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Best
Sites for Good Stock Tips
Like you,
I’m always on the lookout for good investing ideas. The “Net is full
of stock tips, but the challenge comes in ferreting out the worthwhile
advice amongst the mountains of baloney. Here are some of my favorite
sites for tips worth researching. All are free, and most let you sign up
to receive free e-mailed versions of their newsletters.
Blue
Chips (www.money.com)
Michael Sivy, Money Magazine’s editor-at-large, uses traditional
fundamental analysis to evaluate companies. He favors reasonably priced
stocks with strong balance sheets, and a solid record of consistent
earnings and sales growth. Sivy maintains the Sivy
100, a list of his
100 favorite stocks for long-term investing on the site. However, he
doesn’t recommend buying all 100 stocks at any given time. Instead, he
suggests viewing it as “a collection of blue chips to track and scoop
up when their prices look attractive.”
Sivy’s
thrice-weekly columns typically feature a single stock, or a group of
stocks in a particular industry sector, from the Sivy 100, that he sees
as timely buys. Each column includes background information on each
featured company, and Sivy’s reasons for recommending the stock now.
Standard
& Poors (www.businessweek.com/investor)
Standard & Poors (S&P) is in the business of evaluating the
investment quality of stocks, among other activities. S&P isn’t
trying to get investment banking business from the companies it is
rating, so its analysts aren’t subject to the same potential conflicts
of interest as those working for major stock brokerages (S&P
recently merged its Personal Wealth site with the BusinessWeek site,
BusinessWeek online).
Stock
Picks & Pans features S&P analysts’ comments on stocks
they cover that made news that day. The single paragraph commentary
relates the news, the analysts’ take on the news, and any resulting
changes in the analysts buy, hold, or sell rating on the stock. It’s
an interesting read, and you can browse through daily archives going
back to mid-December 2000.
Focus
Stock of the Week features a detailed analysis of one of S&P’s
five-star rated (highest rating) companies. The analysis is a lengthy,
but easy read. S&P describes the company’s business, its
competitive advantages, and why S&P thinks the stock is going up
from here without burdening you with detailed statistics and financial
statement calculations.
You can check
out the performance of S&P’s previous weekly picks by scanning
though the archive listing picks going back about a year.
Sam Stovall’s Sector Watch,
written by S&P’s senior
sector strategist, covers one industry sector he thinks likely to
outperform the market over the next few months. Stovall gives you a
rundown on why he likes the sector, and a list of his favorite stocks in
the sector. As with the other S&P features, you can browse through
the archive to see how Stovall’s previous picks fared.
Herb
on the Street (www.thestreet.com)
Herb
Greenberg can now be found on Real Money, the pay portion of
theStreet.com
Herb Greenberg should be required reading for every investor. Greenberg
doesn’t recommend stocks. Instead, he alerts you to stocks with
troubling fundamental problems that haven’t been noticed by market
analysts. Greenberg highlights companies that may be employing
questionable accounting to pump up profits, to companies likely to
encounter problems due to changes in competitive conditions, and the
like. The best way to access Greenberg’s columns is to scroll down to
Featured Commentators near the bottom-right of TheStreet.com’s
homepage, and then click on Herb Greenberg to see the complete list.
You’ll get quite an education by browsing through the archives.
Value
Investing (www.bloomberg.com)
John Dorfman, president of Dorfman Investments in Boston, is a value or
contrarian style investor. He looks for stocks the market doesn’t
like. In his twice weekly column, Dorfman comments about the state of
the market, and then recommends stocks he sees doing well in the current
climate. For instance, in his January 23 column, he worried about the
weakening economy. He concluded that the odds of a recession are about
50/50, and suggested taking defensive positions, just in case. He
recommended two sectors: the defense industry, and utilities, and
recommended specific stocks within each industry. Click on Columns in
the Markets category on the menu on the left side of Bloomberg’s
homepage, and then find the John Dorfman
link under Columnists.
Bull
Market Reports (www.bullmarket.com)
The Bull Market site sells a daily market newsletter, but gives away
weekly newsletters covering the biotech, financial, and wireless
industries. The newsletters serve as an update report on suggested
portfolios for each sector. You can sign up to receive the newsletters
by e-mail, but you must go to the site to see the stocks making up each
portfolio. Access to the portfolio information is also free. The
portfolio section includes a brief profile of each stock, the current
target price and additional information. Users are cautioned not to buy
stocks if the stock is trading above the target price. A London-based
money manager authors the financial newsletter, while Bull Market Report
staff writes the biotech and wireless tomes. It’s all done under the
direction of editor in chief Todd Shaver, a reformed stockbroker. I’ve
been reading Shaver’s writings for years, and I’ve found many
worthwhile ideas in his newsletters.
All of the
resources mentioned are reliable and fundamentally based stock pickers.
But, I don’t use their suggestions as a buy list. I consider them as
tips, to be researched and analyzed. You’ll be a happier investor if
you do the same.
published 2/5/01 |
