Universe

UPDATED 2026-07-24

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A universe is the set of instruments a screener or strategy is allowed to draw from. "All" means the whole market; you narrow it with filters — on things like country, exchange, index, sector, asset type, and asset subtype — until only the instruments you want to consider remain. Everything a strategy screens, ranks, or buys comes from this universe, and anything outside it can never be selected. The universe is the boundary; the filters inside a screener then choose from within it.

Also seen as: investable assets

The filters that narrow a universe were previously surfaced under the label "Restrictions"; that name is retired.

Defaults in Fincanva

"All" is the widest universe — the whole searchable market, including instruments that have since delisted, so a backtest is not limited to today's survivors.
Each filter you add (country, exchange, index, sector, asset type, asset subtype) shrinks the universe, and combining filters narrows it further.
A screener and its strategy draw only from the resulting universe; changing the universe changes what can be selected and can change results.

Worked example

You start from "All" — roughly the whole catalogue of tradable instruments, tens of thousands of them. You add a country filter for the United States and an asset-type filter for stocks. The universe shrinks to US-listed stocks only. From then on the screener ranks, and the strategy buys, solely within that reduced set — a non-US stock or an ETP can no longer appear, however well it would have scored.

Where this term is used

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The pages that reference this term — so a term page is somewhere you pass through, not somewhere you land and stop.

How backtesting works

Backtesting · A backtest replays your strategy's rules across real market history to produce an equity curve and the metrics that summarise it: evidence, not a forecast.

The nine biases Fincanva helps you avoid

Getting started · The nine research biases that distort backtests — look-ahead, survivorship, overfitting and more — and the Fincanva behavior that reduces each one.

The Fincanva loop

Getting started · The Fincanva loop is the product's core workflow: build a strategy, backtest it on real market history, analyze the result, then refine and go round again.

Choosing the instruments your strategy holds

Strategies · Choose the instruments a Fincanva strategy holds: search and add symbols or lists, scope by asset class, and read the Delisted and Not tradable badges.

Attaching a screener to a strategy

Strategies · Attach a screener to a strategy to pick its instruments by rule: Easy vs Pro mode, In/Out screeners, and why editing the saved screener later doesn't change it.

Deep diveChoosing the instruments your strategy holds

Do itAttaching a screener to a strategy

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Fincanva provides no financial advice. Backtests show what would have happened — not what will.

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