India Stock Screeners: Tools to screen Indian Stocks listed on NSE and BSE

There are several ways to learn about new companies and sectors to invest your hard money in. I am being a dumb investor (yes, still I am even after a couple of years in the market!!) dependent so far on business news websites like moneycontrol.com, business-standard.com. Usually, I come across an interesting story, like millions of other readers, and then start to dig a little into sector and/or companies mentioned.

But, I learnt that this top-down approach is not the most effective way since the news papers, sites, analysts and brokerage firms can and will cover only a small percentage of the companies listed on NSE/BSE and you miss out on the bigger percentage where some of the best opportunities lie hidden. And you basically just follow the crowd since everyone have the same information as you!

So, the obvious (which was not so obvious till a week ago) question was "is there a better way?."

And the answer is yes, that’s what I got while reading a book yesterday and it’s called stock screening. Stock screening, simply put, is the process of filtering/identifying companies, from thousands across sectors and industries, based on parameters that meets an individual's risk, expected returns, and even taste. One example could be searching for companies with a dividend yield of 4% or more. Of course, this will only help you cut down the number of companies to look at from 1000s to, possibly, few 10s but then one needs to analyze each company further to better understand its business, past and future(expected) performance before making a decision of whether to invest in it or not.

Since we are lucky to be living in an internet age this screening process is not as daunting as it could sound like. There are several tools, limited for Indian stocks but numerous for US listed ones, that help with this and some of the good ones are really free! The following is the list of some sites and tools that provide free tools to screen NSE and BSE listed stocks.

IDBI Paisabuilder
http://www.idbipaisabuilder.in/Market_Content/CMcorpinfo.aspx

I had used this site in the past and I really like it. It provides a decent number of parameters, more than equity master which comes next in the list, to filter stocks on and the research section of the site also includes various other useful tools that can be really useful. The following screenshots shows the search form and the results for a search on stocks in NSE 500 that have a dividend yield of more than 3%

Search form:

Search results:

EquityMaster

http://www.equitymaster.com/research-it/company-info/search/internal.asp

This has a decent stock screener; the following screenshot shows the results I got for companies having a dividend yield between 3% and 4%.

There are few bugs with this tool though, the year criterion in the search form is only till 2007 but the search still does give results for 2009 and 2008 so I am not sure (have not compared against other tools) if the results are accurate and reflect latest information.It also has other useful tools like sector info,recent quarterly performance of some of the companies (I liked this one, see screenshot below)

ICICI Direct Research

http://content.icicidirect.com/research/customsearch.asp

ICICI Direct also provides a screener but the search form is limiting in the parameters e.g. I could only search large cap stocks, and not all, with dividend yield greater than 3%

BSE

http://www.bseindia.com/stockscanner/stockscanner.aspx

BSE website also find a stock screener but again the form is limited to four criteria (see screenshot below)

Buzzing Stocks

http://www.buzzingstocks.com/in/search.pl

This one is different in the sense that it lets you screen stocks based on technical parameters. The search form takes criterion in plain english and it also comes with a pre-defined list that users can use. I plan to use if I buy anything for trading purpose. The following screen shot shows list of stocks that have had serious buying interest and which could go up higher.

There could be other tools and I plan to update this post as and when I come across them.

RK.

Other posts that could be of interest:

Warren buffets low diversification good for average investors?

Think before investing in india's ETFs

Stock picks top 20 indian stocks to own

Financial bubbles of next decade

Little book that beats the market

Financial Bubbles of the next decade!!

Think you seen the end of bubbles?? Forbes does not think so, they have an article on forbes.com titled "Seven Looming Financial Bubbles" that lists the sectors/countries and areas which can go bust in the next decade. Here is the list and the reasons why they think so

Gold
Gold is up 300% over the last decade, in part because investors see it as a store of wealth during times of trouble and inflation. Look beyond the hype and you may see an asset with its best gains behind it. As an asset that generates no actual income, gold's price is purely a function of what others are willing to pay for it.

China
China has positioned itself as the factory for the world, pushing out everything from drywall to toys. It's growing in large part due to easy money. Its government is already on the hook for debt equal to over 70% of gross domestic product. By keeping its own currency artificially low, China has also pushed its citizens to invest at home, artificially inflating property and stock prices.

Emerging Markets
Investing in emerging markets was hugely profitable in 2009 as confidence in the U.S. waned. An ETF that tracks the Brazilian market has gained nearly 125% this year, but overall economic growth in Brazil has fallen short of forecasts. The main Russia ETF has gained more than 135% in 2009, even as the country's GDP shrank. Now is probably not a good time to be hopping on the notoriously volatile emerging-markets bandwagon.

Treasuries
Warren Buffett and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao were among those who lamented the Treasury bubble in 2009 as the U.S. borrowed to fund its record budget deficit. Signs the bubble is at or near the bursting point: rates on short-term bills that have fallen to negative levels after inflation--meaning investors are paying the government to hold onto their money--and a growing national debt.

College Tuition
Over the last 20 years, college tuition has risen at double the rate of inflation. There are now more than 60 colleges charging over $50,000 a year, and the average student now leaves school with $20,000 in education loans. With financially strapped parents reluctant to foot the bills, colleges may soon be forced to cut amenities--like gourmet dining hall food--introduced in boom times. And some ivy-covered doors are likely to close for good.

Exchange-Traded Funds
These index- and sector-tracking products were designed to provide investors the breadth of mutual funds on the cheap. They were a big hit in the wake of the last recession, jumping in number from 152 ETFs in 2004 to nearly 760 today. But this once pristine area is on the verge of being overrun by opportunists. Some investment companies have been hawking ETFs with expense ratios more than four times higher than those of their rivals. It won't be long before ETFs join the ranks of the dubious financial products they were supposed to replace.

Copper
Spot prices for copper spiked during the mid-decade housing boom, shooting from about $1,500 a pound in 2004 to nearly $4,000 a pound in 2007. Copper plummeted in 2008 to below $2,000, but prices are once again approaching boom-time levels. Some of the demand is coming from China. Another source is ETFs that let average investors buy commodities contracts that were once restricted to institutions, resulting in an oversubscribed investing idea.

RK

Rakesh jhunjhunwala trims infoMedia 18 limited holding

In case you are a follower of Rakesh jhunjhunwala then this news might be of interest to you. As per communication to stock exchanges he, his wife Mrs Rekha Jhunjhunwala and brother Mr. Rajeshkumar Jhunjhunwala have
sold 4,45,389 number of shares on December 09, 2009 and 2,22,366 numbers of shares on December 10, 2009. They still have about 4.2% in this company. So it will be interesting to see if they will hold on or sell it off.

update: Rakesh jhunjhunwala continues to dilute his holding in infomedia 18, there were transactions on Dec 11th again.

Info