Stock Portfolio Information
This is information that will be helpful to you when
compiling your stock portfolio. This
also will help you in analyzing a stock and deciding whether or not to purchase
it. These are all pieces of information
that you will use to give the reasons why you bought, sold, or kept your stock
each week. Most, but maybe not all,
should be included in the stock portfolio that you turn into me each week. In your portfolio you need to explain your
reasons for making your decisions and not just list the numbers. There should be narratives that accompany
your numbers
The first pieces of
information that may help you are the stock screeners. These are lists that Yahoo has compiled.
High
Volume Stocks: the stocks with the highest average daily
volume (the amount that have been
bought and sold that day)
Greatest
Sales Revenue: companies with the highest sales revenue
(income), the larger the revenue the
better
Largest
Market Cap: companies with the largest market cap (over
$100 billion), worth the most, the
value found by multiplying the number of outstanding common stock shares by the
share price; indicates firm size and total value held in stock, the larger the market
cap the more stable
Strong
Forecasted Growth: companies that are expected to grow, companies
with solid growth forecasts and that average a "Buy" rating or better
from Wall Street analysts, Screening
Criteria: Price > $5; Est 1 Yr EPS Growth > 25%; Est 5 Yr EPS Growth > 25%; Avg Analyst Rec
> Buy, the larger the growth the better
Another place you’ll want to
look for recommendations is the top 10 companies in each industry.
1. From Yahoo Finance Home, on the left click on “Industries”.
2. At the left side of the screen, you’ll see a list of
“Top Companies”.
3. Choose an industry.
4. This will show you the top companies in that industry
by market cap. This means that they are
the largest by stock value and worth. It
does not mean that they will make you the most money or grow the fastest.
Most often you will use the
links found when you look up a stock’s daily quote.
1. From the Yahoo Finance homepage, type in the symbol
of the company you are looking for.
2. This will get you the daily quote. You already know who to read a quote and what
the headings mean.
3. Earnings (ttm) and Earnings (mrq), (ttm means the
twelve trailing months and mrq means most resent quarter). Earnings per share
are found by dividing the net income of the company by the number of shares of
common outstanding stock. You will also
see the abbreviation EPS. The higher the
EPS the better. Include this in your
portfolio as reason to buy, keep, or sell.
First you will see the Chart. You may copy and paste this right into your
portfolio.
1. This will show you your company’s performance for a
specified time period.
Next, use “Historical Prices”
at the left side of the screen. You can
use the trend of your stock’s prices as a reason to buy, sell, or keep you
stock and include it in your portfolio.
1. Click on Historical Prices. This is a chart, starting with the most
recent price, showing the trend of your company’s stock price. If you scroll down, you will be able to see if
your stock price is on an upward or downward trend.
Next, use the “News &
Info” at the left side of the quote pag.
News stories can often drive or hinder investment in companies. They also report about losses or expansion of
a company. It is a good idea to keep on
the news of your companies. You can also
use the news stories as one of the reasons you bought, sold, or kept and stock
and include it in your portfolio.
1. Click on “Headlines” at the left side of the quote
page.
The next like you will want
to use is under “Analyst Coverage”. At the left, click on “Analyst Opinion”. This will give you broker recommendations to
buy, sell, or hold your stock. You can
use these recommendations for reasons that you bought, sold, or kept a stock
and put those reasons in your portfolio.
Next, click on “Analyst
Estimates”. If you scroll down, you will
see the earnings growth chart. You want
to look at the trend of earnings in the past and estimates for the future. The larger the growth estimates, the better. The more a company grows, the more money you
will make. This is not a guarantee!
The next link is “Key
Statistics”. Click on this link to the
left under “Company” and this will give you the Market Cap, Beta, Profit
Margin, ROE, D/E ratio, P/E ration, PEG business summary of your company, the
financial summary.
1. Under “Valuation Measures”, you will find the Market Capitalization. This indicates firm size and total value held
in stock. You want your company to have
a high market cap. This is good information
to back up your reasoning behind buying, selling, or keeping a stock.
2. Look to the right at the heading “Stock Price
History”. In this column, you will see
Beta. Beta expresses how risky an
investment could be. The higher the
beta, the higher the risk. The closer
the beta is to one, the more stable the investment. This would be a good reason to buy or not buy
a stock.
3. Under “Profitability” on the same page, you will see
Profit Margin. Profit margin measures how well a firm can earn money from sales
relative to others. The higher the
profit margin, the better. A profit
margin of 20% is very high, only a few companies have profit margins this
high. Include this info in your
portfolio.
4. Under the “Management Effectiveness” heading on the
same page, you will find the ROE. This
is the Return on Equity. ROE measures
the amount a company earns on investments.
The higher the ROE the better.
Anything over 20% is good. This
would be good information to include as to why you bought or sold a stock.
5. Under “Balance Sheet” on the same page, you will see Total
Debt/Equity (mrq). This is the debt to
equity ratio. This is a measure of
financial risk. You want a company with
a low D/E. 25% or less is good and
anything over 50% is considered risky.
Include this info in your portfolio.
6. On the same page, under “Valuation Measures”, you
will see Price/Earnings. This is the P/E ratio.
This ratio indicates what investors think of the firm's earnings' growth
and risk prospects. Under a stock’s
quote, you may also see PEG. This
indicates the company's profits relative to investors' expectations. A high P/E equals higher expectations for
growth. The higher the demand the higher
the price. A lower P/E means lower risk,
but also lower growth expectations.
7. Also under “Valuation Measures” you will find
PEG. This is Price Earnings Growth. This number should be less than or equal to
0.5.
The last link is “Profile”
to the left hand side under “Company”.
On this page you will find a company’s business summary and financial
summary.
1. Business summary will provide you with info about
what your company’s does/produces/sells.
This is good information to put in your portfolio.
2. The Financial Summary section gives a summary of how
your company is performing. This is good
info to cite in your portfolio as reasons to buy, sell, or keep.
Even though you may not
include all of this information in your portfolio for each stock, I would
expect most of it to be there. You need
reasons for buying, selling, or keeping your each stock. You will compile this information and hand it
in at the end of the period on trading Friday’s.