Our goal at ValueSignals has always been to allow any investor - from novice to expert - to implement powerful quantitative models with very little effort. By using templates like the magic formula or the Piotroski book-to-market model, users get an instant list of stocks that fit within the model. Novice users can fine-tune the models to consider only stocks in their country or region, and more advanced users can throw some additional filters into the mix. Experts can build a screen from scratch, and they can do this easily with the many factors included.

In the past, however, users have been restricted by the available factors. Recently different authors introduced new combinations based on more recent studies. Consequently, many users were forced to export all data and to recreate the calculations in Excel. This can be time-consuming as this task had to be repeated whenever one took a new export from the screener.

With the introduction of custom factors, you can create new composite factors based on any combination you like, right in the intuitive user interface of the stock screener. Similar to all other ratios, these are calculated on the fly based on your filtered stock universe.

Do you like the Greenblatt Magic Formula, but you want to avoid value traps by throwing in a momentum factor? That's not an issue at all. Just configure one of the custom factors and base it on ROC, Earnings Yield, and Price Index 6M. Or maybe you want to include the Piotroski F-score as ranking criteria and combine it with the Magic Formula?

Custom factors open up our stock screener to endless new possibilities. Every screen can now be enhanced with 2 custom factors available for filtering, sorting, and even to perform multifactor analysis.

We're really excited about this unique capability that no other stock screener on the market offers. Starting from today, it's available to all users. Enjoy!