A tool to help you in the hunt for value stocks

The Value Line Investment Survey starts with its universe of 1,700 stocks that make up about 90 percent of the market capitalization of all stocks traded in U.S. markets. Value Line ranks those stocks into quintiles based on three propriety measures called Timeliness, Safety and Technical.The quintiles place the stocks into five categories so that you can quickly grasp which equities are at the top, bottom and middle of the pack.For Timeliness and Technical rankings, the very top and very bottom each have 100 stocks. The middle contains 900 stocks, and Ranks 2 and 4 contain 300 stocks apiece. The distribution of Safety Ranks is not arranged in a set parameter.An aggressive investor would look for stocks ranked 1 or 2 for Timeliness,When used in conjunction with the Fed's power based in part on recent earnings momentum and stock-price performance.

These are stocks that Value Line believes will lead the pack for relative price performance during the next six to 12 months. They tend to be more volatile and have smaller capitalizations than the general market.Stocks ranked 3 are expected to be "average performers," but still might be quite appropriate for more conservative investors. Stocks ranked 4 and 5 would probably be weeded out by most investors, since those stocks are viewed as being less likely to perform well during the next six to 12 months than the vast majority of the 1,700 stocks.The Safety ranking is more useful for conservative investors, who will want to search for stocks ranked 1 or 2, while aggressive investors may be happy with 3, 4 or even 5 as long as they keep a watchful eye on the stock.

Safety is based on the company's Financial Strength grade, a measure of the financial condition of the company, as well as the stock's Price Stability, which is based on the stock's volatility standard deviation of weekly percentage price during the past five years.Aggressive investors also will want to focus on the Technical ranking, which predicts short-term three to six months price changes, based on a proprietary model evaluating 10 recent price trends.