StockCentral

StockCentral has developed an excellent user community with online SSG data files, community forums, stock screening, and an online version of Take Stock. They offer a free three month trial (no credit card required) and a $39 per year subscription. The Stock Investment Guide from Churr Software can directly import StockCentral data.

Better Investing Stock Data Service

Canadian Shareowners

Fundamental Data

The availability of fundamental data on the Internet has improved greatly. However, these web sites do not have as much data as StockCentral or Better Investing data subscriptions. The Stock Investment Guide has the ability to import a data set from these free sources, though users should verify the data when using SIG in this mode.

Google Finance - Six years of financial statements, five quarters of financial results, and industry comparisons.

 

MSN MoneyCentral - Ten years of financial statements, five quarters of financial results, and industry comparisons.

Yahoo Finance - Three years of financial statements, 3 quarters of financial results, competitors, and other data.

Morningstar - Ten years of financial statements, four quarters of financial results, and key ratios.

Reuters - Five years of financial statements, five quarters of financial results, and key ratios.

Annual Reports

Many companies conveniently provide a ten-year financial summary in their annual reports. These summaries will often (but unfortunately not often enough) include all the data necessary to complete an SSG.

Earnings.com provides news of earnings, splits, dividends, conference presentation, and quarterly reports. They have a free service where users can listen to a company's quarterly conference call that can provide vital insights to an investor.

 

Public Register's Annual Report Service distributes reports for thousands of publicly-traded companies, which can be ordered online. Public Register also has a service that provide printed annual reports for free.

Hoover's Company Reports

Hoover's Company Profiles on over 10,000 companies are available for $9.95/month on the World Wide Web (however, shorter company profiles are free.) Hoover's publishes a number of company directories that include historical data, so check your local library. Hoover's reports are also available on CompuServe and America OnLine.

Moody's Handbook of Common Stocks

Moody's Investors Service publishes a quarterly directory of over 1,600 common stocks, with ten years of financial data. Many public libraries carry various Moody's publications. For more information, contact Moody's Investors Service, 99 Church Street, New York, N.Y. 10007; (212) 553-0547.

NAIC Green Sheets

Corporate Members of the National Association of Investors Corporation (NAIC) provide the financial data required to complete an SSG in the form of Investor's Information Reports distributed free of charge to NAIC individual or club members. Nicknamed "green sheets" because of the color of the paper on which they were once printed, these reports are available a small selection of companies, and include a corporate profile, price history and trading volume charts, balance sheet and cash flow items, a completed SSG and recent quarterly data for sales, pre-tax profit margins, earnings and dividends. A listing of corporate partners are available in the Members area of the Better Investing web site.

The Red Chip Review

The Red Chip Review is a research survey that covers small cap stocks and other stocks in the Pacific Northwest. Full subscriptions are $199, but some data can be viewed for free.

Standard & Poor's Stock Reports

S&P Stock Reports are two-page reports published periodically on over 4,300 companies. The reports include all the data necessary for the Stock Selection Guide. Subscriptions for individuals may be prohibitively expensive, but S&P Reports can be found in many local libraries or you can download individual reports from your online broker.

S&P Stock Reports can be purchased online from Standard & Poor's Equity Investor's Service.

Value Line Investment Survey

The Value Line Investment Survey follows 1,700 stocks, updating each company on a quarterly basis in a full-page format that provides complete information about a company's history and current status, and its potential growth over the next five years. Value Line is available by subscription for $538 per year (online version) or $598 per year (call 800/634-3583 for more information). You may also find Value Line at your local library, or your broker may provide copies of reports for companies in which you are interested. An "Expanded Edition" provides data (but no analysis) of an additional 3,500 companies.

 

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