What are the best resources for stock picking?

InvesterJones

blowzy said:

InvesterJones said:

blowzy said:

I know all the jargon that is going to come if I do not preface this but currently 100% of my portfolio is in VWRP and I definitely want 5-10% of my portfolio to be individual stocks.

Depends what criteria you are using for your picking - find the resource(s) that give you the information you use to make your decisions.

blowzy said:

Bit of a sidenote but is would it be better to buy into the nasdaq 100 or an individual mag 7 stock (likely Tesla, Google or Amazon)

No

No as in to buy into the nasdaq 100 or no as in to buy into a mag 7 stock

Neither...

blowzy

Baldytyke88 said:

blowzy said:

I know all the jargon that is going to come if I do not preface this but currently 100% of my portfolio is in VWRP and I definitely want 5-10% of my portfolio to be individual stocks.
Bit of a sidenote but is would it be better to buy into the nasdaq 100 or an individual mag 7 stock (likely Tesla, Google or Amazon)

I use this website for guidance on which shares to buy, it has Tesla as a sell.

https://markets.investorschronicle.co.uk/data/equities/tearsheet/summary?s=0R0X:LSE

This website looks very promising! How often do they update though as the outlook on telsa has definitely changed in the last 10 months.

aroominyork

If you invest in Tesla you want their profitability to go up, so the best thing you could do is buy a Tesla. Job done!

Bostonerimus1

The FT pinned to a wall and some darts. Oh and a handkerchief for your tears when you almost certainly lose money. If you start buying single stocks I see lots of stress in your future. K.I.S.S and stick to a global equity index fund.

wmb194

blowzy said:

Baldytyke88 said:

blowzy said:

I know all the jargon that is going to come if I do not preface this but currently 100% of my portfolio is in VWRP and I definitely want 5-10% of my portfolio to be individual stocks.
Bit of a sidenote but is would it be better to buy into the nasdaq 100 or an individual mag 7 stock (likely Tesla, Google or Amazon)

I use this website for guidance on which shares to buy, it has Tesla as a sell.

https://markets.investorschronicle.co.uk/data/equities/tearsheet/summary?s=0R0X:LSE

This website looks very promising! How often do they update though as the outlook on telsa has definitely changed in the last 10 months.

Investors' Chronicle, published weekly by the FT, has been around forever and is primarily focused on British equities. The US' equivalent is Barron's, published by the WSJ/Dow Jones, but you should be able to find lots of US share tipping sites: MarketScreener's another one.

I use it for charts and news - which often includes broker recommendations - but TradingView has screeners with lots of company data.

https://www.barrons.com/

https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/

https://www.marketscreener.com/

https://www.tradingview.com/

Eyeful

1. Warren Buffett, who many believe is the most successful investor of all time, basically said that
"You can pick the most famous and successful company there has ever been.
But if you buy it at the wrong price you will still end up losing money"

2. Warren Buffett determines the price he should pay for a share by calculating its intrinsic value, primarily using discounted cash flow analysis and applying the margin of safety principle. Then he waits until that price occurs.

I some how do not think that the average investor will do that, or they will be willing to wait as long as he does.

3.  People have short memories:
If we stick just to the USA and see why picking well known names is not much help.

Enron - Failed in 2001. Once a blue "chip share"  but became a symbol of corporate fraud.
WorldCom (telecom): Failed in 2002 after one of the largest accounting frauds in USA history
Lehman Brothers (investment bank): Collapsed in 2008 

And  list goes on Kodak, Woolworths, etc

4. As for brokers recommendations and share tipping sites, their pay depends on getting people to churn shares.
If they where really that good at it, they would not be telling us which share to buy and sell. 
They would be making millions for themselves and not need to work for a living.

wmb194

Eyeful said:

1. Warren Buffett, who many believe is the most successful investor of all time, basically said that
"You can pick the most famous and successful company there has ever been.
But if you buy it at the wrong price you will still end up losing money"

2. Warren Buffett determines the price he should pay for a share by calculating its intrinsic value, primarily using discounted cash flow analysis and applying the margin of safety principle. Then he waits until that price occurs.

I some how do not think that the average investor will do that, or they will be willing to wait as long as he does.

3.  People have short memories:
If we stick just to the USA and see why picking well known names is not much help.

Enron - Failed in 2001. Once a blue "chip share"  but became a symbol of corporate fraud.
WorldCom (telecom): Failed in 2002 after one of the largest accounting frauds in USA history
Lehman Brothers (investment bank): Collapsed in 2008 

And  list goes on Kodak, Woolworths, etc

4. As for brokers recommendations and share tipping sites, their pay depends on getting people to churn shares.
If they where really that good at it, they would not be telling us which share to buy and sell. 
They would be making millions for themselves and not need to work for a living.

On point four, that’s where your own intelligence comes in: don’t follow tips blindly but they can be useful to bring opportunities to your attention that you might have missed otherwise.

wmb194

TheTelltaleChart said:

wmb194 said:

On point four, that’s where your own intelligence comes in: don’t follow tips blindly but they can be useful to bring opportunities to your attention that you might have missed otherwise.

Wow, so many flaws in one statement!

You are suggesting that people generally should assume they are more intelligent than the average investor! Actually, it's much worse than that. What matters in investing is being more intelligent (at investing) than the average pound/dollar invested. So it doesn't help if you're a better at investing than most of the large number of very small investors, if you're nevetheless worse than most of the money invested (which is managed by a small number of big, mostly professional, investors).

Why even try doing this? It's like having just learnt the rules of chess, and then choosing to enter a tournament where you can gamble significant sums of your own money against grandmasters. When you can (unlike in chess) easily get the average result, minus small costs, by e.g. just holding VWRP.

There are thousands, or even tens of thousands, of businesses globally that it's possible to invest in. You haven't even heard of most of them. Nor have the people who write the tip sheets. And their business is not making tips which outperform the average dollar invested, but getting your attention so they can make money (from subscriptions or advertizing). (Assuming they're not actually ramping shares they just bought so that they can get out with a quick profit, which I'm sure is what the less honest tip sheets do.) And yet you think they might provide some kind of a useful filter from thousands of companies down to a small number for you to consider!

The OP seemed excited to discover the Investors Chronicle offering opinions about Tesla's share price. Arguably the company that more people have strong opinions about than any other. The market price is, in a sense, the current result of all those competing opinions. And yet the OP seemed keen to latch onto just one opinion. Is this bringing new opportunities to investors' attention?

TL;DR; some people will pick shares in individual companies and it's possible to own index trackers and individual shares at the same time... I'm just pointing out that if you are going to read tips then don't follow them blindly: it's a common mistake that newbs make.

Eyeful

wmb194 said:

Eyeful said:

1. Warren Buffett, who many believe is the most successful investor of all time, basically said that
"You can pick the most famous and successful company there has ever been.
But if you buy it at the wrong price you will still end up losing money"

2. Warren Buffett determines the price he should pay for a share by calculating its intrinsic value, primarily using discounted cash flow analysis and applying the margin of safety principle. Then he waits until that price occurs.

I some how do not think that the average investor will do that, or they will be willing to wait as long as he does.

3.  People have short memories:
If we stick just to the USA and see why picking well known names is not much help.

Enron - Failed in 2001. Once a blue "chip share"  but became a symbol of corporate fraud.
WorldCom (telecom): Failed in 2002 after one of the largest accounting frauds in USA history
Lehman Brothers (investment bank): Collapsed in 2008 

And  list goes on Kodak, Woolworths, etc

4. As for brokers recommendations and share tipping sites, their pay depends on getting people to churn shares.
If they where really that good at it, they would not be telling us which share to buy and sell. 
They would be making millions for themselves and not need to work for a living.

On point four, that’s where your own intelligence comes in: don’t follow tips blindly but they can be useful to bring opportunities to your attention that you might have missed otherwise.

1.As I understand it, citizens in the USA have an investment culture which is absent in the UK.

2. Once the company has been brought to the attention of the newbie or average UK citizen, what do they do next?

How many of them know how to read a balance sheet or have knowledge and understanding of company fundamentals?

 How many of them have the time or even want to learn about these things?

Without doing the above research into the company, they will just be taking a guess.

3. Much easier & simpler to stick to "simple investing" and just use either 
(a) A low cost Multi-Asset Fund with a share/bond split that is at their risk level
(b) A low cost  Major World Index Fund or ETF if they are adventurous or will invest for a very long time frame 

4. Even using index funds or ETF's to build a "Lazy Man Portfolio" would be easier & less time consuming than
following broker recommendations &  share tipping sites.  

wmb194

Eyeful said:

wmb194 said:

Eyeful said:

1. Warren Buffett, who many believe is the most successful investor of all time, basically said that
"You can pick the most famous and successful company there has ever been.
But if you buy it at the wrong price you will still end up losing money"

2. Warren Buffett determines the price he should pay for a share by calculating its intrinsic value, primarily using discounted cash flow analysis and applying the margin of safety principle. Then he waits until that price occurs.

I some how do not think that the average investor will do that, or they will be willing to wait as long as he does.

3.  People have short memories:
If we stick just to the USA and see why picking well known names is not much help.

Enron - Failed in 2001. Once a blue "chip share"  but became a symbol of corporate fraud.
WorldCom (telecom): Failed in 2002 after one of the largest accounting frauds in USA history
Lehman Brothers (investment bank): Collapsed in 2008 

And  list goes on Kodak, Woolworths, etc

4. As for brokers recommendations and share tipping sites, their pay depends on getting people to churn shares.
If they where really that good at it, they would not be telling us which share to buy and sell. 
They would be making millions for themselves and not need to work for a living.

On point four, that’s where your own intelligence comes in: don’t follow tips blindly but they can be useful to bring opportunities to your attention that you might have missed otherwise.

1.As I understand it, citizens in the USA have an investment culture which is absent in the UK.

2. Once the company has been brought to the attention of the newbie or average UK citizen, what do they do next?

How many of them know how to read a balance sheet or have knowledge and understanding of company fundamentals?

 How many of them have the time or even want to learn about these things?

Without doing the above research into the company, they will just be taking a guess.

3. Much easier & simpler to stick to "simple investing" and just use either 
(a) A low cost Multi-Asset Fund with a share/bond split that is at their risk level
(b) A low cost  Major World Index Fund or ETF if they are adventurous or will invest for a very long time frame 

4. Even using index funds or ETF's to build a "Lazy Man Portfolio" would be easier & less time consuming than
following broker recommendations &  share tipping sites.  

 There is an investment culture in the UK and we all have to start somewhere. People know they shouldn't smoke but millions upon millions of people do. The OP's asking for some resources and I've given him a few places to look. I'm not sure why people are losing their minds over this; sure, buy an index tracker. Buy individual shares. Do both. Do neither. Do what you like.