How to Find Undervalued Stocks Using Finviz Screener

August 3, 2026 · 13 min read

If you've ever wondered how to find undervalued stocks using Finviz, you're not alone. Millions of retail investors turn to Finviz's free screener every month because it turns a mountain of financial data into a filterable, visual database in seconds. Learning how to find undervalued stocks using Finviz isn't about finding a magic button — it's about combining the right valuation filters, quality checks, and liquidity screens so you land on a shortlist worth researching further, rather than a random pile of "cheap" tickers that are cheap for good reason.

This guide walks through the exact filter combinations, thresholds, and sequencing that experienced value investors use inside Finviz, along with the mistakes that trip up beginners and the follow-up research that separates a real bargain from a value trap.

What "Undervalued" Actually Means on Finviz

Before you learn how to find undervalued stocks using Finviz, it helps to define the term precisely, because "cheap" and "undervalued" aren't the same thing. On Finviz, undervaluation is measured through relative valuation multiples — how a stock's price compares to its earnings, book value, sales, and cash flow, benchmarked against the broader market, its sector, and its own trading history.

The screener organizes these signals under the Fundamental tab, where you'll find:

• P/E (Price-to-Earnings) and Forward P/E — how much investors pay per dollar of current or projected profit
• PEG (Price/Earnings-to-Growth) — P/E adjusted for expected earnings growth
• P/B (Price-to-Book) — price relative to net asset value
• P/S (Price-to-Sales) — price relative to revenue
• Price/Cash and Price/Free Cash Flow — price relative to liquid assets and cash generation
• Dividend Yield — income return, often higher in out-of-favor value names

Value-focused investors typically look for stocks scoring low across several of these metrics simultaneously — that's the essence of how to find undervalued stocks using Finviz rather than relying on a single ratio, which can be misleading in isolation.

Step-by-Step: How to Find Undervalued Stocks Using Finviz

Here's the practical workflow. This is the same sequence experienced screener users repeat every time they hunt for new ideas.

1. Open the Screener. Go to finviz.com and click "Screener" in the top navigation.
2. Switch to the Fundamental tab (or use "All" if you want to blend descriptive, fundamental, and technical filters in one pass).
3. Set your investable universe first. Filter by Exchange (NASDAQ + NYSE), Country (USA, for consistent accounting standards), and Market Cap (Mid or Large Cap to start, since smaller companies carry higher financial-reporting risk).
4. Add a liquidity filter. Set Average Volume above 500,000 shares so you're not stuck holding illiquid names with wide bid-ask spreads.
5. Layer on valuation filters. Add P/E under 15-20, PEG under 1, P/B under 3, and P/S under 1 (or below the industry median).
6. Add quality filters. Require positive ROE, positive EPS growth, and a Current Ratio above 1 to filter out companies that are cheap because they're financially distressed.
7. Sort and scan. Sort your results by P/E or market cap, then scan sector distribution — heavy clustering in one sector (like energy or financials) usually just reflects a cyclical valuation trend, not a stock-specific bargain.
8. Export or save the screen. Save your filter combination so you can re-run it weekly as prices and earnings estimates change.

Core Valuation Filters to Prioritize

Not every valuation metric carries equal weight, and understanding which ones matter most is central to how to find undervalued stocks using Finviz effectively.

P/E and Forward P/E

A widely repeated starting rule is P/E under 20, with more aggressive deep-value screens using P/E under 15 or even under 10 for cyclical sectors like energy and materials. Forward P/E is especially useful because it incorporates analyst growth expectations — a stock with a high trailing P/E but a much lower forward P/E may be cheaper than it first appears.

PEG Ratio

PEG divides P/E by expected earnings growth rate. A PEG under 1.0 is the classic threshold suggesting a stock's price hasn't fully caught up with its growth potential — this single filter is one of the fastest ways to separate genuinely undervalued growth names from stocks that are simply stagnant.

P/B and P/S

Price-to-Book under 3 is a reasonable general-value threshold, while under 1 signals deep, asset-based value (common in financials, industrials, and cyclical sectors). Price-to-Sales under 1, or below the industry median, is particularly useful for companies with volatile or temporarily depressed earnings, since revenue is harder to manipulate than net income.

Price/Cash and Price/Free Cash Flow

These metrics matter because earnings can be distorted by one-time charges or accounting choices, while cash flow is harder to fake. A low Price/Free Cash Flow multiple alongside a low P/E strengthens the case that a stock is genuinely undervalued rather than cheap due to earnings-quality problems.

Quality and Liquidity Filters That Prevent Value Traps

A screen built purely on valuation ratios will return plenty of "cheap" stocks that are cheap because the underlying business is deteriorating. That's why quality filters are non-negotiable in any serious approach to how to find undervalued stocks using Finviz.

• Return on Equity (ROE) — filter for positive, ideally above 10%, to confirm the company is still generating profit from shareholder capital
• EPS growth (past 5 years and next year estimate) — a company priced cheaply with flat or growing earnings is far more attractive than one priced cheaply because earnings are collapsing
• Gross and operating margins — compare against sector peers; margins well below the industry average can flag competitive or structural problems
• Current ratio and debt/equity — a current ratio above 1 and manageable debt levels reduce the risk of a cheap stock becoming a distressed one
• Insider ownership and insider transactions — sustained insider buying alongside low valuation multiples is one of the stronger combined signals available on the platform

Comparing Results to Sector Norms

Valuation multiples only mean something in context. A P/E of 18 might be expensive for a utility but cheap for a software company. This is why comparing your Finviz results to sector and industry averages is a critical, often-skipped step in how to find undervalued stocks using Finviz.

Finviz's screener lets you filter by Sector and Industry directly, so you can run your valuation filters within a single sector to see who's genuinely cheap relative to close competitors, rather than relative to the entire market. This sector-relative approach is one of the more advanced techniques in how to find undervalued stocks using Finviz, and it dramatically reduces false positives.

Sample Finviz Screens for Different Value Strategies

Here are three ready-to-use filter combinations that illustrate how to find undervalued stocks using Finviz for different risk appetites.

Conservative large-cap value screen

• Market Cap: Large ($10B+)
• P/E: Under 18
• P/B: Under 3
• Dividend Yield: Above 2%
• Average Volume: Above 1M shares

Growth-at-a-reasonable-price (GARP) screen

• PEG: Under 1
• Forward P/E: Under 20
• EPS growth next year: Above 10%
• ROE: Above 15%

Deep value / asset-based screen

• P/B: Under 1
• P/S: Under 1
• Current Ratio: Above 1.5
• Debt/Equity: Under 0.5

Each of these represents a distinct answer to how to find undervalued stocks using Finviz depending on whether you prioritize stability, growth, or balance-sheet safety.

Beyond Finviz: Verifying a Candidate Before You Buy

Finviz is excellent at narrowing thousands of stocks down to a shortlist, but the screener itself doesn't replace fundamental due diligence. Once you've used Finviz's filters to find undervalued stocks, take these follow-up steps:

1. Read the most recent 10-K and 10-Q to understand why the stock is trading at a discount
2. Check the earnings call transcript for management's explanation of recent performance
3. Review five years of revenue, margin, and free cash flow trends — not just the current snapshot
4. Check institutional ownership and recent insider buying or selling
5. Compare the stock's current multiples to its own 5-year historical average, not just sector peers

According to Investopedia's guide to value investing fundamentals, low valuation multiples are only meaningful when paired with stable or improving business fundamentals — a principle that echoes Benjamin Graham's original margin-of-safety framework (Source: Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com).

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Screening on one metric only — P/E alone ignores debt, growth, and earnings quality
• Ignoring liquidity — thinly traded stocks can look cheap but be nearly impossible to exit at a fair price
• Comparing across sectors — a "low" P/E in tech may still be high compared to industrials
• Skipping the balance sheet — high debt can turn a cheap stock into a falling knife during a downturn
• Treating screener output as a buy list — a Finviz screen is a research starting point, not a final recommendation

Avoiding these errors is just as important as the filters themselves when it comes to how to find undervalued stocks using Finviz consistently over time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Quotable takeaway: Learning how to find undervalued stocks using Finviz is less about finding one perfect filter and more about stacking valuation, quality, and liquidity screens so cheap stocks and good businesses actually overlap.

Conclusion: Turning Screener Output Into Real Investment Ideas

Mastering how to find undervalued stocks using Finviz comes down to a repeatable process: define a liquid, investable universe, stack valuation filters (P/E, PEG, P/B, P/S, Price/Cash) with quality filters (ROE, margins, debt ratios), benchmark against sector norms, and then do the fundamental homework the screener can't do for you. Finviz won't tell you which cheap stock is a hidden gem versus a slow-motion decline — but it will hand you, in seconds, the shortlist that would otherwise take hours to build manually.

Ready to put this process to work? Head to Finviz and build your first value screen using the filter combinations above, then bookmark it and revisit it weekly as prices and earnings estimates shift.