Piotroski F-score screen

Joseph Piotroski, an accounting professor, designed the F-score in 2000 to separate the cheap companies that are recovering from the ones that are cheap for good reason. It awards a point for each of nine tests of a company's latest year against the one before: profitability (positive earnings, positive and rising operating cash flow, cash flow above earnings), balance sheet (less leverage, better liquidity, no new shares) and efficiency (a higher gross margin, a higher asset turnover).

Piotroski applied the score to the cheapest companies by book value and found that those scoring eight or nine did well. This screen follows him: an F-score of eight or more, a price below three times book value and a market value above $300 million, ordered by price to book, cheapest first. His study took the cheapest fifth of the market by book-to-market; the price to book limit here is broader, so the list holds some companies he would not have.