Top 10 US stocks, ranked by X-Ray score

The X-Ray score is built to be balanced. Valuation (25%), growth (20%), profitability (25%), financial health (20%) and dividends (10%) are each scored as a percentile rank against companies in the same sector, then blended. A stock cannot reach the top on one strength alone: a very profitable company with a stretched valuation, or a cheap company with a weak balance sheet, lands in the middle. Size does not enter the score at all, which is why this list can look unlike a roll-call of the best-known names, and why a mid-sized company with clean accounts can outrank a giant.

The leader is Deckers Outdoor Corp, whose strongest lens is valuation; the next two are NEWMONT Corp, Incyte Corp. The ten come from these sectors: 3 in Information Technology, 2 in Consumer Discretionary, 2 in Health Care, 1 in Materials, 1 in Consumer Staples, 1 in Communication Services. Our fair-value models label 6 of them undervalued, 3 fair and 0 overvalued, with 1 not rated.

None of today's ten is labelled overvalued, but that is a feature of today's data, not a rule of the score; the valuation lens is only one of five and a high-quality company can rank here while trading above its fair value. The leader scores 85, against a median of 50 across the 459 companies ranked.

The X-Ray score needs audited statements, and we currently build it from SEC filings for the S&P 500. Other US-listed companies have prices on the site but no score yet, so this is a ranking of the S&P 500 and not of every US stock. A company also needs a High or Medium confidence label, which reflects how many metrics and how many years of filings the score rests on; the few with too little history are left out.

The same scores answer different questions on other pages: the dividend list ranks income, the undervalued list ranks the gap to fair value with a quality check, the growth list ranks the growth lens, and each sector and industry list ranks companies only against their own peers.