It's so much work trying to be a fundamental analyst!

[mogley]

Hey guys
There doesn't seem to be much discussion here on fundamental analysis compared to the amount of discussion that goes on here about trading plans and stop losses, candle wicks, birthday sparklers and star-doji-ninja-samurai-patterns.

Jokes aside, is there any way to qualitatively evaluate a business without spending hours poring over corporate governance statements, propoganda/bias on their own websites etc?

I think that is the hardest thing about qualitatively trying to assess a company and picking the 'best' one. Do you go through every single company or just pick one that piques your interest and then go from there?

I know quantitatively you can measure P/E ratios and other figures and websites can sort those for you such that you can quickly identify what companies are quantitatively viable.

Is that the best way to go about it?

IE Filter your stocks first quantitatively which weeds out those that do not meet your criteria, and then assess both qualitatively and quantitatively the industry sector to further narrow your choices and then finally delve further into the quants and quals of the remaining stocks.

Are there any websites or 'tools' that assist the fundamental investor seeking to make instrinsic valuations?

Technical traders have an arsenal of tools and filtering options available, obviously inherent in the quantitative and data-mining friendly nature of tech analysis.

But there's got to be an easier way for fundamental investors too. Maybe a super-duper website would be handy.

I fnid yahoo finance is quite useful for US companies and i've dabbled with Bloomberg software which was very good at mining ratios etc but to which I no longer have access.

Any tips?

 

[prawn_86]

Gday Mogely,

Good to see you are keen to learn all aspects of investing. You have started up some good informative threads.

Personally i do not know of any specific filtering tools specifically on fundies. Perhaps the closest i have found is:
http://www.ascii-data.com/index_real.html

It is quite a handy site, although it is not up and running, and there are a few bugs in it. Such as when looking for a high div yeild stock it will take recent placements as a dividend (or something like that) so always be sure to double check its results, although it is a decent starting point.


Personally i try to keep to mining/mineral stocks as it is an area which i have built up knowledge on, and i cannot see demeand drying up in the short to medium term (bears may disagree). I think that having one overall sector that you look at more closely and come to enjoy analysisng is advantageous. But thats not to say i dont look at stocks outside of it. FDY for example.

If i hear of a stock (freind/media/forums) and i have time i will look into it quickly and then if i like what i see i will do further analysis. There is no real selection criteria personally.


What about you other fundies out there?