Comparator - Glossary

Rank

The position of the stock among the 7,000+ stocks in the main database, based on its score calculated using the default formula. A rank of '1' means that the stock has the highest score.
Rank is displayed in dark orange next to the score.
This is a subscribers-only feature.

Sym

The stock's ticker symbol, as traded on an american-based stock exchange.
Clicking on the symbol will display more financial data for the company, and a link to other sources.
If the symbol is marked by a *, it means that the quarterly or annual data for this stock is definitely out of date. Usually, it is because of customary delays in updating financial databases used by stock-comparator. Note that even if the stock symbol is not marked by a *, you must review the latest news and SEC filings, in case the company filed before the SEC deadline and the database hasn't been updated yet. In other cases, the company may have not filed on time (such as NASDAQ-traded stocks whose symbol is 5 letters long and the last letter is 'D'), or the stock is being phased out.
The symbols for preferred stocks trading on NYSE or AMEX may be different on other systems. For example, XXX-A may be defined as XXX.PR.A on other systems.

Price

The price used as a comparison and screening factor is the latest reliable closing price. Normally, it's the same as the price displayed under 'Close' in the company details page. If there was no trading in the stock during the last session, the price will be zero.
The price used also affects the calculation of the 52-week high and low values for the stock.

Score

A value used to rank the screened companies.
The value is calculated as follows: For each factor in the comparison formula, mutiply the company's position within the entire database by the weight assigned to that factor in the comparison formula.

Revenue

Total revenue for the 12-month period (TTM) ending at the date displayed for 'ending date' for 'trailing 12 months' on the Company Detail page.

Profit

The net income available to shareholders, after payment of preferred dividends and some other adjustments, for the 12 trailing months (TTM) (see revenue).

P/E (Price/Earnings ratio)

This value is calculated as the latest closing price (see 'Price' above) divided by the Earnings per Share (EPS) for the trailing 12 months (TTM).
If EPS is missing then the value is the market cap divided by profit.
If the company had a profit, then a lower P/E is better than a high P/E, because it means that the stock is "cheaper".
If the company had a loss, then the P/E will be negative, but now a higher negative P/E is better then a smaller negative P/E. This relationship is used by stock-comparator when comparing companies.

P/S (Price/Sales ratio)

This value is calculated as the Market Capitalization divided by revenue for the trailing 12 months.

Yield

Dividend per share (DPS) for the last 12 months, divided by the latest closing price.
If this number is displayed in red then the DPS is more than 90% of the EPS (see 'P/E' above) , or the DPS is not zero and the EPS is negative.

Price / 52-hi (%)

The latest closing price (see 'Price' above) divided by the 52-week highest price, expressed as a percentage.

Debt/Equity

This is the ratio between the debt (see below) from the most recent quarterly report, divided by the shareholders' equity. This value provides a measure of company leverage. Note that for financial companies, this value may be set to zero, because the applicability of this statistic to this kind of companies is unclear. Also, this statistic may not be as significant for companies with very small equity. Refer to 'Debt' in the Details page for this stock in order to see the actual amount of debt.

Inc/empl (income per employee)

This value is the profit (see above) divided by the number of full-time and part-time employees from the latest annual report.

Proft margin

This is the ratio between profit and revenue, as a percentage. See above for description of these two items.
Closed-End Funds have a profit margin of zero, regardless of revenue and profit.

r (DJI)

This is the coefficient of correlation between the daily stock closing price and the Dow Jones Industrial average value on the same day, over a period of about a year, ending at the end of last month.
Note that for some companies, e.g new listings, the period used for claculation is shorter than one year, or the value could not be calculated yet due to lack of data (in which case, "r" will be displayed as "N/A").
This value is between +1 and -1, where +1 represents perfect correlation (i.e the stock goes up every day that the DJI went up, and vice versa), 0 means no correlation (i.e the direction of the stock price cannot be predicted by the direction of the DJI on the same day), and -1 means totally negative correlation, i.e it is more likely that the stock will fall each time the DJI goes up, and vice versa.
For more on this statistic, see the Overview

r (oil)

This is the coefficient of correlation between the daily stock closing price and the spot price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil on the same day, over a period of about a year, ending at the end of last month.
This value is between +1 and -1. See r(DJI) above.
r(oil) is useful in determining the influence of oil price changes on stock prices. It can reveal stocks that behave contrary to common economic ansalysis, for example, transportation stocks that go up even if oil price goes up.
For more on this statistic, see the Wikipedia article and the Overview

State/province/country

This is the name of the location of the company, as reported to the SEC. It may differ from the state of incorporation, as many companies incorporate in Delaware or other convenience locations.
For U.S companies, the state is displayed. For Canadian companies, the name of the Canadian province is displayed. For other foreign countries, the name of the country is displayed. Some dependent territories are considered countries for this purpose (e.g Bermuda, Channel Islands, Grand Cayman, Hong Kong).
Some foreign companies registered as U.S companies are actually foreign companies. Conversly, some companies registered as offshore based are really U.S companies. In both cases, the country displayed is the one reported to the SEC (i.e the 'convenience' location).
Note that on the stock screeing page, you may screen all U.S or all non-U.S companies as well.

Industry / Specific; Ind

Stock-comparator uses a unique modified SIC system.
'Specific' is the name of the industry as reported by the company to the SEC. It uses SIC code (Standard Industry Classification).
In some cases, the industry codes have been modified by stock-comparator.
'Industry' is the industry group, or sector. This classification is also based on the SIC code, but has been modified by
stock-comparator to provide more up to date screening capabilities.
Conglomerate companies which operate in many different industries, are classified under one of the areas in which they operate.
See also Help for some hints on mapping industries to SIC values.
Exchange traded funds (ETFs) have an industry and industry group of their own. Since only price data is available for these securities, the comparison results ranks them according to their current price compared to their 52-week high price.
Note that some index-related products are included in this industry.
Closed-End Funds (CEFs) have an industry and industry group of their own.
Preferred stocks (Pfd) have an idustry and industry group of their own.
Note that some structured products and equity-linked notes are included in this industry.
ETFs, CEFs and Pfd's are also grouped as a "state".
The Ind column heading in the output of the "Industry Best 2" sort contains a 4-digit modified industry code. When using the 'Alt. Display' option, you can see both the industry name and industry code.

ADR ratio

Displayed as n:m, meaning that n ADR (American Depository Receipts) shares represent m 'original' shares in the country of issuance.
2:1 means that 2 ADR shares represent 1 original share.
1:500 means that one ADR represents 500 original shares.
Note that for calculating the ratios used by the web site, the ADR share is used rather then the original share.

Market cap.

The Market Capitalization is computed by multiplying the total number of outsanding common shares from the latest quarterly report, by the latest closing price (see 'price' above).

Avg. daily volume

The average daily number of shares traded, for a one year period ending at the start of the current month.

Exchange

The stock market where the stock or ADR is listed in the U.S.

EPS (Earnings per share)

This is the net income per common share, from the latest quarterly report, not including extraordinary items, discontinued operations and accounting changes.

Debt

Total debt from the latest quaterly balance sheet.
This includes some or all of the following items:

Long-term Debt [LTDT].
Notes/short-term debt payable [LPCT].
Current portion of long-term debt [CLTD].
Long-term portion of capital lease obligations [LCL].
Current portion of capital lease obligations [CCL].

The last two items typically appear in balance sheets of companies that have no other debt, but may be present for other companies as well.