Where screener data is wrong, and what the engine does about it
FX, financials, and a share count that is a year older than the balance sheet beside it. The failure modes that actually bit.
5 min read · updated
Mixed reporting currencies
An ADR quotes in dollars while its filings report in yuan, euros or won. Divide a dollar market cap by a yuan book value and you get a P/B that is wrong by the exchange rate — usually wrong in the direction that makes it look cheap, which is exactly the direction a value screen is looking.
Financial fields are FX-adjusted before any ratio is computed. There is also a market-cap consistency check: price times share count, divided by reported market cap. Away from 1.0 means the share count and the quote disagree — an ADR ratio, a secondary listing, or a share count filed in the wrong currency.
Financials and REITs
Book value and enterprise value do not mean the same thing for a bank. Its 'current assets' are a loan book; its debt is its raw material rather than a claim ahead of you. The same is true in a different way for property companies.
These are flagged in the risk section rather than excluded, because sometimes a bank really is trading at a fifth of book for a reason worth understanding. But the screen output on them should be treated as suspect rather than as a signal.
Different vintages in the same ratio
Balance sheet items come from quarterly filings; share count comes from annual ones. So dilution is measured year over year on annual data and lags reality by up to a year. A company that issued stock last quarter can pass the dilution test.
More generally, a missing field fails a rule rather than quietly passing it. A company with no data on a metric the screen tests does not get the benefit of the doubt.