The set of stocks scoring 75–100 on the Ziggma Stock Score, updated monthly, returned 15.7% per annum against 12.1% for the S&P 500. Our latest backtest covers roughly 2,400 US stocks from January 2022 to 30 June 2026. The result validates the Ziggma Stock Score as a measure of fundamental quality: higher scores meant higher returns, at every level of the ranking.
An investment of $10,000 in the top score quartile in January 2022 grew to $19,105 by June 2026. The same $10,000 in the S&P 500 grew to $16,616.
When invested in the Invesco S&P 500 GARP ETF (SPGP), the closest investable equivalent, the same $10,000 grew to $13,380.
The higher return did not come from taking proportionally more risk. The Sharpe ratio, which measures return earned per unit of volatility, was 0.59 for the top-quartile portfolio against 0.50 for the S&P 500. On a risk-adjusted basis, the portfolio was the more efficient of the two.
Growth of $10,000, January 2022 to June 2026
Ziggma Stock Score 75–100, capitalisation-weighted, against the S&P 500 and the Invesco S&P 500 GARP ETF. Total return including dividends. Year-end values.
Monthly rebalancing, US$5 minimum price, dividends reinvested. Chart plots year-end values; the final point is 30 June 2026.
The Ziggma Stock Score rates every US stock Ziggma covers from 0 to 100 on the strength of its fundamentals. It combines more than 40 indicators across four pillars — growth, valuation, profitability and financial health — and ranks each company against its industry peers rather than the whole market, because the same metric means different things in different industries: a debt-to-equity ratio of 2 is ordinary for a utility and alarming for a software company. Likewise, an operating margin of 3% is solid for a grocery chain and a warning sign at a pharmaceutical company, where peers routinely clear 25%. Scores are recomputed daily.
From raw data to one clear score
Ziggma's proprietary model weights and combines 40+ metrics to rank companies against their peers across growth, valuation, profitability and financial health.
01
Data Aggregation
AI-powered ingestion of financial filings and market data.
02
Capture Key Metrics
40+ financial and industry-specific data points per company.
03
Peer Comparison
Proprietary algorithm benchmarks each stock against true peers.
04
Four Pillar Scores
Growth, valuation, profitability and financial health, each scored.
05
Ziggma Stock Score
A single, peer-relative score from 0 to 100 per company.
06
Research & Insights
Actionable portfolio insights surfaced in your dashboard.
The reasons are unglamorous and grounded in data. Companies scoring 75–100 combine revenue growth, high profitability and sound balance sheets — traits that compound value, and that prices tend to follow over time. The valuation pillar keeps the portfolio from overpaying for those traits.
Monthly updating enforces discipline: when a company's fundamentals deteriorate, its score falls and it drops out of the range.
And where analyst coverage is thin, strong fundamentals stay unpriced for longer — the size-band results below show that effect directly.
For a worked example of a high scorer, see our GoodStocks research on Ecolab.
Four and a half years is long enough to show a pattern and too short to prove one. The 3.6-point margin over the S&P 500 is a genuine result of the backtest, but a margin of that size struggles to pass a formal significance test in 54 months, because the gap between a mid-cap portfolio and a large-cap index naturally moves around a great deal from year to year.
Two results in the study do clear it. The top range beat Ziggma's own covered universe held without any score filter, equal-weighted and capitalisation-weighted both — same stocks, same weighting, same calendar, score removed. That comparison isolates the score and nothing else.
A fair objection is that the score's edge might be a size effect in disguise: the top range holds smaller companies than the index, and smaller companies have their own return pattern. The study controls for this by re-running the comparison within size bands, so each stock is measured only against peers of similar size. The score's excess return survives nearly whole — 3.0 points per annum size-adjusted, against 3.4 unadjusted.
Equal-weighted, the four score ranges line up in order: −1.2%, +2.2%, +4.8%, +7.4% per annum.
Equal weighting gives every holding the same size, so the return reflects how the stocks scored and nothing else. That is what tests the ranking.
Volatility falls across the same four steps, from 24.0% to 20.2%. Maximum drawdown improves from −40.8% to −25.7%.
The four score ranges, equal-weighted, January 2022 to June 2026
| Ziggma Stock Score | Return p.a. | Volatility | Max drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–24 | −1.2% | 24.0% | −40.8% |
| 25–49 | +2.2% | 21.5% | −33.3% |
| 50–74 | +4.8% | 20.5% | −28.0% |
| 75–100 | +7.4% | 20.2% | −25.7% |
| Same universe, no score filter | +3.6% | 21.2% | −29.4% |
Equal-weighted, monthly rebalancing, total return including dividends. Hypothetical backtested results.
Equal-weighted, stocks scoring 0–24 returned −1.2% per annum over a period in which the market gained.
The spread between the top and bottom ranges is 8.5 percentage points per annum.
Avoidance is worth as much as selection for most investors. Not owning the wrong stock compounds the same way as owning the right one.
The 2022 bear market is where that shows most clearly. Equal-weighted, the top range fell 19.8%, the unscreened universe fell 24.8%, and the bottom range fell 31.7%.
Equal-weighted and compared within size bands, companies below $2B in the top score range beat their size peers by 7.0 percentage points per annum.
Among large caps above $10B, the advantage narrows to 0.9 points, close enough to zero that the sample cannot distinguish it from chance.
The likely explanation is coverage. Large companies are followed by dozens of analysts, so fundamental quality is already reflected in the price. Small companies are under-covered, and the same quality goes unpriced for longer.
This is where the Ziggma Stock Score earns its keep — the part of the market where a screening tool substitutes for research nobody else is doing.
At each month-end, every covered US stock was sorted into one of four score ranges and held for the following month.
Holdings used only the score published before that day's market open, so no result depends on information unavailable at the time.
Stocks trading below $5 were excluded. Returns are total return, dividends included. Rebalancing is monthly.
The dataset is point-in-time: it records the companies Ziggma covered on each historical date, not the companies that survived to today.
The start date was not chosen. January 2022 is when Ziggma began computing and publishing the score, so the backtest covers its entire history. There is no window to select, only a longer one each time.
Every stock profile in Ziggma carries a score card like the one below. The headline number is the Ziggma Stock Score — Nvidia earns a perfect 100, the top Ziggma Stock Score in the Electronic Equipment industry.
The four bars beneath the headline are the pillar sub-scores that produce it: growth 91, valuation 52, profitability 100, financial health 100 — each a rank against the same industry peers.
Read the card top down. The headline score answers how strong the fundamentals are overall. The pillars reveal where that strength is built — and where it isn't. Nvidia's valuation rank of 52 shows the pillars are scored independently: a perfect headline score does not mean a perfect rank on every pillar.
Beneath the pillars, plain-language notes name the biggest score drivers — for Nvidia, dynamic industry growth and sales momentum — so the number never stands unexplained.
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The score that produced these results runs through the whole product.
Ziggma aggregates the scores of your holdings into a single portfolio-level score from 0 to 100. The Portfolio Checkup shows it alongside your lowest-scoring holdings, so you can see at a glance where your portfolio's quality comes from — and where it leaks. Our guide on how to track your stock portfolio shows how to build that review into a routine.
In the Ziggma screener, you can filter all covered US stocks by the Ziggma Stock Score and by each of the four pillar sub-scores. Set the score filter to 75 and above and you are screening the top quartile — the range this backtest measured. You can combine score filters with every other criterion in the screener, from dividend yield to market capitalisation.
For any holding, the Portfolio Optimizer shows you comparable alternatives with higher Ziggma Stock Scores. Low scorers lost money in this backtest while the market rose — the Optimizer gives you a shortlist of candidates to research as replacements.
The Ziggma Stock Score rates every US stock Ziggma covers from 0 to 100 on the strength of its fundamentals. It combines more than 40 indicators across four pillars — growth, valuation, profitability and financial health — and ranks each company against its industry peers. Scores are recomputed daily.
In the backtest, yes. Capitalisation-weighted, stocks scoring 75–100 returned 15.7% per annum from January 2022 to June 2026, against 12.1% for the S&P 500. The results are hypothetical and backtested, and the margin is not statistically significant over a four-and-a-half-year sample.
Equal-weighted, returns rose at every step of the ranking: −1.2% per annum for scores 0–24, +2.2% for 25–49, +4.8% for 50–74 and +7.4% for 75–100. Volatility and maximum drawdown improved in the same order.
No. The backtest starts in January 2022 because that is when Ziggma began computing and publishing the score, and it runs to 30 June 2026. It covers the score's entire history, so there was no window to select.
No. The Ziggma Stock Score measures fundamental quality relative to industry peers. It is not a buy or sell recommendation and not a price target, and past backtested results are not a guarantee of future performance.
