It is conventional wisdom among credit score enthusiasts that the negative factors shown with FICO scores are listed in a meaningful order. We have been told, so we tell others, that the factor listed first is hurting the score the most, the one listed second is the second most harmful, and so on.
I am sad to report that some caution is warranted on this subject. It may be true that the factors are shown in decreasing order of significance most of the time. But not always.
The two sets of factors shown below come from myFICO for the same bureau, same score, same person and same day:
The ones on the left are from my 3B Report dated 3/1. The ones on the right are from the Scores tab and are based on that report. Both are for EX2. As I have tried to show with colored lines, the factor in first position on one display is in third position on the other, and vice versa. The factors in positions two and four stayed put.
Obviously, since the order varies, it can't represent relative significance unless there are ties, but the example above would require a three-way tie for first, which seems exceedingly unlikely. For context, in this particular example, the "seeking credit" factor is driven by one scorable inquiry, 11 months ago, so that's worth maybe 5 points? "Bad payment history" is from a 30D in 2017, which probably costs 25 or 30. "Many new accounts" is referring to 3/12 or maybe 5/18, at an unknown points cost. "Accounts with balances" is for my 6/25 (assuming the denominator includes closed accounts), and costs maybe... 5 points? In other words, the only way the first three reasons could be tied is if a 3+ year old 30D costs the same number of points as an eleven month old inquiry. That seems impossible.
I saw this happen last month too. I mentioned it in a different thread and @Anonymous suggested I contact MF customer service to inquire about the cause. I did that this week. The people who answer the phones could see the problem but had no explanation. They forwarded a note to someone on the technical side and I got a response that said the correct factors are being shown but sometimes they are displayed in different orders. I asked which display is correct and they told me they are both correct because they show the same factors and "[t]he only difference is the order in which they are listed, which has no bearing on what the data is indicating."
As surprising as that is to hear, this is just one datapoint, and usually factor order is consistent across displays and makes some sense. In light of that, my sense is that the person who wrote that message to me was probably exaggerating a bit when he or she said the order "has no bearing." Still, it seems like perhaps we shouldn't be quite as confident in attaching meaning to the order of factors as we traditionally have been.
@Curious_George2 wrote:It is conventional wisdom among credit score enthusiasts that the negative factors shown with FICO scores are listed in a meaningful order. We have been told, so we tell others, that the factor listed first is hurting the score the most, the one listed second is the second most harmful, and so on.
I am sad to report that some caution is warranted on this subject. It may be true that the factors are shown in decreasing order of significance most of the time. But not always.
The two sets of factors shown below come from myFICO for the same bureau, same score, same person and same day:
The ones on the left are from my 3B Report dated 3/1. The ones on the right are from the Scores tab and are based on that report. Both are for EX2. As I have tried to show with colored lines, the factor in first position on one display is in third position on the other, and vice versa. The factors in positions two and four stayed put.
Obviously, since the order varies, it can't represent relative significance unless there are ties, but the example above would require a three-way tie for first, which seems exceedingly unlikely. For context, in this particular example, the "seeking credit" factor is driven by one scorable inquiry, 11 months ago, so that's worth maybe 5 points? "Bad payment history" is from a 30D in 2017, which probably costs 25 or 30. "Many new accounts" is referring to 3/12 or maybe 5/18, at an unknown points cost. "Accounts with balances" is for my 6/25 (assuming the denominator includes closed accounts), and costs maybe... 5 points? In other words, the only way the first three reasons could be tied is if a 3+ year old 30D costs the same number of points as an eleven month old inquiry. That seems impossible.
I saw this happen last month too. I mentioned it in a different thread and @Anonymous suggested I contact MF customer service to inquire about the cause. I did that this week. The people who answer the phones could see the problem but had no explanation. They forwarded a note to someone on the technical side and I got a response that said the correct factors are being shown but sometimes they are displayed in different orders. I asked which display is correct and they told me they are both correct because they show the same factors and "[t]he only difference is the order in which they are listed, which has no bearing on what the data is indicating."
As surprising as that is to hear, this is just one datapoint, and usually factor order is consistent across displays and makes some sense. In light of that, my sense is that the person who wrote that message to me was probably exaggerating a bit when he or she said the order "has no bearing." Still, it seems like perhaps we shouldn't be quite as confident in attaching meaning to the order of factors as we traditionally have been.
Not all "conventional wisdom" is wisdom 
I just checked this again, this time using myFICO's Beta front-end.
The order is still different between the Scores and Reports (3B PDF) tab.
I would use the SCORES version since I found that matched Experian's CMS on the same date/report.
All the score factor order data I collected over my first year with credit cards came from myFICO 3B PDFs. 
Edit to Add: This is my current TU 4 mortgage score. $912 = "High revolving balances" DANGER PENNY ROBINSON DANGER!.