Cheap, healthy US small caps, with every number explained

A screener, an insider-buying tracker and a report on any US stock, built from companies' own SEC filings and refreshed every weekday evening.

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Top of the screener

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Eight rules decide who is on the list. A 100-point score decides the order.

Every company on the screener is cheap against its sales, profitable, light on debt, based in the US and not shrinking fast. The score then ranks them, and you can open any company to see each part of it beside its own figures.

Price under 2 times yearly sales, market value under $3 billion
Long-term debt under half of equity, 3 cents of profit per sales dollar or more
Positive free cash flow, profitable in 2 of the last 3 years

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See who inside a company is buying its stock with their own money

Executives, directors and big owners must report their trades to the SEC within two business days. TFA reads every filing and ranks the open-market purchases.

Tier 1: $10 million or more bought
Tier 2: $1 million or more, or one buyer growing their stake by 20% or more

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Latest Tier 1 and 2 purchases

Any US stock: is the business healthy, and is the price fair?

A health check from its filings, a fair-value range from similar companies and a cash-flow model, its peers, insider trades and the latest news. The fair value says how each estimate was made and how well its verdicts have done in a test on past data, or that they haven't been tested yet.

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How to read the numbers

New to investing? These six ideas cover almost everything on this site.

Cheap is not the same as good. A stock can look cheap because the business is shrinking. That is why the screener also checks that a company is profitable, isn't shrinking fast and isn't drowning in debt.

Price to sales: What the whole company costs divided by one year of sales. Under 2 means you pay less than $2 for every $1 it sells.
Net profit margin: The share of each sales dollar left as profit after every cost and tax. 8% means 8 cents of profit per dollar.
Debt to equity: What the company owes long term compared with what shareholders own. Lower is safer. Zero means no long-term debt.
Free cash flow: Cash left over after paying for operations and equipment. It is harder to fake than profit.
Form 4: A filing executives, directors and 10%+ owners must send the SEC within two business days of trading their company's stock.
Schedule 13D: Filed when an investor passes 5% ownership and may try to influence the company, for example by pushing for changes.