Every number on a StockGlow page means something specific. Here's what each one is, what a healthy reading usually looks like, and where it can mislead you — no jargon, no assumed background.
The total value of every share of the company, added up — share price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding. It's the simplest way to gauge how big a company is.
Generally a good sign
A large, well-established market cap (tens of billions or more) usually means a more stable, closely-watched company.
Worth a second look
Size alone says nothing about whether a stock is priced fairly — a huge company can still be overvalued, and a small one undervalued.
Price-to-earnings ratio: the current share price divided by the company's earnings per share over the last 12 months. It's a rough measure of how expensive a stock is relative to the profit it actually generates.
Generally a good sign
A lower P/E relative to similar companies can mean a stock is reasonably priced. Compare within the same industry — a grocery chain and a software company have very different normal ranges.
Worth a second look
A very high P/E means investors are paying a lot for each dollar of current profit, betting heavily on future growth. A missing P/E (shown as —) usually means the company isn't profitable yet.
The lowest and highest price the stock has traded at over the past year. Seeing today's price next to that range tells you where it sits in its own recent history.
Generally a good sign
Trading near the high end of the range often reflects strong recent momentum and positive sentiment.
Worth a second look
A price near its 52-week high isn't automatically a green light to buy — it can also mean a stock has already run up and has less room left. Near the low can mean opportunity or it can mean the market has a real reason for concern.
The average closing price over the last 50 and 200 trading days. Comparing today's price to these smooths out daily noise and shows the underlying trend.
Generally a good sign
A price trading above both averages usually signals an established uptrend; short-term average above the long-term average is a classic bullish pattern.
Worth a second look
Moving averages describe the past — they don't predict what happens next. They can also lag sharply behind fast-moving news.
Wall Street analysts who cover a stock publish buy/hold/sell ratings and 12-month price targets. The consensus is the average of all of them. StockGlow reports this, attributed, but it doesn't feed the Score.
Generally a good sign
Broad agreement among many analysts (wide coverage, similar ratings) suggests the view is well-researched, even if it can still be wrong.
Worth a second look
Analyst targets are frequently wrong and are often revised after the fact, not ahead of it. Treat them as one input, published by people with their own incentives — never as a guarantee.
Gross margin is what's left of revenue after the direct cost of making the product; operating margin is what's left after running the whole business day-to-day. Both show how efficiently a company turns sales into profit.
Generally a good sign
Margins near the top of the company's own sector — a software company and a grocery chain have very different normal ranges, so StockGlow scores each against its own sector's peers, not one global bar.
Worth a second look
A high margin alone doesn't mean a healthy company if revenue is shrinking, and a low margin isn't automatically bad in structurally thin-margin industries like retail or airlines.
Net income divided by shareholder equity — how much profit a company generates for every dollar shareholders have invested in it.
Generally a good sign
A consistently strong ROE relative to sector peers usually signals an efficiently-run business.
Worth a second look
ROE can be inflated by heavy debt (borrowed money boosts the ratio without making the underlying business better), so it's worth reading alongside debt levels, not alone.
How much a company has borrowed relative to shareholder equity, and relative to its annual cash earnings. Both measure financial risk — how exposed the company is if revenue slows or rates rise.
Generally a good sign
Lower leverage than sector peers generally means more room to survive a downturn without distress.
Worth a second look
Some industries (utilities, real estate) run structurally leveraged as part of the business model — that's why this is scored against sector peers, not a single number that's "safe" for every company.
How much a company's sales and profit grew over the past year, reported after the fact — not a forecast of what happens next.
Generally a good sign
Growth ahead of sector peers, especially when margins are holding or improving alongside it (growth funded by real demand, not just spending more).
Worth a second look
Fast growth from a tiny base can look dramatic and mean little; deceleration from a high growth rate isn't automatically bad news.
Whether the company's own executives/directors, or the large institutions that hold its stock, have been net buyers or net sellers recently. This is a real, disclosed event — not an opinion.
Generally a good sign
Insiders buying with their own money is one of the more honest signals available — people with the most information, risking their own capital.
Worth a second look
Insider selling isn't always a red flag (it's often just diversification or a planned, scheduled sale) — the size and pattern matter more than a single transaction.
How much the stock moved today versus yesterday's close, shown as a percentage. It's the most immediate, least informative number on the page.
Generally a good sign
Context matters more than the number itself — a move that tracks the broader market or sector is normal noise.
Worth a second look
A single day's move (up or down) rarely tells you anything about the company's underlying health. Reacting to it alone is one of the most common beginner mistakes.
The Score is a single 0-to-100 read — 0 is bearish, 100 is bullish — built almost entirely from reported fundamentals, not analyst opinions. Roughly twenty individual metrics feed it, grouped into six categories:
Valuation
P/E, price-to-book, price-to-sales, EV/EBITDA, PEG, FCF yield — scored vs. sector peers.
Profitability & quality
Gross/operating/net margins, ROE, ROA, and whether earnings are backed by real cash.
Financial health
Debt vs. equity, cash, and EBITDA; current and quick ratios.
Growth
Trailing revenue and earnings growth, reported — not estimated.
Capital allocation & conviction
Real insider and institutional buying/selling, ownership, dividend sustainability.
Momentum
Price vs. its 50- and 200-day averages, and its 52-week range.
Almost every metric in valuation, profitability, health, and growth is scored as a percentile against the stock’s own sector — recomputed from live peer data, not a fixed table — because a P/E or a debt level only means something in context: what’s expensive for a bank is cheap for a software company, and what’s heavily leveraged for an industrial company is normal for a utility. Momentum and insider-conviction metrics are self-referential (a stock is compared to its own history, or to whether its own insiders are buying), so those don’t need a sector comparison.
If a metric is unavailable for a given stock (thin sector coverage, a recent IPO, an unprofitable company), it drops out and the remaining weights re-normalize — the Score always reflects whatever real data exists, never a guess filling the gap.