Web Winners:
With another season of quarterly corporate earnings upon us, these sites help bewildered investors find and understand the numbers. Practice can help separate fantasy from the cold facts.
With another season of quarterly corporate earnings upon us, these sites help bewildered investors find and understand the numbers. Practice can help separate fantasy from the cold facts.
Analyst tips.
The CFA Institute, a nonprofit that tests and sets standards for financial analysts, gives this list of tips for knowing how to interpret those sometimes-wily corporate earnings statements. Tips include reading with "healthy skepticism," putting numbers in historical and competitive context, and recognizing that net income "can be more easily manipulated than many people realize."
www.cfainstitute.org/aboutus/press/release/05releases/20050111_01.html
More basics.
Here, from Ameritrade Financial Services, is a detailed look at the importance of corporate earnings reports to investors, and step-by-step details for sorting out things like the balance sheet, income statement, and how to use earnings information to make an investment decision.
www.ameritradefinancial.com/educationv2/fhtml/learning/ucoearnings.fhtml
Uncle's Edgar.
Edgar is the acronym for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system. It's a giant database of public companies' regulatory filings, including their quarterly and annual financial statements. The tutorial that starts on this page will explain how to find and download prospectuses, insider trading reports, and other company documents.
Earnings calls.
Investors these days are allowed to sit in on the conference calls that companies often hold to discuss their earnings with analysts. The call time is usually part of the earnings announcement, and frequently you can tune in via the company's Web site. Corporate honchos work to orchestrate these events, but executives can find themselves on the hot seat. Here is a guide to what you ought to know before such a call, and what to listen for. Screaming, obscenity and weeping are usually a bad sign.