Stock Market Success for Beginners

Finding Information

One of the most important things any investor needs to do when he or she wants to invest in the stock market is to be able to have access to information. There is many ways to access information and that's a really good thing because after having any information, investors need to check its credibility. Checking all information is the first step to limit mistakes. In the following section, we will discuss about where an investor can find information. While some sources are free, and others require a subscription, each source is unique in its own way, and all of them have a reputation for reliability. Some of the subscription sources are accessible in library or in investment group. Beginning investors should go to their public library and ask for any information concerning finance and stock market. Following is a list of ways, techniques and medias where business and financial information is available. All that sources are reliable but all investors have to double-check any information before investing in stock market.

Companies Themselves

One of the most easiest and classic ways to have information about a company is to ask directly for it to be sent to you from the company itself. All companies have an investor's packet that they will send to you with pleasure. When an investor is asking for such packet it's important that this one contain at minimum an annual report, and last 10-Q and 10-K. Sometimes, for big companies, investors can find it on the company website. Otherwise, they can call the investor relations department of the company directly.

The annual report

The annual report is a document that public companies must provide to all its shareholders in order to inform them about their operation and financial conditions. Generally, an annual report will contain at least these elements:

- Financial Highlights

- Letter to the Shareholders

- Management's Discussion and Analysis

- Financial Statements and their notes

- Auditor's Report

- Summary Financial Data

- Corporate Information

The 10-Q

This document which is published quarterly and submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, report the company's performance for the last 4 months. There is no 10-Q for the last 4 months because at the end of the year, it's replaced by the 10-K

The 10-K

As for the 10-Q, this document has to be submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission. It reports also the company's performance, but it contains more detailed information than the 10-Q or the annual report. Most important information is for example the company history, organizational structure, the holdings or the subsidiaries. Generally the 10-K must be filled 2 months after the end of the fiscal year.

Financial Publications

There are hundreds of financial publications, most of them are reliable, and the important thing with financial publication is to find one that you like to use. Beginning investors will not use the same publication as someone who has been investing for 15 years, or as professional stock market investors. Investors have to feel confident with the publication, it's always better to understand well an easy-reading publication than to not understand at all a really difficult one.

Magazines

The magazines selected here give a good view of the general economic and financial condition of the world. The two first specialized in finance offer to their readers an easy-reading approach of the main news, and opportunities of the market. The last one, more general is a good way to stay informed of all international information that can influence the market. Because this paper's strategy is based on real world and not stock fluctuation, it's primordial to stay aware of how the economic world is doing in order to anticipate opportunities and so make higher profits.

Smart Money

Smart Money is the magazine edited by the Wall street Journal. Published monthly, SmartMoney's objective is to provide to professional and managerial people, information about personal finance. It covers articles about saving, investing, and spending and does a really good job with mutual fund and stocks. The magazine also has articles on technology, automotive, and lifestyle subjects.

An annual subscription cost $12 for 12 issues.

Contact information: 800 444-4204. www.smartmoney.com

Kiplinger's Personal Finance

Kiplinger's Personal Finance is a magazine published every month since 1947. It's the oldest personal finance magazine in the US. Articles talk about personal finance and stocks, but also about other financial topics such as credit cards, college tuition, buying homes, cars and other major purchases.

An annual subscription cost $12 for 12 issues.

Contact information: 800-544-0155. www.kiplinger.com

The Week

The Week is a news magazine published as its named say, every week. It defers from other magazine by publishing a digest of best articles of the week published in other domestic and international Medias. It's a good way to stay informed of the most important «classic information» with only one publication.

An annual subscription cost $50 for 50 issues

Contact information: 877-245-8151. www.theweekdaily.com

Newspapers

Those 3 newspapers are specialized in finance, 90% of all information published is directly or indirectly related to the market. The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times can be considered as the «Holly Bible» of investors. All important information concerning the market is published by those newspapers and the reader can be sure that the relevance of the information is guaranteed. The last newspaper this paper advice to read is the Investor's Business Daily, less conservative than the 2 others, it give also relevant information and investors will love its stock table measurement which are not available in other publications.

Wall Street Journal

Created by the Dow Jones Company, the WSJ sells 2.6 million copies annually. Its articles treat about financial and economical subjects in USA and international world. One of the most important sections of the wall Street Journal is called «Money and Investing», which tracks among other things, the performances of indexes, the interest rate, the currencies and commodities prices. This newspaper is one of the most important financial newspapers in the world along with the Financial Times.

An annual subscription cost $99 for print and online access.

Contact information: 800-369-2834. http://online.wsj.com

Financial Times

The Financial Times is a Britannic newspaper famous for its salmon pink pages. The newspaper is divides in 2 main sections, the first one treat about national and international news, whereas the second one is focus on the markets and company news. Printed in 24 sites as London, New-York, Los-Angeles, and Tokyo, the Financial Times is the main rival of the Wall Street Journal.

An annual subscription cost $298

Contact information: 800 628 8088. www.ft.com

Investor's Business Daily

The Investor's Business Daily was founded by William O'Neil because he was frustrated because he couldn't find all information he needs on the Wall Street Journal. Treated about economical and financial subject as the markets growth, indexes, stocks, the Investor's Business Daily is characterized by its stocks table that contain 6 selected measurements that no one else published in its clear way.

An annual subscription cost$295 for print and online access.

Contact information: 800-831-2525. www.investors.com

Newsletters

The interest of newsletters is to have a different point of view of the market condition. The 3 newsletters selected here are of course reliable in term of information and commentaries. The two first are published by main investment companies, Morningstar and S&P, they provides good information concerning the general tendencies of the stock market, explain easily what are the opportunities and gives advices that can be interesting to research. The third one, Outstanding Investor Digest, is more a way to be in contact with the high level world of finance. It gives summary of researches, international conference and so one. It's the best way to know what the last ideas of professional investors are.

Morningstar FundInvestor

Morningstar is a big investment research company. Its newsletter, FundInvestor is focused on strategies which have proved their success and tries to explain them in practical terms. FundInvestor gives advices and analyses for creating and managing an aggressive or conservative portfolio.

An annual subscription cost $105

Contact information: 800-735-0700. www.morningstar.com

The Outlook online

Published by Standard & Poor's, the Outlook is a reliable newsletter wrote by S&P analysts. It provides easy-understandable market commentary, stock analysis and advice for investing. Published on paper and online, most of professional use its online version easiest to use.

An annual subscription cost $200.

Contact information: 800-852-1641. www.spoutlookonline.com

Outstanding Investor Digest

This newsletter is, as indicated by its name, a digest of the market resentment. It publishes interviews, conference call transcripts, letters to shareholders and so on. This newsletter is a good way to be «inside» the financial world and to stay in contact with new ideas.

An annual subscription cost $295

Contact information: 212-925-3885. www.oid.com

Internet

With the huge development of Internet, financial information is every day easier to access. The problem of Internet concerning that information is that there are so many sources that it becomes difficult to distinguish those which are good and those which have been written by a teenager of 14 years old.

Stocks screeners

A stock screener is a financial tool which gives the possibility to investors to filter trough certain criteria of their choice stock existing in the market in order to easily select companies that seem to be interesting. In the large range of criteria available in a stock screener some include the share price, the dividend yield or the price/earnings ratio. Using the progress of informatics, stock screener has reduced at few minutes, a task that was needed sometimes several days of work. The 3 stocks screener selected here are very good. The main difference between them is there approach for the investor. It's really important to feel good with a stock screener because a beginning investor will pass lots of time to set criteria that correspond to his or her research. Some of them are easier than other and some of them give more information than other too. The best way to select a stock screener is for sure to try different one and to stay with the one investor will prefer.

Yahoo! Finance stock screener

As all stock screeners, Yahoo! Finance is an efficient and rapid way to find stocks which respond to basic criteria determined by the type of strategy an investor want to use. In its paying version Yahoo! Finance stocks screener, offer the possibility to have access to real time data, which is not really useful, unless in a daytrading strategy. Nevertheless, in the free version, you can determine criteria divided in 6 categories, and then have access to charts; reports and others research with a stock that you pick.

Contact information: http://screener.finance.yahoo.com/stocks.html

Morningstar stock screener

Created by Morningstar Inc, this stock screener uses partly the Morningstar system of grade (from A to E). Therefore, you will be more used to it by also reading the Morningstar publication. One of the main advantages of this stock screener is the possibility to select the type of stock as a criterion, like aggressive growth, hard assets, high yield or speculative growth. Beginning investor could feel more confident with such criteria.

Contact information: http://screen.morningstar.com/StockSelector.html

Scottrade stock screener

Scottrade is a broker which provides for free a stock screener, nevertheless, for investors who trade with this broker it provides really good services where criteria can be added or rejected. One of its main difference with other brokers is that investor can play with criteria like ROE, PEG or select the capitalization from micro to mega-cap. It's a good stock screener for investor who wants to select companies' through a large number of criteria.

Contact information: http://research.scottrade.com/public/stocks/screener/stockscreener.asp

Stock exchanges Websites

A good way to have access to reliable information is to go directly at the source, the stock exchange itself. It can be the New-York Stock exchange (NYSE), the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System (NASDAQ) or the American Stock exchange (AMEX). All have a really good website, with live updates where an investor can find lots of good information. Free information on each company is available, like its profile, some data regularly updated, news or analysis. These websites will provide some basic information about a stock.

Contact information: http://www.nyse.com

http://www.nasdaq.com

http://www.amex.com

Other websites

It exist maybe hundreds website about finance, stocks, markets, exchanges and so on. When an investor has to choose which websites he or she will use, 2 main criteria are important. The first one is the reliability and the credibility of the site. Even if you double-check any information, using a website which is not totally reliable is a waste of time, and in finance maybe more than anywhere else, «Time is money». The second criteria which is important is the feeling you have with the website, the easy-use way a site is built can make a great difference to the accessibility of the information. A good advice is to not stay in a website where you feel lost. Here are some investments websites on which investors can trust the information, and always doublechecked it with another sources.

Barron's online

Directed by the Wall Street Journal, the Barron's online website give accesses to lots of data, commentary and interview of experts. There are also lots of general articles about technology, different industry sectors, and new challenges. Barron's online is a good way to access to of information easily.

Contact information: http://online.barrons.com

Bigcharts

Also directed by the Wall Street Journal, Bigcharts provides, as indicate by its name, many charts which are customizable, by time, or for comparison. It's a useful site for technical analysis.

Contact information: http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com

Business week

Partner of standard & Poor's, Business week offer reliable data through charts and articles on many different business subject. It provides also a summary of the S&P newsletter, The Outlook.

Contact information: www.businessweek.com

Clearstation

Subsidiary of E*Trade, Clearstation allow you after a free registration to have access to some analysis doing by non-professional investors and to track their performance. It's a good way to have access to other ideas but any investors who will use Clearstation need to be very precise with checking information.

Contact information: http://clearstation.etrade.com

Morningstar

The website of this investment research company provides a lot of tools that can be more or less useful for investors. More than the articles about the market and business life in general, Morningstar has got a really good discussion forum where investors would find interesting responses to their questions.

Contact information: www.morningstar.com

Mootley fool

The most interesting thing in Mootley fool is its discussion forum which will provide investors with a really good analysis about the general market condition as specific investment topics. Most of the participants of the discussion board are non-professional investors, so an automatic checking about the information is strongly recommended.

Contact information: www.fool.com

SmartMoney

The SmartMoney website is done by the same journalist that working in the SmartMoney magazine (which is edited by the Wall Street Journal), that's why this website is really reliable. Investors will find articles regularly updated and its breaking news section on the top of the home page which is interesting is really tracking the market.

Contact information: www.smartmoney.com

TheStreet

TheStreet is maybe the website with the more articles of this entire list, there is articles from a technologic side to a health care point of view. Everybody will find something interesting to read. Although most of the articles need a subscription fee, there is an free trial access for a month where investors will have time to try this website.

Contact information: www.thestreet.com

Other websites are also interesting to have a look on them; it's possible to name StocksCharts.com, Marketwatch.com, Yahoo! Finance.com, Google finance.com, Briefing.com, or SeekingAl pha.com.

Other Medias

Information are available everywhere, it will be stupid to limit research just at one or two magazines, newspapers or websites. Here are some others sources which can be really useful for investors who want to have a perfect access to all the information.

Value Line Investment Survey

The Value Line Investment Survey gives report and commentary for more than 1,700 companies in the US. On the 2 pages devote to each company, investors will find elements like a ranking, a price projections and insiders decisions, a price history chart or even a quarterly financial statement. Regardless to the price of the subscription, Value Line advices to consult a tax advisor because the subscription may be tax deductible.

An annual subscription cost $538 for online access.

Contact information: http://www.valueline.com

Standard & Poor's stock reports

More detailed than Value Line, the Standard & Poor's stock reports, provides information on more than 5000 companies. Each reports contains reliable data and objective analysis, it's a good resource to identify investment opportunities, evaluate the performance of a portfolio and to build strategies.

Subscription cost of $35 for each company (possibility to buy for the whole industry)

Contact information: www.standardandpoors.com

Reuters

Reuters is provider of information, divided in business & finance news and general one, investors can have access to it via its Website. The Headquarter is based in London but the information is really international. It's an efficient way to have access to financial and general news in the same time.

Contact information: www.reuters.com

Bloomberg

Bloomberg is provider of information, mostly financial. Most non professional investors can have access to Bloomberg services trough Internet or their TV channel, nevertheless it exist a computer platform system used by professional which is updated in real time and give the last information about the market. Thanks to its professional analytic tools, Bloomberg is a good way to access information or to check information already known.

Contact information: www.bloomberg.com

CNBC

The "Consumer News and Business Channel» (CNBC), is an American TV channel which provide business information and cover the financial markets. Although different from Bloomberg, CNBC is a also a good way to stay informed of major Business and financial news.

Contact information: www.cnbc.com

Personal experience

A good way to start finding companies that can be interesting to invest in, is to follow your money. Few investors are thinking like that, but you are probably buying the same things as millions of people. Try to know why you are buying this product rather than its competitors. Peter Lynch who had managed Fidelity Magellan Fund during 13 years has built his fortune partly like that. He has invested in Taco Bell because he had liked it when he tried one in California; he has invested in Apple Computer because his children and the system manager of his firm were wanted those computers.²⁸ The fact is not to invest in the entire product an investor is consuming, but more to be aware of what product worth to be examined to maybe become a future investment.

As we have seen, finding the right information is important to make good investment, checking the information is also something necessary to limit mistakes. There is a lot of information available everywhere, now it times to understand the information. A good advice that investors should keep in mind is go step by step, time and experience will give them the knowledge to find the best information they need and to understand it perfectly.

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