When it comes to investing, be it Bing , Google Finance , MSN Money , or Yahoo Finance consider it as your very own objective financial advisor, partner, and resource all rolled into one. You can also configure your computer’s homepage to show the stocks you own and/or are tracking, valuations, breaking news, etc. Google “add-ons” has a plethora of informative finance and investment tools.
Utilize any or all of the above financial search engines’ and your brokerage firm’s stock screener and research tools. Cecille’s favorite filters are (you can set your own percentages suitable to your unique needs, goals and timeline) dividend-yield %, zero to minimal debt (you want high cash reserves), debt to equity, revenue growth (i.e., 10 year revenue-growth), return on equity, price to cash flow ratio, profit margin, and/or whatever else may be suitable to your own situation. You can pick from a multitude of categories from a stock screener. It is advisable to print these results so you can make your own study and have an overall picture of your screeners, have a pocket-folder handy so you can easily stuff them in it (or save them on your computer). You’d be amazed at what you discover after reading your collective screeners over a time-period. Opt to receive e-mail alerts, which you can configure to your own qualifiers, to help you sift through the information overload. For example, you can be alerted to stocks you are watching, stock splits, when stocks reach their 52 week highs/lows, increase/decrease in dividend yields, halts in dividend payouts, ex-dividend dates (When sellers have rights to declared dividends, i.e. for dividend capture, this is another world and a business unto itself, for the diligent and institutional investors.), when a stock crosses its 200-day-moving-average (considered by some as a buy signal) news about a stock you’re tracking, etc. Investors now have a huge advantage being in the electronic age where information is instantaneously available. She’s signed up for free financial blogs, a fave is Jim Rogers’ blog , and newsletter focused on high dividend-yielding stocks. Investor’s Business Daily is her preferred financial newspaper due to its precise stock analyses. An objective and free financial resource is www.Quantumonline.com. As location, location, location is to real-estate, with investing it is homework, homework, homework!
Something else to be mindful of are “black swan” events. Cecille recalls watching TV and a reporter was doing a live street interview of a couple on Broadway who had seen several shows and enjoyed touring New York City. The reporter then asked the lively couple, “What do you folks do back home?” The wife quickly replied, “Oh, we’re both retired.” The surprised reporter said,“But you both look too young to be retired!” The wife then said, “Oh, we bought a ton of Exxon stock during the oil spill and we’re living on its dividends!” With that, the couple merrily walked on… The 18th century British noble, Baron de Rothschild said, “The time to buy is when there’s blood on the streets…” One other investment truism is, “Buy on fear and sell on greed.” This is where doing one’s own homework comes in, knowing about the true condition of a company such as its debt, cash reserves, real and liquid assets, and other valuations (found in a company’s financial statement or annual report). As in the Exxon example, if one had done extra research (as the couple mentioned above) one would have come to a reasonable assumption that Exxon would survive the oil spill, as it did.