---
title: "Matches"
description: "Matches are the instruments that pass every filter in a screener, shown as a live count that updates as you edit filters and turns red at zero."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/glossary/matches"
last_updated: "2026-10-06"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/glossary/matches.md"
---

# Matches

Matches are the instruments in a [screener](/glossary/screener)'s universe that pass every one of its filters at once, shown as a live count that updates as you add, edit, or remove filters. Because filters combine with AND, an [instrument](/glossary/instrument) has to clear all of them to be counted.

**Also seen as:** match count

## How does Fincanva handle it?

- The match count is the single count surface — it appears next to the word **Matches** at the right end of the screener's action row (the row of buttons under the tab bar), and updates live as you edit filters. The **Matches** and **Backtest** keys that switch the view sit below that row, in a band together with the filter chips, and carry no count.
- At zero it switches to the destructive (red) badge style; above zero it shows as a plain count.
- While no count is available yet, the label is not shown at all, rather than reading zero.
- The set of matches is what a [backtest](/glossary/backtest) or an attached [strategy](/glossary/strategy) draws from. It is not the same as what a strategy ends up holding: a simulation trims the candidate list with the [max-symbols cap](/glossary/max-symbols-cap) and then holds only as many as **Max positions** allows.

## How does the match count change as you add filters?

Every filter narrows the pool: a screener starts from its [universe](/glossary/universe) and keeps only the instruments that satisfy all of its [filters](/glossary/filter) together. Adding a filter can lower the count or leave it unchanged, but never raise it; removing or loosening a filter can only raise it. This is why a screen with more filters usually shows fewer matches — each condition is one more test an instrument must pass. Where a **Highest** or **Lowest** filter sits in that chain also matters, because it ranks only the instruments still passing at its own position — see [sequential filtering and Top-N ranking](/glossary/sequential-filtering-and-top-n-ranking).

## What does a zero count mean?

A zero count means no instrument in the universe passes all the filters together, and the **Matches** badge on the action row turns red to flag it. It usually points to filters that are too tight or that contradict each other rather than to an error. Widen a range, remove a filter, or broaden the universe to bring instruments back into the set.

## What does it look like in practice?

A screener over US stocks starts from its whole universe. You add a first filter, `P/E < 20`, and the count drops to, say, 620 matches; a second, `Sector = Technology`, brings it to 90; a third, `Market cap > $10B`, leaves 47. The count now reads **Matches** 47 — the 47 instruments that satisfy all three filters at once. Remove the sector filter and the count rises again, because fewer conditions have to be met.

Fincanva is for education and illustration only. It is not personalised financial advice, and past or simulated results do not predict future ones. [Read the Terms Addendum](https://fincanva.com/terms/addendum#section-3)