The Internet: The Answer to a Researcher's Dream!
I’ve spent 20 plus years in the financial industry – as a banker, a securities analyst, and the last eleven as an investment newsletter editor. And believe me, I’ve seen a few changes. I was right in the middle of the bank and savings and loan crisis. Then – as luck would have it – I had a front row seat in the industry as investment companies got a black eye selling limited partnerships and then high-risk derivatives, to naïve investors.
In the years I’ve been writing several investment newsletters, more brokerage scandals have shaken down individual investors, including:
- Boiler-room, chop shop firms that intimidated individual investors into buying “hot” stocks, which sometimes didn’t even exist.
- Not-so-independent-research that resulted in a $1.4 billion global settlement coming out of the pockets of the largest brokerage firms.
- And even more recently, the illegal trading in mutual funds that levied even more fines against banks and brokers and cost one fund, Strong Capital, its independence.
But the good news is that the scandals have inspired individual investors to become more aware and educated about their investments. I love that this is the case because one of my jobs is traveling around the country, teaching investment workshops to individual investors.
Many of these investors now do their own stock research. Most of them use the Internet, but often find themselves simply overwhelmed by the amount of available information they must weed through. Consequently, I created an entire seminar highlighting the Internet sites that I found most useful, and I would like to share the main points of that with you today.
My favorite web-sites
The first question always asked of me is how do I find the stocks in which I am going to invest? Since this is my full-time job, I use a fairly expensive software system called Telescan, which allows me to do some rather complex analysis.
But most individual investors don’t spend their lives sitting in front of a computer like I do, and most of you also do not want to spend an arm and a leg to find just a few investments to purchase every year. Fortunately, there are a couple of sites that I think will work very well for you:
MSN/CNBC’s web-site, http://moneycentral.msn.com, has a nice stock screening tool. There, you can enter 11 different parameters, such as P/E, volume and relative strength, to narrow down your search.
If you are looking for a way to choose the best mutual funds, you might try: http://www.thomsoninvest.net/cgi-bin/fund_screener/mf_screener?PAGE1=
This site allows you to screen using selected categories, including: International, balanced, asset allocation, sector, and others.
Best of all, both of these sites are without cost. There are legions of others, but many charge to use their tools.
Once you find some good prospects, it’s time to move on to more in-depth company research. The following sites will be of great assistance.
Next, my all-time favorite site for investment research is: http://finance.yahoo.com. All you need to do is enter the company’s stock symbol and you can access information about the products of the company, its officers, expected and historical earnings, the activity of its insiders, company news and its financial statements.
I use the Reuters site, at www.reuters.com, almost as much as Yahoo. And you can link to it from Yahoo, when you access a company’s Profile, then select Ratio Comparison. On Reuters, you will find financial statements, ratio comparisons to your company’s industry, sector and S&P 500, historical and forecasted revenue & sales growth and institutional ownership & activity
For comprehensive financial statements, you can go to www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml, to access the SEC’s Edgar system. There, you will find regulatory reports, including Form 10-Q (Quarterly financial report), Form 10-K (Annual financial report), Form 8-K(Special announcements) and Form 4 (Statement of changes in ownership)
If you are not currently a fan of reading financial statements, I encourage you to become one. There is no other source for really getting to know a company – its history, ideals, and forecasts for the future.
For keeping up with stock, market and economic news, I love to read Business Week & Forbes, but often don’t have the time to do the entire magazines justice. So, I take a shortcut to: www.businessweek.com and www.forbes.com.
Investment Newsletters
Individual investors have turned to investment newsletters for decades to help them sift through the countless investment opportunities available. Though online and e-mail formats are relatively new features, investment newsletters continue to provide readers with exactly what they’re looking for: clear, concise, unbiased information on publicly traded companies written in plain English.
There are quite literally hundreds of investment newsletters from which to choose; but how do you know which is right for you? There three basic things to look for:
- Investment focus: most newsletters will cover one type of investment strategy; for example, small cap, large cap, growth, mutual funds, industry specific, etc.
- Recommendation strategy: how do the newsletter’s editors pick recommendations? What’s their system or strategy? Is it aligned with your investment strategy?
- Content format: do you enjoy long articles with detailed information or shorter alert-type notices that provide a high level overview? Are you looking for detailed company reports or sector reports that mention possible winners within that industry?
The best part about investment newsletters is that most offer complimentary trial subscriptions where you can answer most of the questions above before taking out a paid subscription.
The publisher of this e-mail newsletter, Business Financial Publishing, offers three investment newsletters that focus on great companies poised for growth. And, all three come with 30-day free trial subscriptions and complimentary bonus special reports when you sign up today.
The Internet is filled with fabulous information, and these web-sites are just a few that offer volumes of data that can be helpful to individual investors – and at the right price – free!
Take some time to surf around these web-sites, and you will find that they can greatly aid your investment research and ultimate portfolio profitability.
I hope you have as much fun researching as I do!
About the Author
Nancy Zambell, Contributing Editor to BrokerAdviser.com's Financially Fit, has enjoyed a diversified career in the financial services industry.
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