YCharts Review – Fundamental Stock Charts and Financial Data

About YCharts

YCharts is a comprehensive charting and analysis platform that focuses on a stock’s fundamentals more than technical analysis, in contrast to many other charting platforms. The service offers hard-to-calculate metrics in an easy-to-navigate format, filling in the gap in finding advanced financial data beyond the basic metrics that are available in free online platforms. YCharts is designed for both individual investors and financial managers, and the platform offers extensive analyst research into stocks in order to provide value-driven traders with the most information possible while also highlighting potentially winning stocks.

YCharts Pricing Options

YCharts offers two pricing tiers: Standard and Professional.

The Standard plan is billed at $300 per month (billed annually) and is recommended primarily for individual investors. This plan includes all of YCharts charting, watchlist, and scanner features, as well as most of the tools available on the platform. Notably, the Standard plan lacks the advanced time-series analysis that allows investors to visualize how a company’s fundamentals have changed over time, as well as the Excel add-on that will enable you to apply this timeseries analysis in Excel. There is also a data export limit of 50 megabytes per month, although most retail traders will have difficulty coming up against this limit.

The Professional plan is billed at $500 per month (billed annually) and is recommended for financial professionals and money managers, including hedge fund managers, investment advisors, and research analysts. However, it can also be useful for individual traders who want the time series analysis capabilities, as well as the ability to run financial models for a stock and to quickly compare multiple stocks based on screener results. The Professional plan also has an increased data export limit of 500 megabytes per month.

There’s no doubt that YCharts is expensive (especially since it is billed annually), but they do offer a 7-day free trial so you can test out the service before you commit to a paid subscription.

YCharts Features

Charts

As the name suggests, charts are at the heart of YChart’s platform. That said, YCharts isn’t your typical charting platform, and there are many differentiations between this service and services like TradingView, TC2000, and StockCharts.com.

There are two types of charts available in YCharts – fundamental charts and technical charts.

Fundamental charts are handy for visualizing the change in a stock’s financial metrics over time and for comparing two or more companies in the same industry. The list of financial data that can be plotted is quite exhaustive and includes most data from a company’s income statement, revenue and profit metrics, returns over multiple time periods, and information about various asset types. Fundamentals can be searched and added to the graph, or there is a browser window to see all available fundamental data types. In addition, fundamental charts can be viewed on timescales ranging from one day to 10 years. This is one of the most unique features of the YCharts platform. The ability to be able to plot fundamental data, such as a company’s revenue and EPS, on a chart is an incredibly valuable analysis tool.

Technical charts are more similar to the candlestick charts commonly used to conduct technical analysis. The flexibility of these charts is limited as they are intended primarily for long-term technical analyses. Thus, the bars can only be toggled between candlestick and line patterns. A variety of technical indicators are available, both via search and via a browser window, as for fundamental data types on fundamental charts. However, the selection of charting indicators is somewhat limited to popular momentum indicators, especially compared to charting software that is specifically designed for technical analysis.

Stock Fundamental Data

The most useful aspect of YCharts for many investors is the extensive data that it provides, which can be found by clicking on any stock ticker or searching for a stock. The quote landing page shows a rough chart, analyst recommendations, key stats related to income and performance, and news and upcoming stock events like dividends and earnings reports.

The Key Stats and Financials tabs allow you to dig into the data underlying the stock, with options to export data for additional analyses in Excel or other programs. The Key Stats page is essentially an organized list of tables showing statistics related to price performance, company income and losses, EPS and PE estimates, and other fundamental data that is useful for investors to evaluate a company’s value. It is also simple to compare these statistics across other companies within the same industry. The financials page offers digitized versions of income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements, organized for easy export and re-analysis.

YRatings

One of the most helpful features of YCharts, especially for individual investors who do not have a team of analysts to help with investment research, is the rating that YCharts gives to every stock based on its fundamental data. The YRating takes into account earnings yield, EPS and revenue, and the stock’s valuation compared to its historical valuation to assign a stock a rating similar to analyst buy, hold, and sell ratings. We’ve seen ratings and metrics like these in platforms like Value Line, Stockopedia, and StockInvest.us and they are always helpful for doing quick analyses.

Timeseries Analysis

Only available in the Professional plan, timeseries analysis is an extremely powerful interface within YCharts for evaluating how a company’s fundamentals – and those of its competitors – have changed over time. The full range of fundamental data types is available for timeseries analysis and can be examined over multiple timescales ranging from daily to monthly to annually. In addition, it is possible to save sets of fundamental data types as frequently used data sets for quick loading in the future. The data in timeseries analysis is formatted for export for additional analysis and organization.

Screeners

YCharts is equipped with screeners for both stocks and mutual funds. In contrast to the stock screeners found on other platforms, the screener on YCharts focuses on fundamental data rather than at-the-moment technical indicators. The mutual fund screener resembles that of Morningstar, with filters based on fund performance as well as risk and fees.

The screeners in Ycharts cater to self-directed investors who rely on very specific criteria that you may not be able to find in other screening platforms. Some interesting filters include:

• Consensus analyst estimates
• Upcoming earnings and dividends
• Company headquarters locations
• Investment firms
• Investment strategies
• And more

These filters are actually very impressive, but they will be overkill for most retail investors. Helpfully, the screener also features built-in screens modeled on popular investor portfolios and top-performing hedge funds.

Customization and Saved Layouts

YCharts operates inside your browser, so there is little in the way of customizing or saving screen layouts. However, the dashboard screen does allow you to save multiple dashboard formats as individual windows. Also, you can save custom screens as well as sets of fundamental parameters for quick charting and timeseries analysis in the future.

YCharts Platform Differentiators

YCharts differs from many of the charting and analysis platforms available in that it focuses on fundamental corporate data rather than technical analysis of historical data. The fundamental charting capabilities, and especially the ability to compare multiple stocks within an industry on the same set of charts, are extremely useful for traders looking to benchmark a company against its competitors. In addition, the timeseries data tool available in the Professional plan can be extremely useful in determining the value of a company compared to its current stock price and its potential future trajectory. The inclusion of data for mutual funds and a fund screener is useful for traders who invest in funds as well as in individual stocks. Overall, YCharts offers excellent data management tools that few other platforms can match.

What Type of Trader is YCharts Best For?

YCharts is designed primarily for long-term investors who are interested in investing in companies that they believe are undervalued based on their fundamentals. Our YCharts review found that the platform lacks many of the technical analysis tools commonly associated with charts. Instead, it focuses on providing traders with the ability to compare fundamental data across companies within the same sector. The YCharts rating system gives investors additional analytical insight into companies’ value, while the inclusion of data and a screener for mutual funds makes the platform suitable for traders who also invest in mutual funds.

While YCharts can be very useful for everyday fundamental investors, it seems like the platform is trying to cater to investment advisors, hedge funds, family offices, and other professional investment managers. With rates starting at $300 per month and running upwards of $500 per month, most casual investors will be priced out of this platform. If you are looking for a cheaper alternative, you may consider Stock Rover, a service that offers fundamental charting alongside an impressive range of other features. You can purchase an entire year of Stock Rover access for close to the same price you would pay for a single month of access to Ycharts.

Pros

• Fundamental data for multiple companies can be displayed on the same fundamental charts
• Table organization makes exporting to Excel simple for further analysis
• YRatings feature offers simple analytical insight into stock’s valuations
• Timeseries analysis provides a detailed look into companies’ financial histories with comparisons
• Includes screeners for stocks and mutual funds based on fundamental data

Cons

• Lacks many of the technical indicators found on other charting platforms
• Technical charts are relatively limited in their customizability and flexibility
• Monthly subscription is relatively expensive as some fundamental data can be obtained for free