Value Investing Four Filters

I am always looking for good high quality companies that are trading at a discount. Finding these companies is both challenging and time consuming. Finding cheap companies isn’t hard- finding cheap good ones is. A professional investor will spend the entire day researching company after company trying to find something the market has overlooked. As an amateur investor I don’t have that kind of time so I needed a method to reduce the number of companies I examine every week to a small handful that merit my further investigations.
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A Better Canadian Stock Screener

As readers of my blog know I have been looking for some time for a good Canadian screener, specifically a screener that allows for Graham style analysis. After finding one earlier this year that ran as an application I set my sights on trying to find one that runs as a web application. Well little did I realize but there was one right under my nose.

Zacks has been around for a while and has recently released a new beta of there free stock screener.
I am pleased to report that Zacks has the ability to create screeners that you can point at TSX.
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The Truth about stock market returns

If you had $100 to invest in the DOW in 1928 you would have $3128.52 today- what a deal right? Wrong, let me tell you why.

I’ve been to several financial offices where they proudly display the graph of the DOW since 1928. The desired effect being that we are to think that the market always goes up, you just have to be patient. I, like many people, didn’t appreciate just how patient one has to be though until I examined the returns in more detail.
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When Greed Interferes: Puget Power (PSD)

On Friday February 7th Puget Power announced the closing of the sale of its core business at $30 per share. Regular readers of my blog will recall that I recommended a purchase of PSD in November of last year at $18. If one includes the $.25 dividend payment from Jan 16th, and the pro rata dividend of $.04 this transaction returns $30.29, or a profit of an impressive 68%.

While I am very happy to have a 68% win on a 3 month investment (and hope several of you are also counting your fortunes this weekend) I think this is a good time to turn around and look at the trade again to see if it was a wise trade or a bit of wisdom and a bit of luck.
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Why I Fired My Broker

I haven’t had a broker for a few years now but every once in a while someone asks me how to pick a good one and I dig out this story from my own experiences.
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Easy ways to Make Money: Secretary Calls

Ask anyone who works at a large corporation and they know that if you want to learn the dirt about what is going on in the office you just need to talk to the secretary. Secretaries know everything about what is happening in the company, they may not have the acumen to diagnose the severity of problems but they certainly have the acumen to understand how upset their bosses are that week.

Secretaries are a great resource in understanding the health of the company. This may sound a bit foolish but I will often give an executive secretary a quick call before making any sizable investment in a company.
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Easy ways to Make Money: Investor Calls

Many listed companies will setup an investor call every quarter to allow shareholders and others to ask questions about the company’s latest financials and overall health. Investor calls are often skipped by the common investor as they are thought to be too technical or too involved. But, to pull a Yogi Berra, “you can hear a lot by listening”. So what if you don’t know what a tipping point ratio is, so what if you don’t understand what the market bend is, it does not matter in the least. Listen to how the people in these calls talk as much as you listen to what they say.
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Canadian Stock Screener

As I have mentioned in previous posts, screeners are an important tool I use to narrow the focus the list of companies I look at. There are a number of stock screeners out there for US markets, Google Finance and Yahoo both sport some excellent tools. Finding a screener for Canadian stocks has been infinitely more difficult. MSN and the Financial Post both support very rudimentary screeners. The Financial Post will also sell you something that “may” be better, but finding something I can at least try before I buy has been tough.
Then I stumbled onto ChartSmart. While ChartSmart doesn’t have a free license they at least provide a 30 day demo in order for you to experience their product.
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Marty Whiteman On Risk, & Graham and Dodd

A little food for thought on a Sunday afternoon. While I don’t agree with Whiteman on a number of issues I do appreciate the arguments he makes. Have a look and see what you think.

If you are getting this via email try the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwbToH2TAco

The Right Investment Tools For the Job

Give us the tools and we will finish the job. Winston Churchill

The evaluation of companies was once a very laborious exercise. Information about historic earnings and historic pricing information involved significant research and compilation. Today that effort is significantly reduced, thankfully there are numerous sources one can access to retrieve sets of desired information. Choosing just one source in all these options is often difficult though. Today we are going to have a look at some of the tools I use in analyzing companies I would love to hear so of your feedback and suggestions on other tools you use.
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The truth about money

I watched this series a number of years ago and found it very enlightening. After you watch the first in the series be sure to seek out the other parts on you tube.

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