CAN SLIM is William O'Neil's stock selection method, first published in How to Make Money in Stocks (1988). Each letter represents one criterion: Current quarterly earnings, Annual earnings growth, New products or new highs, Supply and demand (shares and volume), Leader or laggard (relative strength), Institutional sponsorship, and Market direction. O'Neil developed the system by studying the characteristics of the biggest stock market winners from 1953 to 1993.
Shibui Finance lets you describe all seven CAN SLIM criteria in plain English and check them across nearly 10,000 US stocks. Claude pulls quarterly earnings, annual financials, daily prices, institutional ownership, and index data to evaluate each condition. This guide walks through the methodology step by step. To jump straight to running the screen, use the CAN SLIM Screener.
What is CAN SLIM?
William O'Neil founded Investor's Business Daily (IBD) and developed the CANSLIM method by analyzing what the top-performing stocks had in common before their biggest price moves. The system combines fundamental analysis (earnings quality) with technical analysis (price and volume behavior) and market timing.
The seven criteria form an acronym:
- C - Current quarterly earnings per share: EPS grew at least 25% year-over-year in the most recent quarter
- A - Annual earnings growth: earnings grew at least 24% annually over the past 3 to 5 years
- N - New products, new highs: the stock is making or approaching new 52-week highs, often driven by a new product, service, or management change
- S - Supply and demand: fewer shares outstanding (under 50 million) with increasing volume on up days
- L - Leader or laggard: the stock's price performance ranks in the top 20% of the market
- I - Institutional sponsorship: at least 40-50% of shares held by mutual funds, pension funds, and other institutions
- M - Market direction: the overall market (S&P 500) is in a confirmed uptrend, typically above its 200-day moving average
O'Neil found that roughly 2% of stocks pass all seven criteria at any given time. The system is selective by design.
The data you need
Shibui has pre-computed columns for each CAN SLIM criterion:
- Quarterly earnings: EPS, revenue, and year-over-year growth in fundamentals_quarterly and fundamentals_derived_quarterly (eps_growth_yoy, revenue_growth_yoy)
- Annual earnings: yearly income statements in fundamentals_yearly for multi-year growth rates
- Daily prices: OHLCV data in stock_quotes for 52-week high proximity, volume analysis, and relative strength computation
- Technical indicators: SMA at any period, RSI, MACD, and Bollinger Bands in technical_indicators for trend confirmation
- Institutional ownership: percent_institutions in ownership_stats, plus shares_float and short interest
- Market index: SPY and QQQ prices and technicals in the same tables for the market direction check
What Shibui does not have: O'Neil's proprietary Relative Strength Rating, the IBD Composite Rating, or the EPS Rating. These are computed using IBD's proprietary formulas and are not available outside MarketSmith. Claude can compute relative performance from raw prices, but the result is a simpler calculation than what IBD publishes. There is also no pre-built "CANSLIM score." You describe the thresholds, and Claude evaluates them.
Step 1: Check market direction (M)
O'Neil recommends starting with the M criterion. Three out of four stocks follow the general market direction. Screening for individual winners in a declining market is fighting the trend. The simplest check is whether the S&P 500 is above its 200-day simple moving average.
"Check the current market direction for CAN SLIM: is SPY above its 200-day SMA? Show the current price, the SMA-200 value, and how far above or below. Also show the 50-day SMA and RSI for context."
If SPY is below its 200-day SMA, O'Neil's system says to stay in cash or reduce exposure. This is the gatekeeper. If the market fails this check, the individual stock screen still works technically, but the historical hit rate drops. Some traders add a distribution day count (days with higher volume and lower closes) to refine the M criterion beyond a single moving average.
Step 2: Screen for earnings power (C + A)
The C and A criteria are the fundamental core of CAN SLIM. O'Neil looks for companies with accelerating quarterly earnings and a strong multi-year earnings track record.
"Screen US stocks with market cap above $2 billion for the CAN SLIM earnings criteria: quarterly EPS growth of at least 25% year-over-year in the most recent quarter, and annual earnings growth of at least 24% over the past 3 years. Also show quarterly revenue growth."
Claude pulls the C criterion from fundamentals_derived_quarterly (eps_growth_yoy) and the A criterion from fundamentals_yearly by comparing the most recent annual EPS to the value from three years ago. Revenue growth is not part of the original CANSLIM formula, but O'Neil noted that the best stocks often had sales growth accompanying earnings growth. Including it helps filter out companies where earnings growth comes purely from cost cutting.
The result is typically 50 to 200 stocks, depending on the earnings cycle. During broad earnings expansions, more stocks pass. The next steps narrow this list further.
Step 3: Add price and institutional filters (N + S + L + I)
With the earnings universe established, layer the technical and ownership criteria. These four checks identify stocks that are near highs, have manageable supply, show strong relative performance, and are backed by institutional buyers.
"From stocks passing the CAN SLIM earnings screen, keep those where the price is within 15% of the 52-week high, institutional ownership is above 40%, the 6-month price return ranks in the top 20% versus SPY, and average daily volume is above 500,000 shares. Sort by proximity to 52-week high."
This prompt combines four criteria in one pass. The N criterion (new highs) uses the 15% threshold from O'Neil's original specification. The I criterion checks ownership_stats.percent_institutions. The L criterion uses a 6-month return comparison against SPY as a proxy for relative strength (see the next section for why this differs from IBD's RS Rating). The volume floor ensures liquidity.
The S criterion (supply and demand) is harder to quantify in a single filter. O'Neil preferred stocks with under 50 million shares outstanding. You can add this threshold, but many quality growth stocks today exceed it. Consider using shares_float from ownership_stats instead, which measures tradable supply more precisely.
The L criterion: relative strength without IBD ratings
This is the most important difference between running CAN SLIM on Shibui versus MarketSmith. O'Neil's RS Rating is a proprietary metric published by Investor's Business Daily. It computes a 12-month weighted price performance (more weight on the recent 3 months), ranks every stock against the full market, and assigns a percentile from 1 to 99. O'Neil requires an RS Rating of 80 or higher.
Shibui does not have the IBD RS Rating. What Claude can compute from the raw data:
- The stock's price return over 3, 6, or 12 months
- SPY's return over the same period
- The difference (how much the stock outperformed or underperformed the index)
- A percentile rank across the full universe using PERCENT_RANK()
This gives you a reasonable relative strength measure. A stock whose 12-month return ranks in the 80th percentile or higher is outperforming 80% of the market. That is conceptually close to what O'Neil's RS Rating measures, but the exact numbers will differ because IBD uses a proprietary weighting scheme and a different universe.
For practical screening, this approximation works. If a stock ranks in the top 20% by 6-month or 12-month return, it is a relative strength leader. The gap between this and the IBD RS Rating is a matter of precision, not direction.
Combining CAN SLIM with VCP screening
Many growth traders use CAN SLIM for stock selection and Mark Minervini's Volatility Contraction Pattern (VCP) for entry timing. CAN SLIM identifies the right stocks (strong earnings, institutional backing, market leader). VCP identifies the right entry point (tight base on declining volume in an uptrend). On Shibui, you can combine both in one request.
"Screen for stocks passing CAN SLIM criteria (quarterly EPS growth above 25%, annual earnings growth above 24%, institutional ownership above 40%, within 15% of 52-week high) that also pass the Minervini trend template: price above the 150-day and 200-day SMA, 200-day SMA rising, and ATR as a percentage of price below 3%."
This combines fundamental selection (CAN SLIM) with technical timing (VCP) in a single pass. The result is a short list of fundamentally strong stocks that are also forming tight bases. Most screening tools require you to run these on separate platforms and cross-reference the results. For the full VCP methodology and additional examples, see the VCP Screener.
What Shibui cannot do
Shibui does not assign CAN SLIM ratings or scores. It provides the underlying data (earnings, prices, ownership, technicals); you describe the thresholds and Claude checks them. There is no built-in CANSLIM composite score or stock ranking system.
There are no real-time alerts. The data is end-of-day, updated after market close. You screen yesterday's data, not today's intraday action. If you want to be notified when a stock first passes all CAN SLIM criteria, you would need to run the screen regularly.
The relative strength calculation is based on raw price performance, not O'Neil's proprietary RS Rating or IBD's Composite Rating. It is a reasonable approximation, not an exact match.
Data is US equities only (NYSE and NASDAQ), end-of-day, not institutional grade. For full details on coverage and known limitations, see the data sources page. For a quick screen without the step-by-step walkthrough, use the CAN SLIM Screener.
Frequently asked questions
Can AI screen for CAN SLIM stocks?
Shibui Finance connects to Claude and lets you describe CAN SLIM criteria in plain English. Claude checks quarterly earnings growth, annual earnings trends, 52-week high proximity, institutional ownership, and market direction across nearly 10,000 US stocks. It does not assign O'Neil ratings; it checks the numeric criteria you define.
What data do I need for a CAN SLIM screen?
You need quarterly and annual earnings data, daily prices for 52-week high proximity and relative strength, institutional ownership percentages, share float and volume data, and a market index (SPY) for the market direction check. Shibui has all of these as pre-computed columns across its database tables.
How does the L criterion work without O'Neil's RS Rating?
O'Neil's RS Rating is a proprietary 12-month weighted percentile rank published by Investor's Business Daily. Shibui does not have it. Instead, Claude can compute a stock's price return relative to SPY over 3, 6, or 12 months and rank it using PERCENT_RANK(). This gives a reasonable relative strength measure, but it is a simpler calculation than the IBD rating.
Is this a replacement for MarketSmith?
No. MarketSmith has O'Neil's proprietary EPS Rating, RS Rating, and Composite Rating built in, plus automated alerts and pattern recognition. Shibui does not compute these ratings. What Shibui does is let you define numeric thresholds yourself, combine CAN SLIM with other criteria in one pass, and backtest across decades of data. If you need IBD's proprietary ratings, MarketSmith is the purpose-built tool.