Gil Faver wrote:
- quote -

Value Line provides a lot of data on a company all in one place making
it useful for research. I look at earnings, sales, profit margin,
dividends, etc. over time to help me determine if a company's shares are
attractive. Value Line also provides written analysis for each company
in their large-cap universe as well as industry and economic analysis.

-Will

william dot trice at ngc dot com

On Dec 20, 10:42*am, Igor Chudov <ichu...[at]algebra.com> wrote:
- quote -

It's rather more complicated than that. I work on the employer side,
and my brother sells retirement plan administration services to
companies, so I know this from both sides. We pay fees to the
administrator, but we could have this for free if we restricted the
choices available to the employees to funds that had higher expenses.
This is because the administrator gets a commission from the fund
managers. We pay over $1m a year in fees, so this is not chump change.
But we are a big company. The 401k deferrals each year top $100m, so
the assets under management must be in the billions.

By law the employer cannot profit from the plan, but there is no
obligation to pay any expenses if these can be avoided. And whether or
not employees involved in the fund selection are receiving kickbacks
or other rewards, rather depends on the ethical climate of your
company. In our company, taking a free meal from a vendor can get you
fired, unless you follow all the disclosure and authorization
policies. In my last company, the benefits managers went to
conferences on the health and retirement plan providers dime every
year. But then the CEO and CFO are now both doing time in Federal
prison, so the mood was set from the top.

It's free:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Mackay/macEx.html
or
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu...okup?num=24518



"Igor Chudov" <ichudov[at]algebra.com> wrote in message
news:I_OdnRtFk4-RddbUnZ2dnUVZ_v_inZ2d[at]giganews.com...
- quote -


======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT:
A reminder to all posters: Please trim the post you respond to and try to be as succinct as possible.

"Will Trice" <me[at]invalid.com> wrote in message
news:gihis3$1k2$1[at]news.motzarella.org...
- quote -

please explain your thinking here. I don't always go by their picks, but I
cannot formulate my thinking in this regard.

On 2008-12-20, beliavsky[at]aol.com <beliavsky[at]aol.com> wrote:
- quote -

Sadly, that was not the case and still is not the case. I am very
upset about it. I am greatly disappointed that 1% of my money goes to
pay money for people who do not add any value. I suspect that this is
not an accident and somehow people involved got paid for these
choices.

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On Dec 19, 1:29*pm, Igor Chudov <ichu...[at]algebra.com> wrote:

- quote -

Didn't your 401(k) offer stock mutual funds, possibly index funds,
with expense ratios considerably less than 1%? Some index funds have
expense ratios of about 0.1% annually.

Tad Borek wrote:


- quote -

These pages are really shaping up nicely, Tad.

-Will

william dot trice at ngc dot com

Igor Chudov wrote:

- quote -

I use Value Line for their research, but not their stock picks.

-Will

william dot trice at ngc dot com

For investing, read "The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing".
Or read anything by Jack Bogle, William Bernstein, Larry Swedroe or
Rick Ferri.

Visit http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php to get
investing help from the above authors as well as tons of other
DIY financial advice from other very knowledgeable folks as well.


JBradshaw wrote:
- quote -

On Dec 19, 12:26*pm, "JBradshaw" <jbrad...[at]dphilneas.nnn> wrote:
- quote -

Ben Graham's "Security Analysis" is the seminal work for all following
theories and treatises on the subject of stocks and portfolios. Peter
Lynch wrote some enlightening books.

The best resource I ever came across was a $278 dollar a year
subscription "Long Term Values" published by William O'Neill (sp?) the
publishers of Investor's Business Daily and Daily Graphs.
Unfortunately, LTV was discontinued several years ago, probably for
lack of interest.

The invaluable aspect of LTV was that it graphed earnings per share
for the last 15 years. This made it a snap to pick good companies to
research. Amongst many other parameters were PE, yield, and a brief
summary of the business (grouped by industry). One could quickly get a
real sense of what the industry was like, and some were hardly worth
looking at. LTV covered more than 3,700 issues, including new issues,
so finding promising young companies was easy. But with the
proliferation of funds' marketing of the idea that selecting good
companies to invest in was incredibly difficult if not impossible and
only "for professionals," interest in funds soared and LTV closed shop
for lack of interest several years ago. A huge loss for the investment
community.

Value Line also covers 15 - 18 years of earnings history, but is
limited to 1,700 companies with at least 15 years of history. So
finding a Microsoft is out of the question. VL does have different
subs such as a mid-cap issue, but those are their selections of a
small universe - not the comprehensive coverage of LTV. Also, funds,
"private equity", and M&A oriented companies have been buying up
companies before they even have a chance to go public, and literally
monopolize the IPO and new company market. It's shameful, a restraint
of trade, but no one has done anything about it.

I found one internet datbase covering all listed companies, but 1)
they want $2,500 hundred a year, and b) it's raw data - no sorting by
industry, no graphs. If anyone has a source similar to LTV, I'd be
super-interested in it.

JBradshaw wrote:
- quote -

For once, a chance to point to the MIFP-FAQ site!

http://financial-planning.algebra.co...of_Information

-Tad

On Dec 19, 11:57*am, Igor Chudov <ichu...[at]algebra.com> wrote:
- quote -

I have used Value Line before, but just the free stuff you can get
from your local library.

On 2008-12-19 09:26:41 -0800, "JBradshaw" <jbradsha[at]dphilneas.nnn> said:

- quote -

In addition to the many other excellent resources people have
mentioned, I would suggest reading about dividend reinvestment plans
(DRIPs). A good place tp start would be the books of Charles Carlson, a
former finance professor at the University of Chicago, including "No
Load Stocks," "Buying Stocks Without a Broker," "Eight Steps to Seven
Figures," and "The Individual Investor Revolution," among others. DRIPs
are a good choice for long term, buy and hold, DIY investors, and they
are not only low expenses, they are virtually NO expenses.

On 2008-12-19, PeterL <po.ning[at]gmail.com> wrote:
- quote -

Has anyone tried to use ValueLine?
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On Dec 19, 10:52*am, "Gil Faver" <rowdy'sb...[at]xxyz.com> wrote:
- quote -



Currently I am using Morningstar for stock picking. I read
hussmanfunds.com religiously for overall market conditions.

- quote -

what services do you use, and what has been your experience with each of
them?

On Dec 19, 9:26*am, "JBradshaw" <jbrad...[at]dphilneas.nnn> wrote:
- quote -


I am a long term buy and hold and value investor. I use several
different resources. I have neither the time nor the skill to
properly evaluate a company, so I rely on several services for my
stock picks, so long as they adhere to a certain valuation philosophy
(discounted cash flow model).

On 2008-12-19, JBradshaw <jbradsha[at]dphilneas.nnn> wrote:
- quote -

The best resource is a library. You can start with this book

http://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-.../dp/051788433X

Then you can also read Money Magazine if it is still available. And
then read a few dozen books on the topic of investing, but keep in
mind that a lot of writers have hidden agendas.

That should get you started.

It is extraordinarily difficult to be a "successful stock picker".

It is not so difficult to 1) avoid financial fads and 2) avoid taking
too much risk, defined as a possibility of losing a large amount of
money that you cannot recover within your investment horizon.

I find it easier to completely stop focusing on trying to "outperform
the markets", and then investing in whatever makes sense and not
investing in whatever does not make sense.

Based on this I sat on the sidelines for 8 years with my and my wife's
401k funds. That's so because I felt that stocks in general were not
particularly a big bargain, and not worth the 1% expense ratio. The
drop of stocks after 9/11 is something that I mainly missed (but
bought some). Now I feel that they are a bargain and am 100%
invested. (I have other investments that I owned throughout, outside
of the retirement plans, and a euro account)

There are other possible investments besides stocks and fixed income,
such as rental units and such, which is worth considering. I find them
to be a little too much hassle with my family situation.

I am not saying that I know best, only that it makes sense to think
for yourself and be reasonably conservative.

One advice that applies to everyone universally, is to avoid taking on
too much debt.

i
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Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their inattention
to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
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honda.lioness[at]gmail.com wrote:
- quote -

I agree with Elle's assessment. Investing for the long run and targeting
low expenses are two componants of a successful strategy. I tend to read
the books about stock picking with an eye toward understanding
underlying valuation, and how markets don't always reflect this. Then I
use index funds for the bulk of my investing. I find a real issue with
valuation infrequently enough to make a few dollars but not enough to
build a portfolio around so few stocks, as by definition, these are
trades, not long term investments, and even when I jump on them, it's
too small a portion of my portfolio to have a large impact either way.
Joe
http://www.blog.joetaxpayer.com/joes-book-list

<jbrad...[at]dphilneas.nnn> wrote:
- quote -

I do not think any consensus exists here. Many DIYers are market
timers and so gamblers, buying for the short term and arguing
passionately (with so-called academic citations along with anecdote
and historical claims) for such strategies. Many DIYers are not. To
me, the authorities are only those that talk about economies for the
long run. Well known authors Jeremy Siegel, Robert Shiller, and Ben
Graham are in this category. Also, ordinary "old coots," while
sometimes seemingly unsophisticated because they (wisely) do not talk
with precision about xyz stock or short term market directions, often
possess true wisdom that is a result of years of investing. I think
this wisdom is not something the younger folks pick up easily. As a
result, I tend to give more time considering what my 80+year old
millionaire-next-door-type relative and some of the 55+ year-old
posters here etc. say.