The Historical Data Screen allows Premium Plus users to screen for companies using multiple years of historical data within our All-in-one Screener.
Background
When you conduct your investing research, you may have questions like the following:
- What companies had a return on equity of at least 15% in each of the past five years?
- Are there any companies that grew operating margins by at least 5% each year over the past five years?
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.A, Financial)(BRK.B, Financial) managers Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) and Charlie Munger (Trades, Portfolio) have said that they look at four key criteria when seeking investments: understandable business, favorable long-term prospects, operated by honest and competent people and available at attractive prices.
To qualify as a candidate for the Buffett-Munger Screener, a company must have a high GuruFocus business predictability rank and expanding operating margins while growing its business.
Historical Data Screen allows for multiple-year screening
With the Historical Data Screen, one of the things you can do is screen for companies that have grown operating margins by at least 5% each year for a specific number of years.
Select the filter you wish to add the historical data screen for and then click on the "+" sign to the right of the desired filter. Figure 1 illustrates this with operating margin.
Figure 1
As Figure 1 illustrates, the pop-up window includes the following fields: From, To, Operating Margin % and Value.
- From: Select the first year you wish to screen data from.
- To: Select the final year you wish to screen data form.
Examples: If you wish to screen data from 2015 to 2018, enter 2015 in the From field and 2018 in the To field. If you wish to screen data from 2015 to the present, enter 2015 in the From field and the current year in the To Field.
- Operating Margin % (or other financial calculation): Select one of the following four items:
- Grew By (%): Select this if you want the financial calculation to grow by at least a certain percentage each year in the screening window (From-To). Example: Operating margin grew 5% each year.
- Grew By (Value): Select this if you want the financial calculation to grow by at least a certain value each year in the screening window. Example: Revenue grew by at least $20 million each year.
- Greater than (Value): Select this if you want the financial calculation to be greater than a certain value for each year in the screening window. Example: Operating margin greater than 15% each year.
- Less than (Value): Select this is you want the financial calculation to be less than a certain value for each year in the screening window. Example: Price-Sales Ratio less than 0.8 each year.
- Value: The desired value, e.g., 5% for operating margin grew by (%) or 0.8 for price-sales ratio less than (value) each year.
Figure 2 illustrates an example for "Operating margin grew by 5% each year since 2015."
Figure 2
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