Finviz filters on current data. Shibui screens across 64 years of history to find durable quality, detect momentum shifts, and study outcomes after market events.
Finviz is a fast, visual stock screener used by millions of retail investors. It does a specific job well: filter the US stock universe by current financial metrics, draw a heatmap, scan chart patterns. If your screening needs are point-in-time, "show me stocks with P/E below 15 and ROE above 20% right now", Finviz handles that in seconds, for free.
The limitation shows up when you need to screen across time. Finviz filters on the latest quarterly value or a trailing aggregate. It cannot check whether a condition held consistently over multiple periods, detect trends in fundamentals, or study what happened to stock prices after specific events. That is where the two tools diverge.
| Capability | Finviz | Shibui Finance |
|---|---|---|
| Current-quarter screening | Yes - ~70 preset filters, instant results | Yes - any criteria in plain English |
| Multi-year consistency checks | No - latest value only | Yes - check every individual quarter |
| Custom ratio screening | No - preset filters only (Elite adds advanced filters, not custom formulas) | Yes - any ratio expressible in English |
| Trend/pattern detection | No | Yes - acceleration, deceleration, sequential patterns |
| Event studies (historical outcomes) | No | Yes - aggregate outcomes across thousands of instances |
| Combined technicals + historical fundamentals | Partial - both point-in-time only | Yes - current technicals with multi-year fundamental checks |
| Backtesting | Technical signals only (Elite) | Yes - fundamental + technical criteria |
| Visual heatmap | Yes | No |
| Chart pattern recognition | Yes | No |
| Price | Free (Elite: $39.50/month) | Free (requires Claude account) |
| Data source | Proprietary feed | Tiingo (prices, fundamentals), SEC EDGAR (filings) |
What are the limitations of Shibui Finance vs Finviz?
Shibui has no visual interface. No heatmaps, no mini-charts, no click-and-filter UI. Every query goes through Claude as a text conversation. If you want to visually scan the market in seconds, Finviz is faster. Shibui also has no real-time or intraday data - end-of-day only. Data is sourced from Tiingo (a tier-3 provider), not institutional-grade feeds. The database covers US equities only and is survivor-biased (delisted tickers are purged, which overstates returns in backtests).
What Shibui does differently
Can Finviz screen for multi-year consistency?
A value investor looking for durable quality wants companies where profit margin exceeded 15% every single quarter for the last 5 years. Not an average. Every individual quarter passed. That is 20 separate checks.
In Finviz, you can filter on the most recent quarter's profit margin. You can filter on trailing twelve months. You cannot check all 20 quarters individually. A company that had 14% margin last quarter but 25% for the prior 19 quarters would be excluded. A company that happened to hit 16% this quarter after years of losses would pass.
"Show me companies where net profit margin exceeded 15% every quarter for the last 5 years. Include current market cap and sector."
Claude writes a single query that checks all 20 quarterly values per company, filters to those where every quarter passed, and returns the results with current market data. One sentence in, structured results out.
Detect acceleration and deceleration
Growth investors care about trajectory, not just magnitude. A company with 30% revenue growth is interesting. A company where revenue growth accelerated from 15% to 20% to 25% to 30% over four consecutive quarters tells a different story, one of compounding momentum.
Finviz has a "Sales growth qtr over qtr" filter with preset thresholds (negative, positive, under 5%, over 10%, over 25%, and similar cutoffs). It shows you the latest value. It cannot detect whether growth has been sequentially accelerating or decelerating. There are no trend filters, no pattern detection on derived time series.
"Find companies where quarterly revenue growth accelerated for 4 consecutive quarters. Show the growth rate for each quarter."
Claude computes quarter-over-quarter growth rates, checks that each successive rate exceeds the prior one for four periods, and returns matching companies with the full growth trajectory visible.
Can Finviz screen by custom ratios?
Finviz provides roughly 70 preset screening filters on the free tier (counts vary by category and source, with Elite adding more). If the ratio you care about is not one of them, you cannot screen for it. Finviz Elite's Custom tab adds custom ranges and roughly 20 advanced filters but no user-defined formula engine, so derived ratios you build yourself are not supported.
Consider "R&D spending as a percentage of revenue, trending upward for 3 years." This is a meaningful signal for identifying companies investing in future growth. But Finviz has no R&D filter at all, no way to compute custom ratios, and no way to check directional trends even if it did.
"Companies where R&D as a percentage of revenue has increased for 3 consecutive years, with current R&D spend above $500M."
Claude computes the ratio from the underlying financial statement data (R&D divided by revenue) per period, checks the year-over-year trend, and filters for the increasing pattern. Any ratio you can express in English, Shibui can screen for.
Study what happens after specific events
The most valuable question in fundamental analysis is often not "which stocks pass my filter today?" but "what happened historically when stocks matched this pattern?" Event studies are standard methodology in academic finance. They answer questions like: what is the average price reaction after an earnings miss?
Finviz has no fundamental event data and no way to study outcomes after financial events like earnings misses. Finviz Elite offers backtesting on technical indicator signals, but not on fundamental criteria.
"What was the average stock price change 30, 60, and 90 days after companies missed earnings estimates by more than 10%? Show results by market cap quintile."
Shibui has quarterly earnings data (actual vs. estimate, surprise percentage, report date) alongside daily prices back to 1962. Claude lines up each earnings event with the price changes that followed at fixed offsets, segments by market cap, and returns the aggregated results. This type of cross-market event analysis typically requires specialized financial databases.
Can Finviz combine technicals and fundamentals with historical depth?
Finviz lets you combine technical indicators (RSI, SMA) with fundamental filters (P/E, debt/equity) in a single screen. That is useful. But both sides are point-in-time: current RSI, current P/E. You cannot ask "stocks where RSI is below 30 today AND free cash flow was positive every quarter for 3 years."
"Stocks trading below their 200-day moving average with RSI under 30, that had positive free cash flow every quarter for the past 3 years and current P/E below their own 5-year average P/E."
This query pulls technical indicators, quarterly financials, valuation history, and price data into a single pass. Claude handles the every-quarter check on FCF, the historical P/E comparison, and the current technical conditions together. Finviz can do the last part. The first three require historical depth it does not have.
What Finviz does better
Finviz is faster for simple, current-quarter screens. Type your criteria, see results instantly in a visual table with mini-charts. No setup, no connection, no Claude subscription required.
Its heatmap is genuinely useful for a quick read on market sectors. The chart pattern recognition (head and shoulders, wedges, channels) is visual and immediate. The screener presets cover roughly 70 of the most common filters that retail investors reach for daily, with Finviz Elite adding more.
If you need a fast answer to "what passes my filter right now?" and your filter is one of the standard ones, Finviz delivers that in seconds. It is the right tool for quick, current-value screening.
Which tool is right for you?
If your screening is simple and present-tense (current P/E, latest quarter margins, today's RSI), Finviz is hard to beat. It is free, fast, and visual. Millions of investors use it daily for good reason.
If you need to screen across time, that is what Shibui does. Check whether a condition held for 5 years, detect acceleration in fundamentals, study historical outcomes after events, or combine historical depth with current technicals. The two tools answer different kinds of questions.