How to Analyze a Stock: NASDAQ Dozen Stock Analysis - ydigatocop.web.fc2.com

This is a guest post from Investor Junkie , a personal finance blog that covers alternative investments , and entrepreneurship topics. If the mutual fund or ETF is index based, then the performance will match that index. With actively managed funds, the fund manager does the stock picking. When picking stocks yourself in your online brokerage account , you are effectively creating your own actively managed mutual fund.

The advantage here is that there are no high cost annual expenses, nor legal limits that mutual funds must adhere to when investing in stocks.

Investment Research - Stock Market Research Tools, Ratings, Analysis

The axiom of buying low and selling high definitely applies. The key is knowing your targets before jumping in and investing. This requires research, and lots of it. Many spend more time picking what to eat for dinner, than picking a stock. Use investment research companies.

How To Do Stock Market Research

The first step I recommend is using investment research companies like Value Line and Morningstar to start your initial search. They have a staff of hundreds, and research thousands of companies. If you decide to do this type of research on your own, it would be a pretty huge endeavor. Subscribing to these services is like having your own securities analyst. I recommend subscribing to either one, or to both in order to get your investment ideas.

Each offers their own unique insight and opinions. You can use them as a springboard for your investment ideas.

How to Research a Stock (with Pictures) - wikiHow

Both Value Line and Morningstar perform in depth research on companies. They also offer the following guidance and information:. Do you understand what the company does, and the services it offers? If not, it breaks my rule of investing —- invest in what you know , and I would personally avoid investing in that company.

Visit the SEC web site.

The second step you should take to research your investments is to visit the U. Securities and Exchange Commission SEC for short web site. These reports are available on the SEC web site search.

You can search by ticker e.

AAPL or by company name e. You can get some big insights on how a public company operates. One requirement for absorbing this kind of material is that you need to be able to read financial reports. The third step I would recommend is to do soft research. See what press releases they recently released, and subscribe to trade organizations related to that industry. Do they have a storefront? If they do, visit them and see what kind of foot traffic their stores experience. Do you know anyone who works for the company?

Ask for their opinion and insights about their company without revealing private or insider information of course. This step can be the most time intensive but could very well be worth it. Use a search engine for your research efforts. The fourth step is to make Google your friend. Search Google News , and see what has been said about the company in the news. You can get news alerts and get automatic notifications about a company by using a little known tool called Google Alerts.

Last but not least, use Google Insights for Search. It can help you research trends about the company, as well as macro trends in the industry. This, of course, are just some of the basic steps you can do.

You can do all of the research yourself or use investment research companies. I recommend using both approaches, as the research companies can give you some additional insights and access to the company that you might not have available.

Researching stocks can be a time consuming process, but it can both be fun and quite rewarding. Great rundown of the basics, especially 3. Soft research is so important to really get a feel for the company, and reading the research that other bloggers have done on that company can be indespensable in making a final decision on whether or not to invest.

I agree with Michelle that research is important. Do they only have one blockbuster that is going off patent? Are they suffering from short term negative press due to a small issue? Very interesting and useful information.

I have been doing some stock investing for the past 5 years, but I did not know some of the information you mentioned in your article like researching investments on US Securities and Exchange Commission Site or using Google alerts.

Furthermore, reports in Morningstar seem to contradict itself sometimes. How do I get over this? For example, one analyst would rate a company a hold and another a buy — who is right?

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Anyway, thanks for pointing out the various ways of researching. Disclaimer, Terms and Conditions Privacy Policy.