Piotroski F-score: what it means and how to read it
What is Piotroski F-score?
A 9-point health checklist: is profit positive and rising, is cash flow strong, is debt falling, are margins and efficiency improving? One point for each pass.
The Piotroski F-score, set out by the accounting professor Joseph Piotroski in 2000, checks whether a company's finances are getting stronger or weaker. It awards one point for each of nine signals across profitability, the balance sheet and operating efficiency, giving a score from 0 to 9.
It was designed to separate the winners from the losers among cheap, out-of-favour stocks: among companies with a low price to book, those scoring 8 or 9 went on to do far better than those scoring 0 to 2. It is a health check on the direction of travel, not a measure of how good the business is.
How it is calculated
A worked example
Why does Piotroski F-score matter?
Quickly separates improving companies from weakening ones.
What is a good Piotroski F-score?
7 to 9 is strong, 0 to 3 is weak.
7 to 9 is strong, 4 to 6 average and 0 to 3 weak. It works best as a filter on stocks that already look cheap. It was built for industrial companies and misreads banks, lenders and insurers.
Reading scale
What are the common mistakes with Piotroski F-score?
What is a typical Piotroski F-score in India today?
The median across the 4413 listed companies that report it, as of 12 Oct 2026. Half sit above each figure and half below.