Asset type is the market family an instrument belongs to. In a screener it is the widest cut of the universe — Stocks, ETPs, or Crypto — exactly one active at a time, and it decides which other universe filters exist. Next to an individual instrument the field is wider: Fincanva recognises nine asset types there.
Also seen as: Asset class
Because only one is active, a screener set to Stocks can never return an ETP, and a screener set to ETPs can never return an individual company's shares. The industry usually calls this field asset class — which is also the label of one of the nine asset types.
How does Fincanva handle it?
- Exactly one asset type is active at a time — picking a new one replaces the current one rather than adding to it.
- Switching asset type hides the current type's universe filters but does not discard them: the app confirms with "Switching to
{target}hides these universe filters:{filters}. You can restore them by switching back", and switching back restores what you had selected. - Each asset type carries its own default selections, so Stocks and ETPs remember their filters independently.
- Asset type is also a column in a screener's results, labelled Asset type and explained in-app as "Stock, ETF, crypto, and so on."
What are the three asset types?
The screener's universe selector offers three, and each covers a different family of instruments and brings its own set of universe filters:
| Asset type | What it covers | Universe filters it exposes |
|---|---|---|
| Stocks | Shares in individual companies | Country · Exchange · Asset subtype · Index · Sector |
| ETPs | Exchange-traded products — funds and notes that trade like shares | Country · Currency · Exchange · Asset subtype |
| Crypto | Cryptocurrencies | none |
Crypto has no further universe filters, so choosing it narrows the universe to crypto and nothing else. Stocks is the type a new screener starts on.
How is asset type different from asset subtype?
Asset type is the family; asset subtype is the specific instrument kind inside it. Choosing the ETPs asset type gets you every exchange-traded product; the asset subtype filter then narrows that to ETFs, ETNs, ETCs, and so on — see Asset subtypes for what each abbreviation means.
Three labels that look like they belong in this taxonomy do not:
- ETP is an asset type, not a subtype — it is the parent of ETF, ETN, ETC, and the rest.
- ADR is a value of the Country filter, not a type or a subtype.
- OTC is a value of the Exchange filter, not a type or a subtype.
Why do some instruments show an asset type the screener never offers?
Because two different fields carry the name Asset type, and only one of them is limited to three values:
- A screener's asset type is the universe choice, made with the first button in the screener's filter strip — the one that shows Stocks, ETPs or Crypto. It offers three values — Stocks, ETPs, Crypto — and exactly one is active.
- An instrument's asset type belongs to the instrument itself and comes from Fincanva's reference data. It can take nine values. It is what the Asset type column shows in Trade History (the By symbol table), in Positions (the Target positions & exits sheet) and in a strategy's selected-instruments table, and what the instrument picker shows beside an instrument's ticker.
The Asset type column of a screener's results shows the instrument's own asset type too, but there it always matches the screener's active type, because a screener returns nothing else.
What are the nine asset types an instrument can carry?
The nine values an instrument's asset type can take, as the app labels them:
| Label in the app | Selectable in a screener? |
|---|---|
| Stocks | Yes |
| ETPs | Yes |
| Crypto | Yes |
| Currencies | No |
| Funds | No |
| Futures | No |
| Indices | No |
| Macro indicators | No |
| Asset class | No |
The six the screener never offers are not something you screen for: they reach a strategy as a benchmark or a reference series rather than as something the screener returns.
Two of the nine are not self-explanatory:
- Macro indicators — a market or macro series rather than a tradable instrument: the Shiller PE, the S&P 500 dividend yield, and their kind.
- Asset class — a long-history return series for a whole asset class, going back further than any individual instrument does. "US Large Cap Value Investment Class 1926" is one.
Neither is something you buy. Both exist so a backtest can be measured against a long history, which is why they show up beside instruments you do hold.
What does it look like in practice?
You want exposure to semiconductors, and there are two ways to get it. A chipmaker's ordinary shares are an instrument of asset type Stocks: with Stocks active you can narrow by Sector, so a screener can look for the companies themselves. A semiconductor ETF that holds those same companies is an instrument of asset type ETPs: switch to ETPs and the Sector filter disappears (ETPs have no Sector filter) while a Currency filter appears instead.
The two never mix in one screener. A screener set to Stocks returns the chipmaker and never the ETF; set it to ETPs and it returns the ETF and never the chipmaker — even though both give you exposure to the same companies.