Research
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” — Benjamin Franklin
Knowing where to look for quality business information when researching a possible investment is crucial when conducting your due diligence.
This page has been created as a guide, the suggestions listed below are useful websites to store in your favourite bookmarks browser, for quick go-to links.
When conducting my own investment research over the past eight years, I have used each of these sites for various reasons I have listed below:
Should you be looking for a broader equity insight like stock market consensus, broker analysis, charts, graphs, industry peers, then sites like CNBC, BNN Bloomberg are fantastic starting points.
CNBC
I am a Pro CNBC Member – The service is excellent for market coverage, broker analysis and CEO interviews.
This is my favoured website & TV Chanel for some of the following reasons:
1, Closing Bell hosted by Scott Wapner is one of my favourites for watching the final live trading hour of the day. Scott’s clever questioning skills & techniques to guest portfolio managers and contributors is second to non. Questions are delivered in such a way most individual investors would ask, if we had the opportunity. The US stock market is behind the UK’s GMT so if you are looking at particular stock and following earnings or company reporting it makes extremely interesting TV.
2, Fast Money hosted by Mellisa Lee & team is another fantastic watch. The show delivers well balanced debates discussing the daily markets and company earnings, more often than not with a pinch of humour, keeping the debates light and enjoyable. The team are usually joined by guest analyst’s including of course the Charts Master from Worth Charting (For a better understanding of charts and key indicators, its educational!). It is a great show to assist individual retail investors in evaluating stocks and thesis around investing.
3, Mad Money’s (Professor) Jim Cramer is an investing legend making market analysis punchy, interesting and to the point. You can watch clips of Jim’s video features online or through Apple TV.
4, There are plenty of videos in the archives, sometimes available for no fees.
5, Alternatively, there is an CNBC Investing Club you can join for a separate subscription fee where Jim Cramer & team manages the Charitable Trust, providing insights to the trust holdings.
Finally, what I really like though is the ability to research individual company stocks and their relevant information. Company page features include: the latest news for individual stocks and sectors, financials, industry peers, broker analysis etc it is all available.
You can join CNBC Pro for a monthly fee of $29.99 or annual subscription ($299.00). Joining the Pro Service allows extensive access to further video content, market analysis, in-depth company and sector reports.
One draw back however this is mainly for US focused stocks and is not great for UK equities which we will cover later.
BNN Bloomberg
2, BNN Bloomberg (Business Network News) is a Canadian English Channel owned by Bell Media. It a broadcasting website for business and financial news & analysis.
If your portfolio is diversified then you may hold Canadian stocks so this is another great go to website for Business News, video content and stock analysis.
Those of you who invested in early cannabis stocks will most likely be aware of this website, as Canada was one of the first countries to legalise cannabis.
Canada has an extremely large energy sector so oil stocks play a big role on the TSX index. I found CNN Bloomberg as I once held Vermillion Energy Inc. I was able to view peers and researched & considered Suncor and Imperial Oil Ltd.
Another great success had I bought it back in 2018/9 would have been Shopify. The Shopify stock has exploded in valuation over the past two years which is a great alternative to Amazon.
Individual company websites
3, Finally, before you click on any of the above links we should:
3a, Always start on the specific companies own website, Investor Relations (IR) pages.
By using a businesses own website you will find all sorts of shareholder insights available, from their own published financials to news articles.
Under the investor pages you will find subsections for stock information, historical share price, stock splits, dividends etc.
These are also useful tools to use when looking if the current share price is at a good value compared to historical data.
There may even be a section for press releases so you can keep up to date with new products and innovations the business is focusing on.
Remember why you are investing….
Finally, avoid listening to the day to day white noise the media and stock markets produce.
Selecting a long term investment through thorough research and facts, not emotions or FOMO will help build long term wealth.
Remember staying the course through short term volatility will reap rewards & dividends.
Please Remember:
Stocks & Shares may rise and fall in value and investing in individual stocks or equities is not for everyone. You may get back less then you originally invested so if you are unsure you should always seek professional advice from a qualified financial advisor.
Investing is for the long term so short term loses could be incurred.
Alway be diversified and hold a range of stocks, funds or bonds that are aligned to your own risk and financial appetite.
