Piotroski
F-Score.
Is the business getting healthier or sicker? Nine pass/fail tests on profit, debt and efficiency compare each company's latest 10-K with the year before. Each test passed is one point, so every stock scores from 0 to 9.
Scoring the stocks…
The nine tests, exactly as computed
| Group | Test | Passes when |
|---|---|---|
| Profitability | 1. Return on assets | net income over starting assets is above zero |
| Profitability | 2. Operating cash flow | cash from operations is above zero |
| Profitability | 3. Change in return on assets | return on assets is higher than a year ago |
| Profitability | 4. Accruals | operating cash flow is above net income |
| Leverage | 5. Long-term debt | long-term debt over average assets is lower than a year ago |
| Leverage | 6. Current ratio | current assets over current liabilities is higher than a year ago |
| Leverage | 7. New shares | the diluted share count did not rise more than 1% |
| Efficiency | 8. Gross margin | gross profit over revenue is higher than a year ago |
| Efficiency | 9. Asset turnover | revenue over starting assets is higher than a year ago |
- Where it comes from: Joseph Piotroski, “Value Investing: The Use of Historical Financial Statement Information to Separate Winners from Losers” (2000). He applied the nine tests to cheap, high book-to-market stocks. This page applies them to every stock we track, cheap or not.
- Scores 8 and 9 were his “strong” group and 0 and 1 his “weak” group. The Good and Middling bands in between are this site's own labels.
- Share count is the diluted weighted average, put on today's split basis so a stock split is not mistaken for new shares. A 1% allowance covers rounding.
- A test that cannot be run (no gross profit line, no current assets on an unclassified balance sheet) is shown as a dash, never guessed. A stock needs at least 7 of the 9 to be scored.
Every number comes from the SEC's structured version of the 10-K, so you can check it against the filing. See also the Earnings Quality Screener (is the profit real?) and the Altman Z″-Score (can it survive its debt?). Plain-English definitions are in the glossary.
What this can't do
- A score describes two annual reports, not the future. It says how the business changed over the last year. It is not a forecast and it says nothing about the share price.
- Annual numbers only. Each score uses the latest 10-K, so it can be up to a year old. The fiscal year is shown beside every stock.
- It was built for cheap stocks. Piotroski's results were for high book-to-market companies. A high-growth company that issues shares to fund expansion will lose a point for that, which is not a sign of weakness.
- Banks, insurers, REITs and lenders are left out. Current assets, gross profit and asset turnover do not mean the same thing for them.
- Big swings are common. A jump of 3 or more points is often a recovery from a bad year. Read the nine results, not only the total.
On Nov 1, 2026, 421 stocks could be scored on Piotroski's nine tests: 68 score 8 or 9 and 17 score 3 or below. The largest of the 11 stocks that pass all nine are Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), Parker-Hannifin (PH), Moody's (MCO), Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL) and Applovin (APP). Each test is a yes/no comparison of the latest 10-K with the year before, on profit, debt and efficiency.
How Healthy Is
The Business?
The nine tests sit side by side on every row, in three groups. A tick is a pass, a cross is a fail and a dash is a test the filing could not answer. Click any row for the full stock card.
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Who Is Getting
Better Or Worse?
The score matters less than its direction. These are the stocks whose score changed the most between their last two annual reports. Pair it with the Earnings Quality Screener before reading anything into a jump.
Biggest gains
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Biggest drops
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Which stocks have the highest Piotroski F-Score?
On Nov 1, 2026, 421 stocks could be scored on Piotroski's nine tests: 68 score 8 or 9 and 17 score 3 or below. The largest of the 11 stocks that pass all nine are Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), Parker-Hannifin (PH), Moody's (MCO), Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL) and Applovin (APP). Each test is a yes/no comparison of the latest 10-K with the year before, on profit, debt and efficiency.
| Stock | F-Score | Last year | Tests passed | Fiscal year to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BMYBristol-Myers Squibb Co | 9 of 9 | 4 | 9 of 9 | Dec 31, 2025 |
| PHParker-Hannifin Corp | 9 of 9 | 8 | 9 of 9 | Jun 30, 2026 |
| MCOMoody's Corp | 9 of 9 | 8 | 9 of 9 | Dec 31, 2025 |
| RCLRoyal Caribbean Cruises Ltd | 9 of 9 | 8 | 9 of 9 | Dec 31, 2025 |
| APPApplovin Corp | 9 of 9 | 8 | 9 of 9 | Dec 31, 2025 |
| NDAQNasdaq Inc | 9 of 9 | 4 | 9 of 9 | Dec 31, 2025 |
| CBOECboe Global Markets Inc | 9 of 9 | 7 | 9 of 9 | Dec 31, 2025 |
| WSTWest Pharmaceutical Services Inc | 9 of 9 | 4 | 9 of 9 | Dec 31, 2025 |
| TECHBio-Techne Corp | 9 of 9 | 5 | 9 of 9 | Jun 30, 2026 |
| PNRPentair PLC | 9 of 9 | 6 | 9 of 9 | Dec 31, 2025 |
The screener above lists every scored stock with all nine results and the score for each of the last three years. Piotroski's tests are defined in the glossary.
Computed from each company's own 10-K filings on SEC EDGAR. Educational content only, not investment advice.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Piotroski F-Score?
A score from 0 to 9 built from nine yes/no tests of a company's financial statements: four on profitability, three on leverage and liquidity, and two on operating efficiency. Each test passed earns one point. Joseph Piotroski published it in 2000.
What is a good Piotroski F-Score?
Piotroski treated 8 or 9 as strong and 0 or 1 as weak. This page groups scores into Strong (8 to 9), Good (6 to 7), Middling (4 to 5) and Weak (0 to 3). A score describes the last two annual reports; it does not predict the share price.
Why does a stock show fewer than nine tests?
Some filings do not report what a test needs, such as gross profit for a utility. A test the filings cannot answer is left blank rather than guessed, and a stock needs at least seven of the nine tests to be scored.
What does the Piotroski F-Score measure? About this screener
This Piotroski F-Score screener runs Joseph Piotroski's nine tests on each company's own 10-K: profit, cash flow, debt, liquidity, share count, margin and asset turnover. A high score means the business improved on most measures over the year; a low score means it weakened. It is a description of the filings, not a verdict. Put two to five stocks side by side with the fundamentals comparison. See also the earnings quality screener, shareholder yield and the capital-light compounders list. The method is written down in the formulas and methods section.
Educational content only, not investment advice. These are screens built from public filings, not verdicts: a high score does not make a stock safe, and a low one does not make it a bad investment. Always read the company's own 10-K before acting on anything shown here. See Editorial Standards and Disclosures for more.