How To Use Finviz For Stock Screening: Step By Step Guide

Finviz is the most widely used free stock screener on the internet — and for good reason. With over 60 filters, real-time heat maps, and a database covering every major US-listed stock, it gives retail traders a professional-grade research tool at zero cost. This step-by-step guide walks you through exactly how to use Finviz to find high-probability trade setups, screen for fundamentals, and read the market at a glance.

What Is Finviz and Why Traders Use It

Finviz (Financial Visualizations) launched as a screener-first platform and has remained the gold standard for US equity screening since. The free tier gives you access to 60+ filters across fundamentals, technicals, descriptive criteria, and analyst data — all with a fast, responsive interface that does not require an account to use.

The platform serves several distinct use cases:

• Swing traders scanning for technical setups like consolidations, breakouts, or oversold bounces
• Fundamental analysts filtering by P/E, EPS growth, revenue, debt ratios, and insider ownership
• Market overview watchers using the heat map to gauge sector momentum at a glance
• News traders tracking earnings, upgrades, and analyst price target changes

Before diving into the how-to, check out our full Finviz review for an in-depth breakdown of every feature tier. The short version: it earns a 4.5/5 rating and is the best free screener available in 2026.

Navigating the Finviz Interface

When you land on Finviz, the homepage displays the market heat map by default. The top navigation bar gives you access to the six core sections you will use most:

• Screener — the main filter engine
• Maps — sector and market cap heat maps
• Groups — performance by sector, industry, country, and cap size
• Portfolio — personal watchlists (requires free account)
• Forex / Futures / Crypto — limited coverage, mostly useful for broad market context
• News — aggregated headlines organized by ticker

The Screener is where you will spend 80% of your time. Click it and you will see three filter tabs at the top: Descriptive, Fundamental, and Technical. A fourth tab, All, displays every available filter on a single page — useful once you know what you are looking for.

Important note on data delay: The free version shows quotes with a 15–20 minute delay and includes banner ads throughout. Finviz Elite at $39.50/month removes both and adds real-time data, pre/after-market quotes, backtesting, and email alerts.

How to Build a Screen Step by Step in 2026

Here is a practical walkthrough using a swing trading setup as the example — screening for stocks breaking out of a consolidation with strong underlying fundamentals.

Step 1: Set Descriptive Filters

Click Screener and stay on the Descriptive tab. Set these baseline filters to focus on liquid, tradeable US stocks:

• Market Cap: Mid ($2B–$10B) or Large ($10B+) — avoids illiquid micro-caps
• Average Volume: Over 500K — ensures you can enter and exit without meaningful slippage
• Price: Over $10 — filters out penny stocks
• Country: USA (the default, but worth confirming)

Step 2: Add Fundamental Filters

Switch to the Fundamental tab. For growth stocks with earnings support:

• EPS growth this year: Over 20%
• EPS growth next year: Over 15% (analyst consensus estimate)
• Return on Equity: Over 15%
• Debt/Equity: Under 0.5 (optional, for more conservative screens)

If you are screening for value instead, swap those for P/E Under 15, P/B Under 2, and Dividend Yield Over 2%.

Step 3: Add Technical Filters

Switch to the Technical tab. For a momentum breakout setup:

• 20-Day Simple Moving Average: Price above SMA20
• 50-Day Simple Moving Average: Price above SMA50
• RSI (14): Between 50 and 70 — trending higher but not yet overbought
• Performance (Week): Up — confirming short-term momentum

Step 4: Review Results and Sort

After applying filters, Finviz displays matching stocks in a table view. Click any column header to sort. Sort by Volume descending to see the most active matches first, or by Performance (Week) to surface the leaders.

Switch to Charts view by clicking the Charts button above the results table. This displays daily charts for all matching stocks in a grid — you can visually scan 20 charts at once and quickly eliminate setups that do not look right. This is one of Finviz's most efficient features for active traders.

Step 5: Click Through to the Ticker Page

Click any ticker symbol to open its full Finviz profile. This single page aggregates everything you need for a quick assessment:

• Snapshot chart with key technical indicators marked
• All fundamental ratios in one compact table
• Analyst ratings and consensus price targets
• Recent news headlines relevant to the stock
• Insider and institutional ownership data
• Direct links to SEC filings

Reading the Finviz Heat Map

The heat map is one of the most iconic tools in retail trading. Every square represents a stock, sized by market cap and colored by performance — green for gains, red for losses, with intensity indicating magnitude.

Use it for three specific purposes:

• Morning market read: Before the open, check the map to gauge overnight futures sentiment and see which sectors are leading pre-market
• Sector rotation: Switch from the S&P 500 view to Full market view and look for sectors showing uniform color — that is where institutional money is concentrating
• Finding outliers: A bright green square inside an otherwise red sector signals relative strength worth investigating — the stock is holding up when its peers are not

You can also switch the map to display P/E ratio, EPS growth, analyst recommendations, or performance over multiple time periods instead of price — useful for fundamental scanning at a visual level.

Finviz Free vs. Elite: What You Actually Need in 2026

The free tier handles the core use case well. Here is a clear breakdown of exactly where the wall is:

Feature	Free	Elite ($39.50/mo)
Stock screener (60+ filters)	Full access	Full access
Heat maps	Full access	Full access
Data delay	15–20 min delayed	Real-time quotes
Pre/after-market data	No	Yes
Backtesting screens	No	Yes
Email alerts	No	Yes
Auto-detected chart patterns	No	Yes
Correlation analysis	No	Yes
Banner ads	Yes, throughout	Ad-free
International markets	No (US only)	No (US only)

Verdict: If you are a buy-and-hold investor or occasional swing trader, the free tier is more than sufficient. If you trade daily and need real-time breakout alerts, Elite pays for itself quickly. The one limitation neither tier solves is international coverage — Finviz is US-listed stocks only, full stop.

Three Ready-to-Use Finviz Screens

Copy these filter combinations directly into the screener and save them as bookmarks using the URL bar — Finviz encodes all filter selections in the URL, so no account is required to save screens.

Screen 1: High-Growth Momentum

• Market Cap: Mid + Large | Price: Over $15 | Avg Volume: Over 1M
• EPS growth this year: Over 25% | EPS growth next year: Over 20%
• Price vs. SMA50: Above | RSI: 50–70 | Performance (Month): Up

Screen 2: Value with Earnings Support

• Market Cap: Mid + Large | Price: Over $10 | Avg Volume: Over 500K
• P/E: Under 15 | Forward P/E: Under 12 | EPS growth this year: Over 10%
• ROE: Over 15% | Debt/Equity: Under 0.5

Screen 3: Dividend Income

• Market Cap: Large | Price: Over $20 | Avg Volume: Over 300K
• Dividend Yield: Over 3% | Payout Ratio: Under 70%
• EPS growth this year: Positive | Debt/Equity: Under 1

Finviz vs. the Alternatives

Finviz dominates the free screener space, but it is not the right tool for every trader. Here is where competitors pull ahead:

• ChartMill — better pattern-based technical screening with cleaner chart quality and a more visual setup workflow. See our ChartMill vs. Finviz comparison for a side-by-side breakdown.
• Market Chameleon — significantly stronger for options flow, implied volatility analysis, and earnings-based screening. If you trade options, our Finviz vs. Market Chameleon comparison covers which is worth the premium.
• Benzinga Pro — better for real-time news, live analyst upgrade coverage, and earnings call alerts. See our Benzinga Pro vs. Finviz comparison to decide whether the $197/month upgrade is justified for your workflow.

For pure US equity screening — fundamental, technical, or both — Finviz remains the benchmark. No other free tool comes close on filter depth, interface speed, and visual output.

Final Recommendation

Finviz earns its 4.5/5 rating by delivering genuine value at zero cost. The screener filter depth and response speed are exceptional — most paid platforms do not add meaningfully more filter options. The 15-minute data delay is the only real friction for active traders, and the $39.50/month Elite tier is a reasonable fix if real-time quotes and breakout alerts matter to your workflow.

Start with the free tier. Use the three screens above as starting points, then customize filters as you develop your own setup criteria. Bookmark any screen you want to revisit — no account needed. Once you have screens you return to daily, upgrading to Elite for real-time data and alerts becomes an easy decision.

Two hard limits to know before committing: Finviz covers US-listed stocks only and has no options screening capability. If you need either, you will need a second tool alongside it. But for domestic equity screening, Finviz is still the first tool to open.