5 ms·

Everybody's trading nowadays. How about just investing :-) I.e. focus on periods longer than a year, which so few people/professional market participants do.

Everybody's trading nowadays. How about just investing :-) I.e. focus on periods longer than a year, which so few people/professional market participants do. And on actual businesses instead of the crazy antics of a line. I wonder if you could use something like Zipline/Quantopian to screen huge amounts of consolidated balance sheets for markers of undervaluation. You could reject 1000s of companies and focus your “manual” vetting on the few that remain. If you can find the dollar selling for half a dollar and you can understand why it's selling for that price (e.g. because the entire market is down), you may have identified a winner. Then all you need is a little guts and lots of patience. And a predefined set criteria that you would constantly monitor to decide if your thesis is still valid.

unknown_apostle 10y ago
Actually, does anyone know where an amateur could buy/download quarterly balance sheets/income statements for the broad stock market universe?
- sjbase 10y ago
  Most professionals I've known use Capital IQ, which is expensive. It's surprisingly tough to get broad, machine-readable market data for free but there are some cheaper options. Check this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/SecurityAnalysis/comments/2ci5du/capital_iq_v_factset_v_bloomberg/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SecurityAnalysis/comments/2ci5du/ca... Or you could always scrape Yahoo Finance :)
  - unknown_apostle 10y ago
    Yeah but you don't want to spend most of your time writing and maintaining scraping code :-)
    - sjbase 10y ago
      Yep, therein lies the classic problem: if you want something of value, you can either spend your time or spend your money.
- rmah 10y ago
  All US public company quarterly financial reports (and much more) are available in raw form at the SEC EDGAR site (https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html). Those reports income statements, balance sheets, etc. But beware that companies will often file corrections later. In addition, nearly all finance sites provide summaries of these reports for at least the last few quarters and last few annual reports. I like morningstar.com. But finance.yahoo.com and finance.google.com both work fine. If you want a bunch in one shot and don't have the money for Bloomberg or CapitalIQ or whatever, I suggest quandl.com, which acts as a cut-rate data aggregator for financial data.
  - unknown_apostle 10y ago
    Thanks, quandl looks interesting. API and what not. Getting a few fundamental datasets probably costs less than subscribing to a couple of investment newsletters.
  - osullivj 10y ago
    Also tiingo.com
- cponeill 10y ago
  You could always use Yahoo Finance or Marketwatch for a quick overview of the financial statements of publicly traded companies.
prodigal_erik 10y ago
I'm all for value investing (it's the only legitimate reason for stock to exist) but in evolutionary terms, this is hoping to be large and healthy enough to ignore parasites rather than resist them dogging your every step.
nether 10y ago
How about no. You're entering a field where professionals working full time struggle to beat the market, what's saying that you, a folder of 10-k's, and a copy of Ben Graham are going to beat them? You could probably spend a lifetime studying investing and still come up short, because you don't have the resources or mentoring that the pros have.
- phyalow 10y ago
  Wrong that's all you need. In fact according to Peter Lynch you have a better chance of alpha as you dont have to deal with all the bs a PM at a big fund has too.
  - pfarnsworth 10y ago
    The markets that Peter Lynch traded and the markets today are completely different.
    - phyalow 10y ago
      Sigh, trading vs. investing... Also if you make a statement like that I am sure you are unfamiliar with his thesis and methodology.
- unknown_apostle 10y ago
  Well definitely a valid response. But it still seems like a bigger problem to beat professional traders using Zipline, than to spend time looking out for a good company that is being sold for a price that I really like. In the latter case, investing and looking for value, it seems to me like an amateur can even give himself a little edge over the pros. First, it's a worse fate for most professional money managers to miss out on some bull market, than to go down together with all his colleagues. Second, amateurs working with their own money are not evaluated every quarter or even every year. They can just wait and keep looking if unsure. There are no mandates or arbitrary limitations, so the amateurs are free to look for value wherever they can find it. They can look in places that would require more patience, or that have a bit less liquidity or some more volatility (because they will typically have less money to move in/out the stock). Of course, the pro will definitely have benefits in terms of legislation, taxes and lowering the costs of research vis. the amount of money being invested. But in the end: does the extra information and non-GAAP stuff that the pros use, help so much over common sense and a decent understanding of accounting? (That's a genuine question, not a statement.) In fact, does succesful investing even involve outsmarting everyone else in the same way that trading does?
akg_67 10y ago
> Everybody's trading nowadays. Primarily the artifact of sustained positive returns recently and short-term memory. There used to be a saying: When your cab driver start giving you stock tips, it is time to bail out of market. When every Tom, Dick and Harry think they can beat the market, time to take a break. > How about just investing :-) This is the right way to go for majority of your portfolio. Follow simple, tried and test strategies - buy Index funds/ETFs for majority of your portfolio. Bogleheads Wiki https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page is a good starting point. If you really interested in individual stock/investment picking, have a very small portion of your portfolio as play money for such endeavors. > I wonder if you could use something like Zipline/Quantopian to screen huge amounts of consolidated balance sheets for markers of undervaluation. You could reject 1000s of companies and focus your “manual” vetting on the few that remain. I primarily use similar methodology. Automated filtering of stocks to find a few that I want to review further. It is not scalable. Majority of time is spent on developing strategy for filtering and selecting the stocks for review. I most probably manually review 15-20 stocks a year (Reading SEC filings for the company and competitors, industry news, trade articles, analyzing financial statements, etc) and invest in 3-6 stocks a year at most.

unknown_apostle 10y ago

Actually, does anyone know where an amateur could buy/download quarterly balance sheets/income statements for the broad stock market universe?

sjbase 10y ago
Most professionals I've known use Capital IQ, which is expensive. It's surprisingly tough to get broad, machine-readable market data for free but there are some cheaper options. Check this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/SecurityAnalysis/comments/2ci5du/capital_iq_v_factset_v_bloomberg/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SecurityAnalysis/comments/2ci5du/ca... Or you could always scrape Yahoo Finance :)
- unknown_apostle 10y ago
  Yeah but you don't want to spend most of your time writing and maintaining scraping code :-)
  - sjbase 10y ago
    Yep, therein lies the classic problem: if you want something of value, you can either spend your time or spend your money.
rmah 10y ago
All US public company quarterly financial reports (and much more) are available in raw form at the SEC EDGAR site (https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html). Those reports income statements, balance sheets, etc. But beware that companies will often file corrections later. In addition, nearly all finance sites provide summaries of these reports for at least the last few quarters and last few annual reports. I like morningstar.com. But finance.yahoo.com and finance.google.com both work fine. If you want a bunch in one shot and don't have the money for Bloomberg or CapitalIQ or whatever, I suggest quandl.com, which acts as a cut-rate data aggregator for financial data.
- unknown_apostle 10y ago
  Thanks, quandl looks interesting. API and what not. Getting a few fundamental datasets probably costs less than subscribing to a couple of investment newsletters.
- osullivj 10y ago
  Also tiingo.com
cponeill 10y ago
You could always use Yahoo Finance or Marketwatch for a quick overview of the financial statements of publicly traded companies.

prodigal_erik 10y ago

I'm all for value investing (it's the only legitimate reason for stock to exist) but in evolutionary terms, this is hoping to be large and healthy enough to ignore parasites rather than resist them dogging your every step.

nether 10y ago

How about no. You're entering a field where professionals working full time struggle to beat the market, what's saying that you, a folder of 10-k's, and a copy of Ben Graham are going to beat them? You could probably spend a lifetime studying investing and still come up short, because you don't have the resources or mentoring that the pros have.

phyalow 10y ago
Wrong that's all you need. In fact according to Peter Lynch you have a better chance of alpha as you dont have to deal with all the bs a PM at a big fund has too.
- pfarnsworth 10y ago
  The markets that Peter Lynch traded and the markets today are completely different.
  - phyalow 10y ago
    Sigh, trading vs. investing... Also if you make a statement like that I am sure you are unfamiliar with his thesis and methodology.
unknown_apostle 10y ago
Well definitely a valid response. But it still seems like a bigger problem to beat professional traders using Zipline, than to spend time looking out for a good company that is being sold for a price that I really like. In the latter case, investing and looking for value, it seems to me like an amateur can even give himself a little edge over the pros. First, it's a worse fate for most professional money managers to miss out on some bull market, than to go down together with all his colleagues. Second, amateurs working with their own money are not evaluated every quarter or even every year. They can just wait and keep looking if unsure. There are no mandates or arbitrary limitations, so the amateurs are free to look for value wherever they can find it. They can look in places that would require more patience, or that have a bit less liquidity or some more volatility (because they will typically have less money to move in/out the stock). Of course, the pro will definitely have benefits in terms of legislation, taxes and lowering the costs of research vis. the amount of money being invested. But in the end: does the extra information and non-GAAP stuff that the pros use, help so much over common sense and a decent understanding of accounting? (That's a genuine question, not a statement.) In fact, does succesful investing even involve outsmarting everyone else in the same way that trading does?

akg_67 10y ago

> Everybody's trading nowadays. Primarily the artifact of sustained positive returns recently and short-term memory. There used to be a saying: When your cab driver start giving you stock tips, it is time to bail out of market. When every Tom, Dick and Harry think they can beat the market, time to take a break. > How about just investing :-) This is the right way to go for majority of your portfolio. Follow simple, tried and test strategies - buy Index funds/ETFs for majority of your portfolio. Bogleheads Wiki https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page is a good starting point. If you really interested in individual stock/investment picking, have a very small portion of your portfolio as play money for such endeavors. > I wonder if you could use something like Zipline/Quantopian to screen huge amounts of consolidated balance sheets for markers of undervaluation. You could reject 1000s of companies and focus your “manual” vetting on the few that remain. I primarily use similar methodology. Automated filtering of stocks to find a few that I want to review further. It is not scalable. Majority of time is spent on developing strategy for filtering and selecting the stocks for review. I most probably manually review 15-20 stocks a year (Reading SEC filings for the company and competitors, industry news, trade articles, analyzing financial statements, etc) and invest in 3-6 stocks a year at most.