful filters that you can play with.

We will walk through each of them, one at a time.

#1. How To Search For Stock Using Company Name & Stock Code

Company name or Stock Code

  • Enter the company name or any stock code in the text box
  • Then click on the magnifying glass icon.
  • You will either be brought to the Company Snapshot page that looks something like this: 

    Or, if you search based on a keyword, StockFacts will display a list of companies that matches the keyword like this:

    You can customise the information shown in the results by changing the selection criteria as shown below. 

    Click 'Show More Filters' if you want to see more criteria to filter from, and you can choose your stocks based on the criteria as shown below. 

    2. How To Generate Stock Ideas Using Filters & Criteria

    If you do not have any specific stocks in mind. Here is where a screener can help you generate stock ideas.

    First off, you've got to determine the kind of stock metrics you want to analyse: e.g. P/B ratio, Market Capitalisation, Net Profit. And then tick them as shown below. (I ticked all 3) 

    Some important metrics you might want to consider are:

    • Market Capitalisation
    • Net Profit 
    • Price / Book Value
    • Price / Earnings
    • Dividend Yield
    • Debt/Equity

    To filter the search criteria, you can mouse over to the metric and tick the box beside it. Next, you can filter based on the dynamic slider as shown.

    Corresponding results will be generated immediately after you have selected your desired criteria.

    3. What Is The Dynamic Slider Tool For

    You might have noticed the slider.

    And yes, you can filter the results further by using the slider to change between minimum and maximum distribution.

    As for the industry sector, there is a drop-down box at the top right section called 'Select Sector'. 

    4. What If You Don’t Know What The Criterion Refers To

    There may be certain criteria that you are not familiar with. Fret not, the Stock Screener provides the definitions for the provided criteria.

    To get the explanation, simply scroll below to the criterion in the table as shown above. An explainer box will appear.

    5. How To Sort The Results

    As mentioned, the companies that match the criteria you selected will be displayed in the results section. By default, the companies will be arranged alphabetically (as shown above) but you can sort them by clicking on the headers of the columns.

    Let's say I filtered the stocks by P/E, Net Profit, Price/Book value. 

    There is also an option to further refine the results by sectors. When you click on the option that says 'Select Sector', you would get a drop down box with the various sectors to choose from.

    By clicking on the button that says 'Customise Display', you can refine the information provided for each company.

    The Company Snapshot

    The SGX Company Snapshot features some of the most important things that you should know about a company.

    It gives you an overview to the stock’s price, trading volume, fundamentals and news. With these handy information at your disposal, you can research and analyse stocks in a more time effective manner.

    Here are the different features of the Company Snapshot section:

    1. Last Price

    When you go to a Company Snapshot, the last price of that stock would appear on the upper right side of the screen beside the sidebar. The displayed price has a 15-minute delay, but the timestamp should give you an idea of how far behind the price is. Price changes will appear in green.

    2. Sidebar Menu

    There is a sidebar section on the page that allows you to see different information like:

    • Price and Charts.
    • Company Information
    • Financial Statements
    • Company Announcements
    • News
    • Governance and Transparency Index (GTI)
    • Consensus

    3. Print Company Snapshot

    If you ever want to have a printed copy of the Company Snapshot, just click on the Print button. This button can be found right beside the Last Price.

    4. Price & Chart

    The Price Chart is one most of important section, and most referred to section of the Company Snapshot. It's located right below the company's name.

    The chart shows the movement of the stock's price in a five-year period time frame. You can also see the trading volume of the stock below the price.

    A list of latest developments relating to the stocks is also shown if you click the 'News' section at the right sidebar 'In The News' section. 

    5. News

    When researching about a company that you might invest in, you may want to know its latest news, updates and corporate actions.

    Relevant news about the company are shown if you click on the 'News' section on the right. Each headline is marked with a letter inside a grey box. Just click on the headline and details about it will pop-up.

    6. Key Company Data

    The Key Company Data has five tabs:

    • Overview
    • Valuation
    • Financials
    • Dividends
    • Ownership

    The default tab displayed is 'Overview' tab. This tab shows the trade information of the company as well as other basic info about it.

    The Valuation tab shows its price to earnings, dividend yield, and price to book. The Financials tab shows the financial details of the company. The dividends tab show the records of the company paying dividends while the Ownership shows the leading shareholders.

    8. Recent Financial Data

    If you are not satisfied with the information compiled in the Financials tab on the Key Company Data, you can click on 'Financial Statement' section on right section of the page (sidebar).

    SGX Stock Screener shows you the past 5-years' financial statements in a tabular format.

    9. Company Information

    This section gives you the background of the stock. From what industry are they in to the business that they engage in. It's a quick overview of what the company is about. 

    10. Refinitiv Consensus Estimates

    If you want to get a sensing of how the analysts think the stock will perform in the next 0 - 18 months, check out the box located at the right sidebar.

    Refinitiv consensus from the investment houses and group them into 'Buy', 'Outperform', 'Neutral', 'Underperform' and 'Sell' sentiments.

    11. Governance & Transparency Index (GTI) 

    The Singapore Governance & Transparency Index (SGTI) assess companies on their corporate governance on their corporate governance disclosures and practices as well as the timeliness, accessibility and transparency of their financial results. 

    The SGTI Score has 2 components - base score and adjustment for bonuses and penalties. The base score has 5 factors (board responsibilities, shareholder rights, shareholder engagement, disclosure and transparency, and accountability and audit.

    For REITs and Business Trust, the companies are evaluated based on a similar set of criteria but with an added coverage on the unique nature of their operations.

    ***

    It might take a while before you understand all the sections and features of this Stock Screener, and be able to fully maximise the use of this awesome free tool. But if you are serious about investment and you are willing to learn, you should spend time mastering and using it. This Stock Screener is one of the best free tool that you can use when it comes to investing on the SGX.

    4 thoughts on “How To Generate Stock Ideas With SGX Stock Screener”

    1. I believe the StockFact not able to save the criteria. Why not try Yahoo Finance? It allow me to save multiple screener criteria for free.

      Reply

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