A great quant strategy starts with the right universe. alphabench's Researcher agent can screen 60,000+ NSE/BSE instruments by 30+ fundamental fields — market cap, P/E, P/B, ROE, ROCE, revenue growth, margins, dividend yield, debt/equity — and pass the filtered universe straight to the Quant agent for backtesting.

This guide walks through a full fundamental-to-backtest workflow, end to end.

1. Describe the universe you want

In chat, describe the kind of companies you want to test on:

"Find Indian large-cap stocks with ROE > 18%, ROCE > 20%, revenue growth above 15% over the last year, and net profit margin above 10%."

The Researcher agent calls find_instruments with server-side SQL filters — typical response time is ~35ms even across the full universe.

2. Inspect the screen

The agent returns a ranked table. Each row includes the symbol, market cap, the metrics you filtered on, and a few you didn't (P/E, dividend yield, 1-year price return) so you can sanity-check the screen makes sense before committing to a backtest.

If the universe is too narrow or too broad, just say so:

"Tighten ROE to 22% and add P/E < 35."

The agent re-runs the filter in place.

3. Hand the universe to the Quant agent

When the screen looks right, ask for a strategy:

"Backtest a 50/200 SMA crossover on this universe over the last 5 years, equal-weighted across positions, max 10 concurrent positions."

The Planner agent hands off to the Quant agent, which calls backtest_basket with the screened symbols. The Researcher's filtered universe is shared via the message history — no copy-paste needed.

4. Compare against the broad market

Always benchmark a fundamental screen against a passive index:

"Compare the strategy's equity curve against NIFTY 50 INDICES:NIFTY 50 buy-and-hold over the same period."

If the alpha is < 2% annualized after slippage, the screen probably isn't doing real work.

5. Common screens worth trying

  • Quality at a reasonable price: ROE > 18, ROCE > 20, P/E < 35, debt/equity < 0.5.
  • Compounders: revenue growth 1Y > 15%, net profit growth 1Y > 15%, market cap > ₹10,000 cr.
  • Margin expansion: net profit margin trending up, operating margin > 18%, gross margin > 35%.
  • Value with momentum: P/B < 3, 1Y price return > 15%, RSI(14) between 50 and 70.

6. Next step: validate

Run a walk_forward_test and a monte_carlo_test on any fundamental screen before deploying. Quality screens are particularly prone to survivorship bias.