Properties
Equities Lab Properties
Properties are fields of data related to a security (or stock). Many of the properties are fields that you would find on an income statement, balance sheet, or statement of cash flows, such as “Net_Income_1Y”, “EPS_1Q”, or “Sales_1Q”. Other fields involve price data, unique valuations, company information, financial ratios, etc.
Click here to find a list of all our Properties.
Getting Started With Properties
Before we start this, you should have finished the “My First Stock Screener” quick start, as we build upon it in this tutorial.
In the “My First Stock Screener” you finished creating your first stock screener. It is shown below for reference.
Since this course is about the grammar of the Equihack language and not selecting the perfect stocks, let’s break down this last entry a little. Let’s look at just a few of the ways you can find the properties you want.
If you entered a lower-case “m,” you would be prompted with 11 operator names (shown in purple), that start with m: max, min, multiply, minus, median-across, and min-across plus the four black properties displayed when you entered a capital “M” above—15 choices in all. Scroll down to “Market_Cap” or press the down arrow to select the one you want.
If you had entered lowercase “mc,” you would have been prompted with just two choices: “Market_Cap” and “Market_Cap_MR”. Here we want the first choice. It should be highlighted, so press return to select it.
Sometimes you find yourself calling something by a different name than the one used by Equities Lab. Typing in your names doesn’t make the cut. For example, let’s say you call “Market Capitalization” just “Capitalization.” You type in “c,” and you get a bunch of operators followed by properties such as “Close”, “Capex”, and “Cash” that are nowhere close to what you were looking for. Say you keep typing, and when you get to “capital,” all the choices disappear. You may be frustrated, but remember, you have other options!
Look down at the bottom row of tabs. The one on the far left is labeled “Tools“, click it. The bottom half of the screen now becomes an expansive, but easily navigable, library of tools ready for your use. The names of these tools are listed in the left panel. The description of each tool shows in the middle panel as you hover over the names. There are three groups of tools in the tool tab: properties, operators, and formulas. (You can display the group of tools you want by clicking the different icons to the right of the “Filter by” box.)
Now, we are looking for a Capitalization property. Click the left-most square icon by the Filter by box to display just properties. Then type “capitalization” in the “Filter by” box (shown above). The Property will appear before you even finish typing. We want the “Market Capitalization” property. The descriptions shown in the middle panel can help sort things out as well. Hover your cursor on the desired property name and drag it to the left-most box in your screener to enter it there.
If you don’t like one of the four ways to find a property explained above, here are some other options:
- Put your cursor in an empty box. Press Control+Shift+P
- Put your cursor in an empty box. Select Editor (from the top bar) > Edit Term > Insert > Insert Property.
If the Tools section has been selected previously and is showing on the bottom half of the screen, the list of available properties will be selected and shown in the first column.
In Equihack, you either “insert” or “add” things. Inserting puts the choice in the box. Inserting does not create a new box. When you insert, you replace whatever is there, whether it is a blank space or some previous value you entered. This is a little different from most free-form word processors’ use of the word “insert”, so be mindful.
Going back to our screener, we were filling in the second line of our screener. We wanted the Market Cap to be greater than 70 billion dollars. All that remains is to enter 70,000 (this translates to 70 billion with Equihack) in the third box on that line and click the “GO” button. Our results will show on the bottom half of the screen. This time we will only see a dozen or so stocks.
On the top half of the screen, you see the words: “Stock screener; Match all of the following; PE < 10; Market_Cap > 70,000; GO” In your mind, it is correct to read it as “If the PE is less than 10 and the Market Capitalization is greater than 70 billion dollars, select the stock as the computer reads through the whole file of 7,000+ stock records. Then display the selected stocks on the heat map at the bottom of the screen.”
Believe it or not, you have come a long way with this first lesson. You learned how to find the blank page, how to create a new screener, enter two tests in a screener, run it, and view the results.
More importantly however, you have learned valuable information about using Equities Lab’s tools. You know where to find properties, multiple ways to insert property names into a test, and how to put the system to work. All of these steps will become second nature as we continue with additional functions and options.
Summary
Adding a property by typing
Type in the desired property as it appears in its description.
By Mouse
Click on an empty box and select “Add Property”. You will be directed toward the tools tab at the bottom of the program.
Tools will then have the focus so you can select your desired property
You may also click and drag a property from the tools tab into the editor and drop it onto an empty box or replace another property in a filled box.