Compare in ScreenerHub places two stocks side by side across five metric clusters — Valuation, Profitability, Growth, Financial Health, and Performance. Each row resolves to a winner based on the direction of the metric, so you can work through a candidate pair without assembling the numbers yourself.
What Compare is for
Use Compare when you have narrowed a decision down to two names and need a structured way to evaluate the difference.
Common situations where Compare adds clarity:
- Two stocks from a screener result are close on your primary sort metric and you want to see whether the cheaper one is cheaper everywhere that matters
- You are benchmarking a holding against a direct sector peer
- A position has risen and you want to check whether the thesis still holds against the nearest alternative
Compare answers a narrower question than the Stock Screener. Studio finds candidates across the entire market by applying a set of rules. Compare takes two specific names you have already chosen and works through the numbers between them.
How to use it
Open a comparison
Every company page includes a Compare button that lets you select a second symbol. Once you confirm the pair, the comparison opens immediately.
You can also navigate directly with the URL pattern /compare/[SYMBOL]-vs-[SYMBOL]. For example, /compare/AAPL-vs-MSFT opens a comparison between Apple and Microsoft. Both URL orderings resolve to the same canonical page.
Comparisons are not available for ETFs. If either symbol resolves to an exchange-traded fund, the page will not load.
Pick a metric cluster
The comparison is divided into five clusters. Use the cluster navigation to move between them:
- Valuation — P/E Ratio, P/S Ratio, P/B Ratio, EV/EBITDA, EV/FCF
- Profitability — Gross Margin, Operating Margin, Profit Margin, FCF Margin, ROE, ROIC, ROCE
- Growth — Revenue Growth (YoY), Earnings Growth (YoY), EPS Growth (YoY), FCF Growth (YoY), Revenue CAGR (3Y), Revenue CAGR (5Y), EPS CAGR (3Y), EPS CAGR (5Y)
- Financial Health — Debt/Equity, Current Ratio, Interest Coverage, Altman Z-Score, Piotroski Score
- Performance — 1M, 3M, 6M, YTD, 1Y, 3Y, and 5Y price returns
Start with the cluster most relevant to your thesis. If you care primarily about valuation, go there first. If the question is about earnings quality, Profitability and Growth together give you a fuller picture than either alone.
Read the reference column
The left column shows the symbol you entered first. As you scroll through a long cluster, the stock names remain fixed in the header so you can always see which column is which.
Each row shows both values and marks the winner. For Valuation metrics, a lower value is better. For all other clusters, a higher value is better — with the exception of Debt/Equity in Financial Health, where lower is also better.
Interpret the winner marker
A winner marker appears next to the more favorable value in each row. The marker is directional: it reflects which stock is better on that specific metric, not whether the result is good in absolute terms.
A stock can win every Valuation row while losing every Growth row. That pattern tells you something useful — the cheaper stock may be priced lower for a reason. Look for consistency across a cluster, and for contradictions between clusters, before drawing a conclusion.
When a value is unavailable for one stock, the other wins by default. When both values are unavailable, no winner is shown and the row is grayed out.
Export the comparison
You can export any cluster as a CSV from the export button in the top-right of the comparison view. The export includes both symbols, all metric values in that cluster, and the winner column.
Use the export to share the comparison with others or to continue the analysis in a spreadsheet alongside data from other sources.
Save a comparison set
To save a comparison for later review, use the bookmark icon next to the comparison header. Saved comparisons appear in your profile under Comparisons. You can return to them, update the underlying data, or delete them at any time.
Saved comparisons do not lock in historical values. When you return to a saved comparison, the metrics reflect the latest available data.
Common patterns
Identify whether a valuation gap is real
When a screener produces two names in the same sector with different P/E ratios, the obvious question is whether the difference is justified. Run a comparison and check Profitability and Growth alongside Valuation. If the cheaper stock also leads on FCF Margin and Revenue Growth, the gap looks different than if it lags on both.
Check earnings quality
When reported earnings and free cash flow diverge, the Profitability cluster makes the gap visible. Compare Profit Margin against FCF Margin for both stocks. A large gap between the two metrics for one stock — where the other stock has a tighter spread — may indicate accounting differences, working capital issues, or one-time items.
Validate a benchmark
If a holding has significantly outperformed its sector, use Compare to check whether that outperformance is justified by the underlying fundamentals or concentrated in the Performance cluster without support from the others.
What Compare is not
Compare shows exactly two stocks. It is not a ranking tool, a portfolio analysis surface, or a correlation view.
To track how two stocks evolve over time without re-running the comparison manually, add both to a Monitoring Lab set. After several runs you can compare the snapshots to see whether the gap between them has widened or narrowed.
To filter, rank, or screen across many companies simultaneously, use Studio.
To follow a company's profile over time without an explicit head-to-head comparison, use a Watchlist.
Related
- Stock Screener Studio — find candidates across the full universe, then compare the shortlist
- Watchlist — collect and organize candidates before comparing them
- Monitoring Lab — track both stocks on a schedule after comparing
- Monitoring Runs — compare screener snapshots over time to track strategy drift