How to Screen for Growth Stocks on Finviz: 2025 Guide
June 22, 2026 · 13 min read
Learning how to screen for growth stocks is one of the highest-leverage skills an investor can develop. With more than 10,000 US-listed equities and hundreds of new IPOs each year, manually hunting for the next compounder is impossible. A disciplined screener — especially a fast, visual one like Finviz — turns that chaos into a focused shortlist you can actually research in a single afternoon.
TL;DR — The Bottom Line
To screen for growth stocks on Finviz, combine fundamental filters (EPS growth >15%, sales growth >15%, ROE >15%, PEG <2) with liquidity and trend filters (market cap >$300M, average volume >200K, price above the 50-day and 200-day moving averages). Save the screen, review results weekly, and use Finviz's Custom view to surface the metrics that matter most for your strategy.
Quick Facts
- Universe covered by Finviz: ~10,000 US stocks, ~1,000 global names
- Filter categories: Descriptive, Fundamental, Technical (70+ filters total)
- Common EPS growth threshold: >15% past 5 years and projected next 5 years
- Liquidity floor: Market cap >$300M, avg volume >200K shares/day
- Valuation guardrail: PEG <2 (ideally <1.5)
- Trend confirmation: Price above 50-day and 200-day moving averages
Why Learning How to Screen for Growth Stocks Matters
Growth investing has driven some of the most extraordinary wealth creation of the past two decades — think Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, and Shopify in their early innings. But for every one of those, there are hundreds of "story stocks" that flamed out. Knowing how to screen for growth stocks the right way is what separates disciplined compounders from those chasing headlines.
A good screen does three things: it enforces objectivity, it scales your research, and it filters out the 95% of names that don't meet your minimum standards. On Finviz's screener, you can layer dozens of conditions in seconds and instantly see a ranked, sortable list with mini-charts attached. That visual feedback loop is what makes Finviz the de facto first-pass tool for retail growth investors and active traders.
Importantly, screening is not stock picking. It produces a watchlist — a hypothesis pool — that still requires fundamental due diligence, valuation work, and risk sizing. Treat the screener as a funnel, not a buy signal.
The Anatomy of a Growth Stock
Before configuring filters, you need a clear mental model of what you're hunting. Most institutional definitions of growth stocks share five characteristics:
- Above-market revenue growth — typically 15%+ annually, often 25%+ for emerging leaders
- Expanding earnings per share — both historical and forward-looking estimates
- High reinvestment returns — ROE and ROIC consistently above 15%
- Operating leverage — expanding gross and operating margins as the business scales
- Premium valuation — higher P/E and P/S ratios, justified by growth trajectory
The challenge is that high growth and reasonable valuation rarely coexist. That's where the PEG ratio (P/E divided by growth rate) becomes essential — it's the single best one-number sanity check when learning how to screen for growth stocks without overpaying.
How to Screen for Growth Stocks on Finviz: Step-by-Step
Here is a complete, professional-grade workflow you can replicate in under ten minutes. Open the Finviz Screener and follow these steps in order.
Step 1: Set Descriptive Filters (Liquidity & Universe)
Start with the basics — define a tradable universe:
- Exchange: NYSE or NASDAQ (exclude OTC for liquidity and reporting quality)
- Market Cap: +Small (over $300M) to filter out illiquid micro-caps
- Average Volume: Over 200K shares/day
- Price: Over $7 (avoids penny-stock volatility and pattern day-trader margin issues)
- Country: USA (for accounting consistency; adjust if you want ADRs)
Step 2: Apply Fundamental Growth Filters
This is the heart of how to screen for growth stocks. Move to the Fundamental tab:
- EPS growth past 5 years: Over 15%
- EPS growth next 5 years: Over 15%
- Sales growth past 5 years: Over 15%
- EPS growth quarter over quarter: Over 20% (recent momentum check)
- Sales growth quarter over quarter: Over 15%
Step 3: Add Quality & Profitability Filters
Growth without profitability returns is just cash-burning expansion:
- Return on Equity (ROE): Over 15%
- Operating margin: Positive (or over 10% for mature growth names)
- Gross margin: Over 30% (indicates pricing power)
- Debt/Equity: Under 0.5 (or under 1 for capital-intensive sectors)
Step 4: Add a Valuation Guardrail
To avoid the "great company, terrible price" trap:
- PEG ratio: Under 2 (Finviz uses coarse buckets; under 1.5 is the goal)
- Forward P/E: Lower than current P/E (indicates analysts expect EPS growth)
- Price/Sales: Under 10 (relaxes to 15+ for software/SaaS)
Step 5: Confirm Trend with Technical Filters
A great fundamental story trading below its 200-day moving average is often a value trap. Add:
- SMA 50: Price above 50-day moving average
- SMA 200: Price above 200-day moving average
- 52-Week High: Within 10–25% of high (avoids deep drawdowns)
- Performance (Half Year): Up (positive intermediate trend)
Step 6: Switch to Custom View and Save
In the results, click "Custom" and add columns for PEG, EPS growth (5Y), Sales growth (5Y), ROE, gross margin, and current ratio. Then save the screen via your Finviz account so you can re-run it weekly.
A well-calibrated growth screen typically surfaces 20–60 stocks. If you get more than 100, your filters are too loose; under 10 and you're probably too restrictive for the current market regime.
Tightening or Loosening the Screen by Market Regime
Markets cycle between risk-on and risk-off environments. The same screen that produced 80 high-quality names in 2021 might produce three in 2022. Knowing how to screen for growth stocks across regimes means adjusting thresholds dynamically.
In risk-on environments (rising market, falling rates, expanding multiples), tighten:
- EPS growth threshold to >25%
- Sales growth to >20%
- Add relative strength filters (top 25% by 6-month performance)
In risk-off environments (rising rates, contracting multiples), loosen growth but tighten quality:
- EPS growth threshold to >10%
- Require positive free cash flow
- Lower debt/equity threshold to <0.3
- Require dividend >0 or buyback yield positive
Comparing Three Growth Screen Templates
Different investors want different things from growth. Here are three calibrated templates you can use directly on Finviz:
| Filter | Conservative Growth | Aggressive Growth | GARP (Growth at Reasonable Price) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Market Cap | >$10B | $300M–$2B | >$2B |
| EPS Growth 5Y | >15% | >25% | >10% |
| Sales Growth 5Y | >15% | >25% | >10% |
| ROE | >20% | >15% | >15% |
| PEG | <1.5 | <2 | <1 |
| Debt/Equity | <0.3 | <1 | <0.5 |
| Expected Results | 15–30 | 30–80 | 10–25 |
Common Mistakes When Screening for Growth Stocks
Even seasoned investors fall into predictable traps when learning how to screen for growth stocks. Avoid these:
- Over-filtering: Stacking 20+ filters until only three stocks remain. You're not finding hidden gems — you're curve-fitting.
- Ignoring trend: A stock screening well fundamentally but trading 40% below its 200-day SMA usually has news you don't yet know.
- Chasing past growth: 5-year historical EPS growth without forward estimates can flag companies whose best years are behind them.
- Skipping quality: Revenue growth without margin expansion or ROE is just empty calories.
- Never iterating: Markets change. A screen that worked in 2020 will fail in 2024 if you don't adjust thresholds.
Use both. Trailing P/E confirms the company is actually profitable today. Forward P/E should be meaningfully lower than trailing P/E — that gap is the market pricing in expected earnings growth, which is exactly what you want in a growth stock.
Beyond the Screen: Validating Your Shortlist
Knowing how to screen for growth stocks is only half the job. Once you have your 20–60 names, run each through this quick validation checklist before adding to your watchlist:
- Read the latest 10-Q: Does management commentary match the numbers?
- Check insider activity: Are executives buying or dumping? Finviz's insider trading page shows this instantly.
- Review earnings revisions: Are analysts raising or lowering forward estimates?
- Examine the competitive moat: Why does the company grow faster than peers?
- Assess capital structure: Will dilution or debt undermine per-share growth?
This last-mile work converts a screened list into actual investment ideas. The screener removes 99% of the universe; your judgment removes the next 90%.
Quotable Insights for Growth Screening
"Screening is not stock picking — it is the disciplined act of removing 99% of the noise so your judgment can focus on the 1% that matters."
"The best growth winners of the next decade are already screening today; the question is whether your filters are tight enough to surface them and loose enough not to exclude them."
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best free tool to screen for growth stocks?
Finviz is widely regarded as the best free tool for first-pass growth screening because it combines 70+ filters across descriptive, fundamental, and technical categories with a visual results grid. For deeper financial statement analysis, traders often pair Finviz with TIKR or Koyfin.
What PEG ratio should I use when screening for growth stocks?
A PEG ratio below 2 is the standard ceiling, with under 1.5 considered attractive and under 1 considered cheap relative to growth. Finviz uses bucketed PEG ranges in the free version, so set PEG < 2 and manually sort the results to find the lowest values.
How often should I re-run my growth stock screen?
Weekly is the sweet spot for most investors. Run the screen every Sunday, compare it to last week's results, and pay particular attention to new entrants (potential opportunities) and dropouts (potential warnings on existing positions).
Can I screen for growth stocks across international markets on Finviz?
Finviz primarily covers US-listed equities, including ADRs of foreign companies. For broader international growth screening, Finviz covers roughly 1,000 global names, but dedicated international platforms like TIKR or Koyfin offer wider coverage.
What's the difference between growth screening and momentum screening?
Growth screening focuses on fundamental business expansion — rising revenue, earnings, and margins. Momentum screening focuses on price behavior — relative strength, breakouts, and trend persistence. The strongest setups combine both: fundamentally strong companies in confirmed uptrends.
Conclusion: Build Your Screen, Then Iterate Forever
Mastering how to screen for growth stocks is less about finding the "perfect" filter combination and more about building a repeatable, rules-based process you can refine over years. Start with the template in this guide, save it to your Finviz account, and re-run it weekly. Track which names from the screen went on to become winners — and which were value traps. Over time, those observations will shape filter thresholds that fit your edge, your risk tolerance, and your time horizon.
The investors who outperform aren't the ones with the most exotic filters — they're the ones who screen consistently, validate rigorously, and adjust patiently. Open the Finviz Screener now, build your first growth screen using the steps above, and start the compounding process — both of your portfolio and of your investing skill.