Balance Sheet & Debt

Debt Reduction

Debt Reduction is a Balance Sheet & Debt screen. It checks every NSE-listed stock against 1 condition computed from nightly data, after excluding heavily pledged promoters and very small market caps. This page explains the rule, each figure and its source. It lists no stocks and is not advice.

What it does and why

A company actively paying down debt while its business grows is one of the strongest signals of improving financial health. Falling debt reduces interest costs, improves future earnings, and lowers the risk of distress in a downturn. In India, over-leveraged companies have repeatedly run into trouble during interest rate cycles and economic slowdowns. This screener finds companies that are on the right side of that cycle — expanding their business while simultaneously reducing the burden of debt.

The rule, step by step

A stock must satisfy every condition below. Conditions are grouped under the pillar they test.

Financial Health

Debt Falling 3 Years is true

Hard excludes

Promoter pledge above 30% of the promoter's holding
Market cap below ₹500 crore

Passes the screen

Ranked by Market Cap, highest first.

The figures it uses

Debt Falling 3 Years

Used in a condition

Formula: True when total debt fell in each of the last three year-on-year steps (four annual balance sheets)
Input fields: total debt
Source of record: FinEdge · /api/v1/financials/{symbol}?statement_code=bs&period=annual
Refresh: Recomputed nightly (06:30 IST job); rows older than 3 days are excluded from screens

Total Debt

Shown with results

Formula: Total debt from the latest annual balance sheet
Input fields: total debt
Source of record: FinEdge · /api/v1/financials/{symbol}?statement_code=bs&period=annual
Refresh: Recomputed nightly (06:30 IST job); rows older than 3 days are excluded from screens

Market Cap

Used for ranking

Formula: Close × paid-up equity shares ÷ 10,000,000 (₹ crore)
Input fields: close, paidUpEquityShares
Source of record: Upstox · public historical candles, NSE_EQ|{ISIN} (no auth)FinEdge · /api/v1/daily-quotes/{symbol} (fallback)FinEdge · /api/v1/shareholdings/summary/{symbol}?period=quarterly
Corporate actions: Adjusted for corporate actions before use
Refresh: Recomputed nightly (06:30 IST job); rows older than 3 days are excluded from screens

Promoter Pledge

Hard exclude input

Formula: Pledged shares as a share of the promoter's own holding: pledgedSharesPct ÷ promoter holding × 100; blank when the quarter is not listed
Input fields: pledgedSharesPct, promoter holding
Source of record: FinEdge · /api/v1/shareholdings/summary/{symbol}?period=quarterlyFinEdge · /api/v1/shareholdings/pattern/{symbol}?period=quarterly
Refresh: Recomputed nightly (06:30 IST job); rows older than 3 days are excluded from screens

What each figure means

Total Debt Change (Year-on-Year, %)

The percentage change in total debt (short-term + long-term borrowings) compared to the same period last year. A negative value means the company has reduced its total debt.

Low is better

Debt-to-Equity Ratio

Total debt divided by total shareholder equity. Measures how much of the company's assets are funded by debt versus equity. A ratio below 1.0 means more equity than debt.

Low is better

Revenue Growth (Year-on-Year, %)

The percentage change in revenue compared to the same period last year. Used to confirm that debt is falling as a result of cash generation, not asset sales or business contraction.

Debt reduction alongside flat or declining revenue could mean the company is shrinking, not improving. Debt reduction alongside revenue growth confirms the business is genuinely generating surplus cash.

High is better

Try the rule

Type hypothetical values to see which conditions they satisfy. These are not real stocks and nothing here is stored.

Debt Falling 3 YearsPromoter Pledge

Debt Falling 3 Years is true—

Enter values to begin

A worked example

Loading the worked example…

Evidence

What the harness measured

no_verified_figureNot yet tested

We have not measured this screen yet, so there is no record to explain.

Live monitoring

Not yet testable — 5 of 6 points needed to chart a rolling information coefficient.

5-day IC -0.003 · signal date 2026-10-13 · n 4477
22-day IC -0.014 · signal date 2026-09-10 · n 3881

This is a historical, statistical measurement produced by FINOME TECHNOLOGIES PVT LTD's research harness on past data. It is not a prediction, and past results do not indicate future results. The universe is today's Nifty 500 constituents, so the sample is affected by survivorship bias. It describes how a screen's selections behaved in the past and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation.

Run this screen

Rule version 1.0.0

1.0.0 · 2026-10-20 — First versioned rule: every screen's conditions, ordering and hard exclude were transcribed from the served definitions into one specification. No behaviour change.

Questions

How is this screen calculated?: Each stock is tested against 1 condition using figures computed from exchange prices and company filings, adjusted for corporate actions. The rule is versioned; this page shows version 1.0.0.
How often does the screen update?: The figures are recomputed once each trading day after the nightly compute. A stock whose figures are more than three days old is left out rather than shown stale.
Is this investment advice?: No. This is educational material describing a screening method. It does not recommend any security and does not consider your circumstances.

Educational use only — GoQuant is a research tool. This page explains a screening method and is not a recommendation. Investment advice is provided by FINOME TECHNOLOGIES PVT LTD (AltQube), SEBI-registered Investment Adviser, registration no. INA000018373, under a signed advisory agreement and after a risk profile. Past performance is not indicative of future results.