How the screen works
Each sector file is one Screener.in industry export: every listed company in that industry with about 60 ratio columns. Every row is read; nothing is sampled and no company outside the file is added. The method has three stages.
Stage 1 · eight gates (automatic)
Applied in order. A company leaves at the first gate it fails and is recorded with that gate.
| Gate | Rule | Lenders (banks, NBFCs, insurers) |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Listing and size | Market cap at least ₹300 cr. BSE-only names are flagged for an SME-platform check. | Same |
| 2. Profitability | 3-year average ROCE ≥ 15% and 3-year average ROE ≥ 12% | 3-year ROE ≥ 12% |
| 3. Growth | 3-year sales CAGR ≥ 10% and 3-year profit CAGR ≥ 12% | Same |
| 4. Balance sheet | Debt/equity ≤ 0.6; interest cover ≥ 4x where there is debt | Not applied |
| 5. Cash | Operating cash flow positive in both of the last two years; CFO / net profit ≥ 0.7; free cash flow positive in at least 2 of 3 years | Not applied |
| 6. Quality of earnings | Positive net margin; 3-year EBITDA growth not more than 5 pts behind 3-year sales growth (CSV proxy for stable margins) | Positive net margin |
| 7. Ownership | Promoter ≥ 40% (no promoter: institutions ≥ 25%), pledge ≤ 5%, promoter stake not down 5 pts or more | Same |
| 8. Valuation | P/E, industry P/E and PEG recorded. Never fails a company. | Same |
Stage 2 · public-source diligence (recorded by the editor)
For survivors: exchange filings, the auditor's report, related-party transactions, SEBI/SAT orders, credit-rating rationales and news. Any forensic hit rejects: a SEBI matter, a tax or ED search, an auditor resignation or qualified opinion, profit rising while operating cash lags, receivables outrunning sales, discounted promoter allotments, other income driving profit, opaque related-party loans, a thin float with a sharp run-up. These checks need reading, so they are recorded by the editor and shown on the sector page with the reason. Where nothing is recorded, the company page says "Stage 2: verify filings".
Stage 3 · score out of 100
| Block | Points | Built from |
|---|---|---|
| A. Business quality & moat | 30 | ROCE 3Y level 12 · operating margin against the sector median 8 · scale 5 · ROE durability (3Y vs 5Y) 5 |
| B. Financial strength & cash | 25 | Debt/equity 7 · CFO/PAT 7 · free-cash-flow record 6 · interest cover and current ratio 5. Lenders: ROE 3Y 9 · book-value growth 8 · ROE 5Y 8 |
| C. Growth & visibility | 20 | Sales 3Y 6 · profit 3Y 5 · latest quarter year on year 4 · sales 5Y consistency 5 |
| D. Promoter & governance | 15 | Promoter stake 5 · pledge 4 · stake change 3 · dividend paid 3 |
| E. Valuation (recorded) | 10 | P/E vs industry P/E 4 · PEG 3 · price to book 3 |
Ties go to the stronger cash conversion. Every company page prints the score line by line so the reader can disagree with any part of it. Companies that fail exactly one gate are scored for comparison and the best eight appear as the sector's watchlist.
What the screen does not do
- It does not say what to do with any share, and gives no price view, target or expected return.
- It does not read the annual report, so yearly margins, debtor days, tax rate and 5-year price return are not tested.
- It does not cover companies outside the files, and it does not re-check the many companies below ₹300 cr.
Data
Company figures: Screener.in industry exports, imported as files; the date on every page is the export date. IPO GMP: read automatically from public GMP pages (listed on the IPO page) several times a day.