Piotroski 8/9 screen flags TCS, ITC, SBI value

I'll be honest. When another Piotroski F-Score screen landed on my desk, I nearly ignored it. Then the numbers got harder to ignore. The Piotroski 8/9 screen flags TCS, ITC, SBI among quality-at-value names, and eight India-listed large caps pass with an 8 out of 9 score and trailing P/E multiples below 20. The screen caught familiar Nifty 50 names: [HDFC Bank](/stock/HDFCBANK) (NSE: HDFCBANK), [State Bank of India](/stock/SBIN) (NSE: SBIN), [TCS](/stock/TCS) (NSE: TCS), [Infosys](/stock/INFY) (NSE: INFY), [Kotak Mahindra Bank](/stock/KOTAKBANK) (NSE: KOTAKBANK), [Axis Bank](/stock/AXISBANK) (NSE: AXISBANK), [ITC](/stock/ITC) (NSE: ITC) and [NTPC](/stock/NTPC) (NSE: NTPC). That is a strange mix. IT services, consumer goods, private banks and power generation. It is not a pure growth list. It is the market's signal that these companies have improved balance sheets and cash conversion. Piotroski 8/9 screen: what it caught The Piotroski F-Score grades companies on nine accounting signals. It checks profitability and balance sheet improvement, with a close look at margin quality. An 8 out of 9 score is rare. Most of these names score high because they have strong cash conversion and low debt. Low debt is not boring. It matters when rates stay high and credit gets expensive. TCS and ITC: high ROE, low multiple [TCS](/stock/TCS) (NSE: TCS) stands out with a 47.7% return on equity. [ITC](/stock/ITC) (NSE: ITC) runs at 49.8%. Those are not typos. An ROE near 50% means each rupee of shareholder capital produces roughly half a rupee of annual profit. That is exceptional for companies trading below 20 times earnings. I did a double take on ITC. TCS has long been the cash cow of Indian IT. The stock had a rough 2024 and early 2025 as US clients delayed discretionary tech spending. Yet the screen says TCS still converts earnings into operating cash flow efficiently. [TCS](/stock/TCS) trades near 19 times trailing earnings, which is cheap for a company printing mid-teens ea...