The High/Low Search tool helps users identify the historical periods when a stock was most or least favorably rated. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Enter the Stock Symbol: In the Stock Symbol field, type the ticker symbol of the company you want to analyze (e.g., F for Ford Motor Company). This tells the tool which company’s data to analyze.

Step 2: Select a Lookback Period: Choose how many years into the past you want the system to analyze. This defines the timeframe for identifying the stock’s highest- or lowest-rated dates.

Step 3: (Optional) Select a Reference Date: Use the input to choose a specific reference date if you want to view the stock’s ratings and financial metrics as they were on that day. If no date is selected, the previous trading day will be used by default.

Step 4: Choose Search Type: Use the dropdown to select:

  • Best Dates – To find dates with the most favorable ERS ratings (typically associated with better future returns).
  • Worst Dates – To find dates with the worst ERS ratings (often linked to future declines).

Once all fields are filled in, click the green “Calculate” button to begin the search. The tool will return a list of the most notable dates—either best or worst—within the selected lookback period, based on ERS’s proprietary ratings.

After clicking “Calculate”, the High/Low Search tool generates two tables.
The first table shows the stock’s ratings and financial data for the selected date (as chosen in Step 3 above).

What This Table Tells You:

This is a snapshot of the stock’s condition on the selected date. It includes:

  • ERS proprietary ratings (such as PRI™, FSR™, etc.)
  • Key financial metrics like revenue, net income, debt levels, and valuation ratios
  • Historical performance indicators from that point forward (e.g., 6-month, 1-year return)

Why It Matters:

This table gives you the context for the investment environment on that date. It allows you to understand whether the company was undervalued and low-risk, or overpriced and high-risk, according to ERS’s models. You can compare this table against the results in Table 2 (described next) to see how that date ranks in terms of investment opportunity or danger.

The second table produced by the High/Low Search tool displays the most extreme dates for each of the 14 key ERS ratings and metrics—based on your selection of either “Best Days” or “Worst Days” in Step 4 above.

How to Read It:

  • Symbol: The stock ticker you selected (e.g., M for Macy’s).
  • Category: Indicates which metric had its most favorable or unfavorable value on that row. This includes:
    • ERS’s 10 proprietary ratings: PRI, FRI, ERI, FRR, V1, eLiquidity, eStrength, eDurability, eValuation and FRN
    • 5 common valuation metrics: Price, P/E, P/S, P/NTE and P/FCF
  • Date: The date when this specific rating or metric was at its extreme value.
  • Price / Market Cap / Rating: The stock’s price, market cap, and the level of the rating on that date.
  • Low Date: The future date when the stock reached its lowest price following the selected “Worst” rating date.
  • Lowest Future Price / Loss to Low Date: The lowest price the stock hit afterward, and the maximum loss (%) an investor would have experienced if they bought the stock on the selected date.
      • When looking at the “Best Dates”, these will show “Highest Future Price” and “Gain to High Date” instead.

Why It Matters:

  • This table proves the predictive power of each ERS rating.
  • When “Worst” is selected, these rows show that investing on the day when a specific rating was at its worst often led to massive future losses.
  • When “Best” is selected, the table reveals dates that preceded substantial future gains.
  • Advisors and analysts can use this to verify how well each rating correlates with actual future performance, helping to separate signal from noise.