If you are tired of paying a premium for "quality" and equally tired of fishing in the bargain bin for junk, there is a simple way to stack the odds in your favor when hunting global stocks.

You screen for cheap first. Then you insist on financial strength. And you do it with rules that keep your emotions out of the process.

That is exactly what happens when you combine Benzinga rankings with the Piotroski F-Score.

The idea is not complicated. The execution is where most investors fail.

Why global "cheap" is different than U.S. "cheap"

Outside the U.S., valuation discounts are common. Entire countries, sectors, and market structures can trade at lower multiples for long stretches. That means you can find real bargains, but it also means a lot of stocks are cheap for reasons that won't disappear just because you noticed the P/E ratio is single digit.

So the job is not merely finding low valuation. The job is finding low valuation plus proof of improving business fundamentals.

That is where a two-factor approach shines.

Step 1: Use Benzinga rankings to find "cheap with a reason"

Benzinga's ranking system gives you a fast, comparable framework across thousands of names. When you are screening globally, that matters, because you are crossing industries, accounting regimes, currencies, and local market quirks.

You want the ranking that points you toward value, and you want it doing the heavy lifting on the initial universe. The ranking acts like your bouncer at the door. It does not guarantee you have a winner, but it helps you avoid wasting time on expensive stocks that require a perfect future to justify today's price.

You are looking for companies that rank well on value and ideally are not bleeding on other pillars either. Cheap is good. Cheap and improving is better. Cheap, improving, and starting to attract buyers is where the money gets made.

Step 2: Add Piotroski F-Score as your "balance sheet lie detector"

Piotroski F-Score is one of the best tools ever built for separating "cheap" from "cheap and dangerous."

It is a simple 0 to 9 score that checks profitability, leverage and liquidity, and operating efficiency. In plain English, it answers one question:

Is the underlying business getting healthier or sicker?

A low valuation stock with a strong F-Score is often a company that is quietly repairing the fundamentals while the market is still treating it like yesterday's problem. That gap between perception and reality is where bargain hunters get paid.

As a rule of thumb, you want to focus on the higher end of the scale. A high F-Score does not make the stock immune to bad headlines or macro shocks, but it does tilt the odds toward companies that can survive a rough patch and come out the other side still standing.

In other words, it is a very practical filter for investors who want "cheap" without signing up for unnecessary bankruptcy risk.

Step 3: Put them together for "safe and cheap" global hunting

Here is the logic chain.

Benzinga value ranking helps you locate stocks priced like the future is bleak.

Piotroski F-Score helps you confirm the company is not actually collapsing.

Together, they aim you at a sweet spot: mispriced durability. Companies that are discounted but not broken.

This is especially useful in foreign markets because the typical investor's comfort level is lower. When people are uncertain, they demand a bigger discount. Your job is to find where the discount has become excessive relative to the company's actual financial condition.

Step 4: Do it inside Benzinga Pro with one clean scan

This is where it gets fun. You do not need to build a spreadsheet monster, scrape filings, or pretend you have time to become an expert in 40 different equity markets.

Both the Benzinga rankings and the Piotroski F-Score can be added directly in the Benzinga Pro scanner, and you can limit your universe to foreign companies right inside the tool. That matters, because the advantage in global value investing often comes from repetition and process, not heroic one-off research projects.

A clean scan looks like this in practice.

Start by setting the universe to non-U.S. companies, or ADRs and foreign listings, depending on how you like to invest.

Then filter for high value ranking and strong Piotroski F-Score.

After that, add a common-sense liquidity requirement so you are not stuck with something that trades 8 shares a day.

And finally, you review the short list like an analyst, not like a day trader. What does the company do, where does it earn money, what could change sentiment, and what would make you sell.

It is systematic, repeatable, and a whole lot more disciplined than scrolling through "cheapest stocks in the world" lists that were written to harvest clicks.

A few practical guardrails that keep you out of trouble

Global "safe and cheap" still has landmines. You can avoid most of them with a few rules.

Don't ignore the country factor. A great company in a market with capital controls, political risk, or chronic currency instability needs a bigger margin of safety.

Don't confuse financial strength with shareholder friendliness. Some markets treat minority shareholders better than others. Look for signs that capital returns matter: buybacks, dividends, and sensible dilution behavior.

Don't skip the business model check. Even a high F-Score company can be cheap because it operates in an industry that is structurally declining.

And do not let "cheap" override portfolio construction. You want a basket of these ideas, not a single all-in bet on one foreign turnaround story.

The bottom line.

Most investors approach global stocks backward. They start with a story, fall in love with a country theme, then justify a valuation.

This approach flips it.

Start with value, confirm financial strength, and then do your research on a smaller list of candidates that already meet your standards.

That is what combining Benzinga rankings with Piotroski F-Score is designed to do. It is not magic. It is not a guarantee. But it is a disciplined way to locate global opportunities where you are getting paid to take risk, instead of paying up and hoping the risk never shows up.

If you are going to fish in the global pond, you might as well bring a better net. Benzinga Pro gives you the scanner. The rankings give you the map. The F-Score helps you avoid stepping on rakes.

Safe and cheap is not a myth. It just requires a process that refuses to compromise.

Criteo (CRTO) is the kind of "safe and cheap" global idea I like because it sits in a real, cash-generative corner of the digital economy without being priced like a story stock. The company is built around commerce-focused advertising, with two main engines: retail media, where it helps retailers and brands monetize ad inventory, and performance media, where the objective is measurable outcomes like sales and conversions. What makes the business sturdier than the average ad-tech name is that it is tied to commerce activity and return on ad spend, not just vague "engagement."

When you run a disciplined screen, CRTO is a classic candidate for the cheap-and-improving bucket: priced like the market expects nothing but positioned in a part of digital advertising that is still taking share as retailers and brands shift budgets toward measurable results.

Cementos Pacasmayo (NYSE:CPAC) is a very different style of safe and cheap: a building materials franchise in Peru that sells cement, concrete, and related products into essential end markets like housing and infrastructure. This is not a speculative commodity play. It is an operating business with real assets, a meaningful footprint, and demand that tends to be tied to long-cycle development needs. When CPAC shows up on value screens, it is often because investors are applying a big "emerging market discount," even though the underlying product is as basic as it gets.

 If you want global bargains with a margin of safety, companies like this can offer a practical mix of tangible assets, local market position, and cash-generation potential that does not require perfection to work out.

Korea Electric Power (NYSE:KEP) is the classic global utility value play: a systemically important electric power operator where the investment case is usually about normalization, regulation, and improved economics rather than growth narratives. The reason KEP fits the "safe and cheap" framework is that investors often treat regulated utilities as permanently impaired when profitability is pressured, then reality changes as pricing, fuel cost dynamics, or policy settings evolve.

This is exactly the kind of stock where you want the fundamentals filter doing its job. If the financial condition and operating metrics are improving, a low valuation can be an opportunity. If they are not, the stock can stay cheap for a long time. That is why KEP is best handled as a rules-based screen candidate, not a gut-feel trade.

Sony Group (NYSE:SONY) is what I call "blue-chip global value with multiple engines." You are buying a diversified Japanese leader spanning gaming, music, film, and advanced technology platforms, which means it does not live or die on one product cycle. That diversity is a real safety feature. When one division hits a soft patch, another can carry the load, and that tends to smooth cash generation across the cycle. SONY also has an important behavioral advantage in markets: investors often overreact to the division that is in the headlines and discount the whole enterprise.

 For a disciplined global bargain hunter, that is exactly where opportunity comes from: strong franchises that get temporarily mispriced when the market obsesses over one piece of the story.

Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) is the poster child for why "cheap" is not enough. On valuation screens it can look like a gift, but the discount exists for a reason: sentiment and headline risk can swing violently, and the market has learned to demand a bigger margin of safety. Under the hood, it is still a massive commerce and infrastructure platform with a powerful core marketplace and large adjacent businesses that can drive long-term cash flow when conditions cooperate. The right way to approach BABA in a safe-and-cheap framework is disciplined: you want evidence of improving financial strength, better efficiency, and management behavior that signals shareholder alignment. You are not buying hope. You are buying cheap assets with improving internals.

Telefônica Brasil (NYSE:VIV) is a practical "sleep at night" global holding: a dominant telecom operator in Brazil with a broad mix of mobile, fixed-line, and broadband services that people and businesses rely on every day. Telecom is not glamorous, and that is a feature, not a bug. Subscription-driven revenue, recurring cash flow, and scale can make a company like this a steady compounder when bought at the right price. VIV tends to screen well for conservative investors because essential service businesses can defend cash generation through economic ups and downs, and shareholder returns are often a core part of the appeal.

 In a global safe-and-cheap search, VIV is exactly the kind of name you want turning up: durable demand, meaningful scale, and a business model built to keep paying you while you wait.