TickerLandia Fingerprint: how it is calculated

The Fingerprint is an indicator calculated by TickerLandia for every stock. It describes the company on eight aspects and, for each one, shows where it stands among similar companies, from 0 to 100. It is not a rating or investment advice: it tells you what a stock looks like compared with others, not whether to buy it.

The eight aspects

Each aspect answers one question and is calculated from a few metrics:

  • Price, how much it costs relative to what it produces: trailing and forward P/E, EV/EBITDA, price/book, price/sales.
  • Profitability, how much it earns: gross, operating and net margin, ROE, ROA.
  • Earnings stability, how steady the results are: margin variability and loss-making years over the last five annual reports (at least three years are needed).
  • Growth: revenue and earnings over the year, average annual revenue growth over three years.
  • Financial strength, how well it would weather a hard period: debt/equity, net debt/EBITDA, current ratio, interest coverage.
  • Dividend: yield, share of earnings paid out, consecutive years of payments.
  • Market momentum: one-year return, distance from the 200-day average, relative strength against the index over 3 and 6 months.
  • Risk, how much the price swings: 60-day volatility, one-year beta, maximum drawdown over the last 12 months.

How the score is calculated

For each metric we take the stock's position in its group (the percentile): 0 is the lowest value, 100 the highest. Position rather than distance from the average means an outlier does not move the others.

Some metrics count in reverse: for Financial strength more debt means less strength, for Earnings stability more variability means less stability. The score of an aspect is the average position of its metrics, and it is calculated only with at least two valid metrics; a metric is used only if the group has at least five values. Negative multiples and multiples above 500 are not used.

The score measures how high an aspect is, not how good it is: a high price means the stock costs more than its peers, a high risk that it swings more. The words follow bands of 20 points: very low, low, average, high, very high (for momentum: very weak, weak, average, strong, very strong). There is no total score.

What it is compared with

For price, financials and dividend the group is the stock's industry worldwide, if it has at least eight companies; otherwise a group of related industries (for example broadcasting, publishing and advertising together). Banks and insurers are compared only with each other.

For momentum and risk the group is the stocks of the same region: Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Middle East. Volatility and returns of distant markets are not compared on equal terms.

Every Fingerprint states how many companies it was compared with.

Special cases

  • Banks and insurers: Financial strength is not calculated, because their accounts cannot be read through debt and liquidity like those of an industrial company; some metrics (EV/EBITDA, gross margin, current ratio) are not used.
  • Companies that pay no dividend: "no dividend", not a low score.
  • Not enough data: if an aspect has fewer than two valid metrics, no number is shown.
  • Unusual but genuine values are kept and flagged: more cash than debt, dividends above earnings, growth from acquisitions.
  • Secondary listings (the same company on another exchange): they show the Fingerprint of the primary listing.

Updates and limits

The Fingerprint is recalculated every night with the latest prices and the latest available financial statements. Positions are relative: a score can change because other stocks in the group have changed.

The data comes from the same sources as the rest of the site (see the general methodology) and may contain errors. TickerLandia provides information, not investment advice. Reports to [email protected].