Universe

Also seen as: investable assets

Everything a strategy screens, ranks, or buys comes from this universe: the universe is the boundary, and the filters inside a screener then choose from within it.

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

How does Fincanva handle it?

Asset selection

Assets

Logo	Ticker	Name	Asset type	Actions
A	AAPL	Apple Inc.	Stocks
V	VWCE	Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF	ETPs
G	GLD	SPDR Gold Shares	ETPs

• "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.
• A strategy's universe is what it picked, or, with nothing picked, its entry screener's universe. With nothing picked and no entry screener it has no universe at all: the instrument list reads No instruments, it buys nothing, and its backtest does not start — see Choosing the instruments your strategy holds.

What does it look like in practice?

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.