Financial metrics glossary

MarketXLS publishes a page for every metric it calculates. Each one defines the metric in plain language, shows how it is worked out, gives the Excel formula that returns it, and ranks stocks by it so you can see what a normal reading looks like before you screen on it.

356 metrics are listed below in 11 groups. Start from a group if you are exploring, or use the contents list to jump straight to one.

Key ratios

The trailing-twelve-month ratios most screens start from: earnings, book value and cash flow per share, margins, returns on capital, and the liquidity and coverage tests. Each page gives the formula and what a high or low reading usually indicates.

Valuation models and scores

Estimates of what a share is worth, rather than what it costs. This group holds the intrinsic-value models (discounted cash flow, Gordon growth, Ben Graham, capitalisation of earnings, liquidation value) and the published composite scores such as Altman Z, Beneish M and Piotroski F.

Growth rates

How fast a line item has changed. Sales, earnings, EBITDA, cash flow, margins, dividends and share count, measured over one, three and five years and annualised where the window is longer than a year, plus the quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year readings.

Reported fundamentals

Figures as filed, not derived: income statement, balance sheet and cash flow lines for the last reported quarter or year, and the prior-year comparatives that let you see the trend behind a ratio.

Earnings and analyst estimates

Reported earnings per share by fiscal year, alongside what analysts expect next: consensus EPS estimates for the current and next quarter and year, the long-term growth rate, and the consensus price target with its recent history.

Dividends

What a holder is paid and how reliably. Trailing and forward yield and rate, the payout ratio measured against both earnings and free cash flow, payment frequency, and the ex-dividend and pay dates.

Price and quote fields

The quote itself: last, open and previous close, bid and ask, the change from the previous close in points and percent, and the volume traded so far today. These are the fields that update through the trading session.

Technical indicators

Signals calculated from price and volume history alone: simple and exponential moving averages from 5 to 200 days, RSI, MACD, ADX and the directional indicators, money flow, momentum and average true range.

MarketXLS analytics

Measures MarketXLS computes from its own price and fundamental history rather than reading from a vendor field: total returns and volatility over ten windows, custom betas, average volume and dollar volume, five-year averages and CAGRs, distance from moving averages, and the MarketXLS quality score.

Company profile

The descriptive facts about a listing rather than its numbers: sector and industry, country and exchange, security type, share count, institutional ownership, index membership, IPO date and the next reporting date.

US economic data

Economy-wide series, not company metrics. Employment, prices and inflation, output and income, housing, money supply, Treasury and mortgage rates, commodity prices, exchange rates and the headline market indices. Use these to set the backdrop a holding trades against.