Corporate Sources
Publicly held firms are required by both federal and state laws to publish annual and quarterly reports. Although firms mail printed copies, the most efficient way to access them is through the internet starting with the firm’s website. Important data points of available material include:
- Investor’s overview
- Analyst coverage
- Annual reports
- Corporate governance
- Dividend history
- Earnings estimates
- Financial releases
- Fundamentals
- SEC filings
- Stock purchase plans
The annual report is the very important though the view is biased. It contains a letter to shareholders and financial statements including balance sheet, income statement and statement of cash flows. A more comprehensive version is filled with SEC– 10K and 10Q. Very little else is released from he corporation due to disclosure laws and handling of insider information.
Brokerage Research Reports
Most brokers provide their customers with research on specific securities. The purpose is to identify undervalued securities with potential for price appreciation.. However, analyst recommendations should not necessarily be take at face value.
They mostly recommend to purchase and are conflicted by the bias to earn commissions and investment banking fees .Still a good source of information and analysis when used with other sources.
Investment Publications
The foremost financial daily newspaper is the Wall Street Journal. Barron’s is published weekly posting various articles of interest to the investment community and issuing investment advisory reports.
A variety of magazines also report financial news,ranging from Money and Business Week to Forbes and Fortune. More academically and professionally oriented magazines include Journal of Finance, Harvard Business Review, Journal of Portfolio Management and Financial Analysts Journal.
Standard and Poor’s, an independent third-party provider, offers an extensive advisory service featuring industry and company reports. Morningstar, which started out analyzing mutual funds now covers stocks. Another important investor advisory service is Value Line Investment Survey which evaluates the most important firms traded on major exchanges over a three month cycle.
Government
The US government publishes a considerable amount of information helpful to investors. These publications include Survey of Current Business, Business Conditions Digest, Economic Report of the President, Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers and Federal Reserve Bulletin.
Visit these topics for further detail or return to the Investment Basics page:
- Basics Introduction
- Security Markets
- Information Sources
- Risk and Portfolio Theory
- Investment Companies
- Stock Valuation
- Macroeconomic Environment
- Statement Analysis
- Bond Market
- Foreign Securities
The material presented on this page and Investment Basics pages were adapted from Dave’s lecture notes for the Investments for Professionals course taught at UCLA 1998-2005 and three decades of practical experience. See our Site Credits page for reference sources.
