Things are quieting down again: so, it’s time for my: Risk Screening Of Small Caps [a Short View]

The yen is easing back to more normative levels following the concerted G-7 intervention last week and Libya and the Middle East at least don’t look so much worse at the start of this week.

This has left me a little more time to spare, meaning I can return to a project I commenced a few weeks ago but had to drop for more pressing matters when all hell seemed to break loose.

It’s this: some of us lucky ones here were recently granted increased functionality in our financial data terminals.

This wouldn’t sound much like anything to cheer about for normal people, but for financial market geeks like myself, it’s like a small gold mine being opened [unfortunately, not a literal one.]

One of the things which I can do now is what in relation to financial market assets is called ‘screening’.

So, for stocks, one can take a set of parameters to apply to companies and call the data set, for instance, ‘Potential Growth’, ‘Market Leaders’, ‘Market Laggers’ etc.

Well, as you know we hacks are interested not so much in good news, rather we find potential ‘bad’ news juicier.

So, I have put together a rough screen of relatively small-cap listed companies in a set which I politely call, ‘solvency worth looking into.’

Naturally, this could be useful for people on the hunt for stocks to take a negative view on.

You can download the results of the study which I’ve put into a handy Spreadsheet [.XLS file].

Some points of interest about the set:

There are a lot of ‘new’ Chinese stocks in there; this is interesting in view of recent controversies over these in the States.

Many of the stocks, Western or otherwise, are listed on Nasdaq – which is potentially useful in terms of trading strategies which require a reasonable level of liquidity in the float.

As for European and US stocks, there are indeed  a number of ‘star’ small caps highlighted in this screen, in such areas as technology and solar energy.

Other points to bear in mind:

The screen includes such parameters as ‘net cash flow/over total debt’ ‘total debt as a percentage of assets’ and ’52-week compound total return’.

The screen covers the entire ‘universe’ of my data provider [which strangely just consists of most of the listed small caps of the world, rather than those in the outer reaches of the galaxy.]

The parameters aren’t custom-designed; rather they were generated and calculated by my financial terminal.

I hope someone finds the data useful, but please, do read the disclaimer top right of my blog!

Also note, I’m not invested in any of the stocks mentioned in the screen, in either direction although I will be investigating a number of them for the purpose of financial news, in weeks to come. Enjoy!

ThSM