Fundamentals made simple.
Companies passing our checks did better than the typical company in most periods, with far fewer big losers.
How it works →Every US-listed company, checked against its own SEC filings: our 7 checks, 90+ metrics and a health check. Tap a preset or build your own screen.
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Scoring rules
Every number comes from the company's own annual and quarterly filings with the US SEC (the XBRL data behind 10-K, 10-Q, 20-F and 40-F reports). We use up to the last 5 financial years. Verdicts are Passes our checks, Watch / Mixed, Red flag or Not scored where free data can't answer the question honestly. A verdict is a starting point for your own research, never a judgement on whether to buy or sell.
Our 7 checks
- Revenue: growing at least 3% a year over the period with no more than one down year passes. Shrinking revenue is a red flag. Anything else is Watch.
- Operating costs (revenue minus operating profit): costs growing no faster than revenue (within 0.5 points a year) pass; up to 3 points faster is Watch; more is a red flag.
- Gross profit: falling or negative gross profit is a red flag; gross margin down more than 3 points is Watch; otherwise it passes.
- Net profit: a loss in the latest year is a red flag; profitable in all but at most one year passes; otherwise Watch.
- Short-term debt (due within a year): covered by cash and short-term investments passes; covered with a year of operating cash flow added is Watch; otherwise a red flag.
- Long-term debt: more cash than debt, or net debt up to 3 years of operating profit, passes; up to 5 years is Watch; more, or net debt with no operating profit, is a red flag.
- Profit margins: operating margin (net margin if no operating line) flat or rising versus the first year passes; down up to 4 points is Watch; negative or down more is a red flag.
Banks, insurers and brokers: checks 2, 3, 5 and 6 don't apply (shown as N/A), so they can't pass all 7. Bank revenue = net interest income + non-interest income.
The 5 filters
1 · Revenue growth
5%+ a year over the period with no more than one down year passes. Shrinking revenue, or 2+ down years with under 3% growth, is a red flag. Otherwise Mixed.
2 · Competitive position (moat clues)
Points for gross margin (40%+ / 60%+), a steady gross margin, operating margin (10%+ / 20%+), rising operating margin, return on capital (8%+ / 15%+) and free cash flow positive every year. Passes at 60%+ of available points, red flag at 30% or less. Banks and insurers are judged on return on equity and years of profit.
3 · Leadership quality: not scored, check yourself
Management can't be measured honestly from financial data. Company pages give a checklist, the share-count trend and insider buying and selling as clues.
4 · Timing & valuation: not scored, check yourself
Valuation needs a share price, and we only publish data we're licensed to share, so P/E and similar ratios aren't shown yet. Company pages give a checklist.
5 · Risk
Red flags: net debt over 4x operating profit (7x for utilities and real estate), interest cover under 2x, losses in 3+ of 5 years, or share count up over 25%. Smaller warnings count as Mixed. Not scored for banks and insurers.
The 5-filter score is the average 0–100 sub-score of the filters we can score. Filters passed counts passes among the 3 scored filters.
Health check
Five areas, each scored 0–6 from six yes/no tests on the numbers (scaled if some tests can't be run). It's a quick picture of the fundamentals, not a rating of the shares.
Company size
Size is the company's public float: the market value of shares held by outside investors, which every US annual report (10-K) states on its cover. It is usually months old (the date is on each company page) and leaves out insiders' shares, so it can be well below today's market value. Foreign companies filing 20-F or 40-F reports don't publish it, so they appear under "All sizes" (or tap "show" next to the count).
Money and currencies
Money columns are in US dollars. Companies that report in another currency are converted at European Central Bank reference rates (); currencies the ECB doesn't publish show "–". Company pages show the reported currency.
Insider buying and selling
From the SEC's Form 4 data sets: open-market purchases (code P) and sales (code S) by directors, officers and 10% owners in the last 12 months (). Values are as reported in the filings. Option exercises, gifts and awards are left out. Many sales are pre-planned (Rule 10b5-1 plans) and say little on their own.
All metrics
Ratios use the latest financial year; debt and cash use the latest balance sheet (which may be a later quarter).
Important
Not financial advice. For education only. Beyond the Ticker is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and does not give personal recommendations. Nothing here says whether you should buy, sell or hold any investment. Automated checks can be wrong: data may be delayed, incomplete or misread from filings, companies restate figures, and one-off items distort single years. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results, and investments can fall as well as rise. Do your own research or speak to a regulated adviser.
How it works
A company's annual report runs to about two hundred pages. Nobody reads one cover to cover, and you don't need to. We ask three questions, in this order.
Revenue and margins across several years, not one good quarter. A five-year line tells you whether you're looking at a business or a moment.
Debt against cash. Most people skip it, and it's one of the most important, because it doesn't matter at all until it's the only thing that matters.
Growing, or grew once? They look the same in the latest number and completely different in the shape of the line.
Every company page shows a green, amber or red light for each question, worked out from our 7 checks. You read; we've done the sums.
Example: Nvidia at the end of 2018
Using only filings public at the time, it passed all 7 checks. From the end of 2018 to 30 Oct 2026 its shares returned about +6,100%, against about +240% for the S&P 500.
The checks showed a quality business. They didn't predict the size of the run, most of which came from demand for AI chips from 2023, something no past accounts could show. Most companies passing at the time did nothing like this.
Example: when the numbers can't see it
Then war came in 2022, and much of its engineering workforce was in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. The shares fell 34% to 79% depending on the start date. Green lights describe the past; they can't see what's coming.
Growth companies that fail on profit
Some fast-growing companies fail the profit question because they're spending heavily on research or new capacity. In our research, that group included big winners (Palantir passed only 1 of 7 checks at the end of 2021) but also many deep losses. A red light is a prompt to look closer, not a signal either way.
The record, honestly
Our 7 checks are a quality filter, not a promise to beat the S&P 500. Comparing with the index matters: if a company hasn't kept up with it, that's worth asking why. That's why we show the S&P alongside every result.
Want the detail? The results table
We re-ran our 7 checks using only filings public at each start date, then tracked every company that passed all seven. Returns are total returns in US dollars, before costs and tax. "Average" means an equal amount in each company, bought and held.
| Start | Passed all 7 | Average passer | Average $2bn+ company | S&P 500 | Equal-weight S&P 500 | Worst 10%: passers vs all |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| End 2018 | 116 | +140% | +90% | +106% | +89% | -1% vs -16% |
| End 2019 | 110 | +110% | +73% | +96% | +65% | -12% vs -39% |
| End 2020 | 121 | +85% | +65% | +95% | +63% | -39% vs -56% |
| End 2021 | 124 | +39% | +44% | +70% | +45% | -59% vs -62% |
Five-year returns, except the end-2021 start, which runs to 30 Oct 2026 (about 4.8 years).
- Passers did better than the average $2bn+ company at 3 of 4 start dates, and better than the equal-weight S&P 500 at 3 of 4. The end-2021 start was the exception.
- Fewer big losers: over five years only 2%, 3% and 5% of passers halved in value (2018, 2019, 2020 starts), against 4%, 6% and 12% of all $2bn+ companies. From end 2021 it was 15% vs 14%.
- Against the S&P 500 itself, passers came out ahead from 2018 and 2019 and behind from 2020 and 2021. The middle (median) passer was behind at every start date.
- Stricter versions (top 10 or 20, size splits, higher growth hurdles) were written down before we saw results. None beat the S&P 500 reliably without leaning on one or two giant winners.
Want the detail? The misses, through the three questions
Some companies passed all 7 checks and still did badly. Here's what the three questions showed at the time. Returns run to 30 Oct 2026.
- Leslie's (end 2021): -100%
- Still growing? Only 3 years of history, all during a pool-supplies boom. Bad year? Net debt of about 2 years of operating profit. Not enough history to tell a business from a moment.
- Dave & Buster's (end 2018): -82%
- Bad year? A thin cushion: cash covered short-term debt only 1.3 times. Then venues closed in 2020, a shock no filing could foresee.
- Helen of Troy (end 2018, 2020, 2021): -78% to -88%
- Growing? Slowly, 2% to 5% a year. Makes money? Steady but modest margins. Nothing alarming; most of the fall came from things the old numbers couldn't show.
- SolarEdge (end 2020): -91%
- Grew once? Fast growth during a solar boom, with thinner margins. A year later growth stalled, the margin check turned red and it stopped passing. The later fall came as the solar cycle turned.
- RH (end 2019 to 2021): -31% to -73%
- Makes money? Margins jumped late, from 2.5% to 16.4%, during a home-furnishing boom. A spike, not a steady line.
- Carter's (end 2018, 2019): -51% to -64%
- Growing? Slowly. By the end of 2020 costs and margins were on "watch", and by 2021 they were red flags. The checks caught the decline, a year or two late.
- EPAM (end 2019 to 2021): -34% to -79%
- Strong on all three. The miss came from outside the numbers: the 2022 war.
Companies that failed the profit question showed warnings more clearly: Snap (losses every year), Beyond Meat (losses, then debt with no profit to pay it), Chegg (losses, plus a pandemic sales jump) and Novavax (revenue from $20m to $480m in one year on vaccine funding, with losses).
Which question warned most? Using rules written in advance, across all $2bn+ companies: those with a red flag on a profit check halved in value about twice as often (8% vs 3%, 16% vs 7%, 20% vs 8%, 19% vs 13% for the 2018 to 2021 starts). Debt red flags went with more blow-ups for the 2018 and 2019 starts but not for 2020 and 2021, a period of very low interest rates. Growth on its own made no consistent difference.
Want the detail? Growth companies that fail on profit
Research label, not a site feature. In our research we labelled companies "investing for growth" if, at the start date: revenue grew 20%+ a year, research plus capital spending was 20%+ of revenue, the fails were on the profit side, and short-term debt wasn't a red flag. We wrote these rules down before looking at results.
| Start | Labelled | With prices | Did better than S&P 500 | Average | Median | S&P 500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| End 2018 | 41 | 25 | 5 | +196% | +40% | +239% |
| End 2019 | 67 | 45 | 10 | +129% | +20% | +158% |
| End 2020 | 71 | 50 | 15 | +76% | -3% | +118% |
| End 2021 | 90 | 64 | 10 | +8% | -31% | +70% |
It caught some remarkable winners (Palantir, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Tesla, Fortinet, Arista, Axon) and many deep losses (Snap, Beyond Meat, Chegg, Novavax). Overall the group did worse than the S&P 500 at every start date, and stricter or looser rules gave the same picture. Heavy investment isn't automatically bad, and it isn't a hidden bargain either. What decides it is what the numbers can't measure: leadership, the moat, and whether spending turns into profit.
Past results are not a reliable guide to the future. Not financial advice. Read the Important factors and the full scoring rules.
The Beyond the Ticker Formula
Eight checks. Seven read the numbers for you. The eighth is where your own research comes in.
The Formula is a guide and framework to help you make informed choices. It points you to things to look into in a company's own filings. Your research, your decision.
Cancel any time from your account page.
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Not financial advice. The Formula is information and a research framework only. Any decision to buy or sell is yours alone, and we are not responsible for any losses. Disclaimer
What's included
- One tap on the screener. The Formula preset shows every company passing all 7 number checks, and you can add your own filters on top.
- The full breakdown on every company. Each check marked pass, watch or red flag, with the reason in plain English.
- Check 8, The company. The CEO, the long-term plan and red flags from filings, laid out for your own research.
- The monthly newsletter. Which companies started passing and which dropped out, and why, in plain English.
The 8 checks
2 · Costs vs revenue 3 · Gross profit 4 · Net profit 7 · Profit margins
5 · Short-term debt 6 · Long-term debt
1 · Revenue growth
8 · The CEO, the long-term plan and red flags from filings. A framework for your own research, not a score.
Free, free account or Formula
| Free | Free account | Formula | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full screener and filters | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Company pages and plain English | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Three traffic lights | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Watchlist and saved screens on this device | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Watchlist and saved screens on all your devices | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Formula preset on the screener | ✓ | ||
| Full 7-check breakdown | ✓ | ||
| Check 8, The company | ✓ | ||
| Monthly newsletter | ✓ |
The Formula describes companies' past reported numbers and filings. It is information, not financial advice, and not a recommendation to buy or sell anything. Passing the checks is not a promise of future returns. See Important factors and the Disclaimer.
User guide
The 60-second version.
- Find companies
On the Screener, tap a preset such as Quality compounders (or The Formula if you subscribe), or tap Filters to set your own. Choose a company size from the menu.
- Tap a company
Read the three lights at the top: makes money, survives a bad year, still growing. The detail is underneath.
- Keep track
Tap ☆ to add a company to your Watchlist. Use Save for a screen, Share for a link and CSV for a spreadsheet.
- Then dig deeper
Green = passes our checks. Amber = borderline. Red = red flag, worth finding out why. A light is a prompt to research, not a reason to buy or sell.
See Important factors before you rely on anything here. Not financial advice.
Important factors
- Information, not advice. We don't tell anyone to buy, sell or hold.
- A pass isn't a reason to buy, and a red flag isn't a sell signal.
- Do your own research before any decision.
- Numbers show quality, not the trend: cycles, rates and events matter too.
- Data comes from SEC filings and can be out of date or wrong.
- Past results don't guarantee future results. Investments can fall as well as rise.
If a check isn't a pass, look into...
- 1. Revenue growth
- Was growth a one-off: an acquisition, a pandemic boom, one big contract? Did sales fall because the business shrank or because it sold a division?
- 2. Costs vs revenue
- What is the extra spending on? Investment that should pay back (research, new sites, sales teams) or costs drifting out of control?
- 3. Gross profit
- Is pricing power slipping, are input costs rising, or is the product mix changing? Is it temporary?
- 4. Net profit
- Is it investing for growth? Is there a believable path to profit and enough cash to get there? Was the loss a one-off write-down?
- 5. Short-term debt
- When is it due, and can it be refinanced? How much cash and credit is available?
- 6. Long-term debt
- When are the maturities, what interest rate is paid and could it rise, and how many times does profit cover the interest?
- 7. Profit margins
- Is the squeeze from a cycle, competition or deliberate investment? Has it happened before, and did it recover?
Passing all 7 isn't a reason to buy on its own either. It says nothing about the price, what has happened since the last filing, or the bigger picture. "N/A" usually means the company doesn't report that line (banks and insurers, for example).
The bigger picture: fundamentals aren't everything
Our checks read past accounts. They show quality; they can't see the trend.
- Technology waves. Nvidia passed from end 2018, but most of its later rise came from demand for AI chips from 2023.
- Sector cycles. Solar, chips, housing, energy and retail boom and bust. SolarEdge passed during a solar boom, then fell as the cycle turned.
- Interest rates and the economy. Rising rates, recessions and changes in consumer spending can hit sound businesses.
- Regulation, politics and world events. New rules, tariffs, wars and pandemics.
- Changes inside the company. A new CEO, a big acquisition, a fading moat or key people leaving.
We don't forecast trends or say which to follow. Weigh them alongside the numbers.
Where the data comes from, and how fresh it is
- Source: company filings with the US SEC (EDGAR): annual and quarterly reports and insider trading forms.
- Freshness: figures update when companies file and we rebuild the site, not live. The latest annual numbers can be up to about a year old.
- Company size: the public float a company reports once a year. It can be about 16 months old, so it's a rough guide.
- Coverage: US-listed companies filing with the SEC. Some foreign companies are missing or partly covered.
- Prices: not shown. Use your broker or app for prices.
- Errors: companies restate figures and our automated reading can make mistakes. Check the company's own report.
How we tested our 7 checks, and the limits
- Point in time: we re-ran the checks using only filings public at the end of 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, so no later information leaked in.
- Universe: US companies with a public float of $2bn or more, about 1,180 to 1,260 at each date.
- Returns: total returns in US dollars, before dealing costs, fees, currency effects and tax. Compared with the S&P 500 and the equal-weight S&P 500.
- Rules first: every version we tested was written down before we saw its results, and we report them all.
- Missing companies: about 1 in 10 passers were later taken over or delisted and have no full price history. They're left out, which can push results either way.
- One market: the start dates overlap, so this is really one period (2019 to 2026) in one market, led by a few giant US tech companies.
- Small sample: a few huge winners, especially Nvidia, move the averages a lot.
- Rules written in 2026, knowing roughly how markets had gone, even though we didn't tune them to the results.
How we word things
- We say a company "passes our checks" or has a "red flag". Never a recommendation or a tip.
- We show the S&P 500 next to results. If a company can't beat the index, the index is a perfectly good choice.
- We don't claim our checks will beat the S&P 500.
Your account
Disclaimer
Please read this before you use Beyond the Ticker. It is short and in plain English.
What Beyond the Ticker is
Beyond the Ticker, including the screener and The Beyond the Ticker Formula, is a guide and framework to help you make informed choices. It reads companies' past filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and shows things to look into. Your research, your decision.
What it is not
- It is not financial advice, and not a personal recommendation to buy, sell or hold any investment.
- We are not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). We don't know your circumstances, goals or attitude to risk.
- A green light, or a company passing our checks, does not mean it is a good investment. A red flag does not mean it is a bad one.
Your decisions are your own
You are fully responsible for any investment decision you make. To the fullest extent the law allows, we accept no liability for any loss or damage, including any investment loss, that comes from using this site, the Formula or anything in them.
Past results and data
- Past performance is not a reliable guide to future results. The value of investments can fall as well as rise, and you may get back less than you put in.
- Our data comes from public filings and is processed automatically. It may be wrong, out of date, incomplete or delayed. Always check the company's own filings before you act.
- Any back-test figures describe what happened in the past, using our rules. They are not a forecast.
If you're unsure
Speak to a regulated financial adviser. You can check whether a firm is authorised on the FCA register ↗.
See also our Terms and Privacy notice.
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These terms apply when you use beyondtheticker.app. Last updated 1 November 2026.
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Beyond the Ticker ("we", "us") is run by a sole trader based in the UK. Contact: [email protected].
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- The screener, company pages and traffic lights are free to use, with or without an account.
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Everything on the site is general information and a research framework, not financial advice. Please read the Disclaimer, which forms part of these terms. You agree that any investment decision is yours alone.
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What we keep about you, and why. Last updated 1 November 2026.
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