Question: Do you find it hard to get financial ratio?

[arriyana]

A poll here. How difficult is it for you to find financial data to make sound investments?
*Not talking about insider information here. Basic ratios such as EPS, ROA, ROE, Quick ratio, etc.

I know there are many paid sources, including shareinvestor(but I am not using myself personally).

[wahkao]

A poll here. How difficult is it for you to find financial data to make sound investments?
*Not talking about insider information here. Basic ratios such as EPS, ROA, ROE, Quick ratio, etc.

I know there are many paid sources, including shareinvestor(but I am not using myself personally).

very very difficult
especially your company is in HK$ or RMB, become lagi even more difficult have to ownself calculate

[lohcm88]

U can access the ratios if you have POEMS, go to their LIVE PRICE and RIGHT CLICK on the counter that you wish to enquire, select STOCK analYTICS. Data supplied by THOMSON REUTERS.

[orangetea]

very very difficult especially your company is in HK$ or RMB, become lagi even more difficult have to ownself calculate

Try google "company name ft.com",
E.g. Icbc ft.com

[profeszor]

A paid source will save you tons of time if you require a lot of quantitative figures from the balance sheet, P&L and cash flow statement.

Think of the hours spent taking to come out with valuation ratios such as Price/NTA, Dividend Payout Ratio, CAPEX Ratio... and the amount of end-year reports you have to go through merely to see if the company is profitable for the past 5 years or not.

A paid subscription, like for example $10/month, doesn't cost much if you put things into perspective. If you take 2 to 3 hours (a week?) to analyse one or two stocks in-depth, I'm pretty sure that 2 to 3 hours saved will earn you more than $10/month.

It would be prudent for anyone who doesn't even have $10/month to not invest -- he should build a nest egg of savings first.

That being said, there should be some free services rendered by good brokerage such as CIMB Securities, Kay Hian etc. Though the information is usually plucked off Reuters and inadequate for an in-depth fundamental analysis.

[arriyana]

Which paid source are you referring to? Shareinvestor.com?

[CityFarmer]

I use paid site for stock search, and preliminary research. Once the stock goes into my monitoring list, I will create a excel for it. The financial ratio, even from paid site, might be misleading. It is not due to errors, but "noises" from one-time entries, non-cash items and etc. Adjustments are needed to catch the "real" picture.

Having said so, I recall one of our buddy, KopiKat, did auto extraction of financial ratio, by script, from free sites. He did mention that he spend just minutes to update his excel sheets. For those interested, you might want to search for his posts on the topic

[chialc88]

I find it very difficult actually.
I did it 100% manually.

Preliminary research - Shareinvestor (the book lar not .com)
Once the stock goes into my monitoring list, I will create a ppt, doc and excel for it.
ppt - charts, news, why I'm keen, buy/sell triggers
doc - running journal of my thinking process (news, blog, forum, shareholder actions etc)
excel - the normal one everybody kept, plus, I like to compare my top holding's number with the rest/watchlist, so to remind myself whether a better stock/opportunity has emerge.

This has greatly reduced on the number of fundamental stocks that I can hold.

Tikam stock lay? no such things because I am tikaming so no need to monitor fundamental at all.

I use paid site for stock search, and preliminary research. Once the stock goes into my monitoring list, I will create a excel for it. The financial ratio, even from paid site, might be misleading. It is not due to errors, but "noises" from one-time entries, non-cash items and etc. Adjustments are needed to catch the "real" picture.

Having said so, I recall one of our buddy, KopiKat, did auto extraction of financial ratio, by script, from free sites. He did mention that he spend just minutes to update his excel sheets. For those interested, you might want to search for his posts on the topic

Love Compassion

[CityFarmer]

I find it very difficult actually.
I did it 100% manually.

Preliminary research - Shareinvestor (the book lar not .com)
Once the stock goes into my monitoring list, I will create a ppt, doc and excel for it.
ppt - charts, news, why I'm keen, buy/sell triggers
doc - running journal of my thinking process (news, blog, forum, shareholder actions etc)
excel - the normal one everybody kept, plus, I like to compare my top holding's number with the rest/watchlist, so to remind myself whether a better stock/opportunity has emerge.

This has greatly reduced on the number of fundamental stocks that I can hold.

Tikam stock lay? no such things because I am tikaming so no need to monitor fundamental at all.
Love Compassion

Yes, hard work needed for value investing.

Tikam stocks also need work lah. I have a temp sheet for tikam stock(s). Once materialized, the stock data will be removed, to make room for next ones...

[chialc88]

thanks for your tips city.
must find more time to do documentation for tikam stocks then.

by the way, I'm not sure whether anyone do this.
I actually create one folder for each of the stock that I had investigated and dis-qualified.
One folder per stock.

Their folder name will actually indicate why I dis-qualify them.
This serve me well as a look at my directories will quickly reminds me of the reason for disqualifying and then also whether the conditions that I had put there had changed.

I found this technique suitable for me especially during the last two months in VB.com, so many people shouting to buy/sell so many stocks.

A quick glance (of my folder) will shows whether the "DISQUALIFYING" criteria still stands (and save my time law).

This technique is in line with one of our value buddies signature.
The one about clearing one foot pole instead of 5-foot pole.
also, what WB says about the fat man in the room.
aka, I dis-qualify stocks instead of qualifying them.

QED.

Love Compassion