As you are
researching a particular stock it is a good idea to look at the company's competition. You
can see which company is the industry leader, or how the performance of the company you
are researching compares to others in the same industry. Remember you are trying to gather
all the information about the company you are considering in order to make educated
judgements.
This is a set of tools that can be used to
perform some quick comparisons. There a few steps, but the time and effort are worth it
for the amount of data you can obtain in a short period of time. I found the quality of
the information to be excellent.
To Get a List of
Competitors:
(If you already know the symbols of the
competitors you can eliminate this step and go directly to the Smart Money site.)
1. Go to Stockmaster
2. Type in your company name or symbol
3. In the field to the left of the
symbol/name field click the down arrow and select “Profile and Financials”
4. Select “Competitors” You will get a listing of
all your company's competitors.
5. Select the companies you want to compare
to yours and write down the symbols.
*Shortcut - After you
have typed in the company name or symbol and the page comes up - make a bookmark you will
see this URL: http://news.stockmaster.com/sec_key.asp?ticker=PFE
The next time you use Stockmaster call it up with your bookmark and change the stock
symbol at the end to the new company you want to compare, i.e. PFE would be changed.
To Compare:
1.
Go to Smart Money
(You may have to register, free, asks limited information.)
2. Select “Chart Center”The Chart Center is a
wonderfully designed Java Applet - it allows you to compare the following:
Performance: Track and compare stock price performance for multiple stocks over
five different time periods.
Fundamentals: Track and compare sales, earnings, price-to-sales ratios, price to earnings
ratios, inventory,
earnings per share, cash and long-term debt for multiple companies.
News: Get the latest news from Dow Jones and SmartMoney Interactive on your stocks.
(Dow Jones Newswires are available to subscribers only.)
Analyst Recommendations: See how analysts rate your stocks -- and how their recommendations
have changed
over time.
EPS Trends: Analyze how a company's estimated earnings
per share change over time.
Earnings Estimates: Compare estimated earnings with
actual earnings. |
3. Then click the “To Chart Center” button on the
left.
4. Another window will pop up and you just
enter your symbols and you are ready to compare the competition. Whatever symbols you have
put in will be presented as individual buttons. Press the button for whatever information
you would like to have about the company.
If you are viewing the comparisons in the "graph" mode you can right click on
the symbol's color coded button at the bottom and the graph comparisons will be on top of
each other. However, if you are viewing comparisons in the "chart" mode when you
click the symbol's color coded button you receive individual company data.
5. After you have made the your comparisons
you may like to print the various charts to refer to later. From the folks at Smart Money
Chart Center the procedure is as follows:
"Because Chart Center is a Java
Applet, it will not print using File|Print from your browser. You can, however, print a
screen capture.To get a screen capture, hit Alt-Print Screen. Now, open up something like
MS-Paint or MS-Word and click Edit|Paste and then click File|Print."
The MS-Word method works very easily.
|
Please note your browser must be Java compatible in order to use the Chart Center. |
