:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/INV_TopETFsforLong-TermInvestors_GettyImages-1397862835-b9ce27c1011642b89dae5891242dca58.jpg)
If you’ve been an individual investor for a while, you might be looking for ways to up your investment game. We’re talking performing stock research and analysis like the pros, so you can make your own decisions instead of letting a robo advisor call the shots. In addition to choosing your investments, you can also find deals on stocks that are trading for a discount and capture more of your investment growth. We’ll offer strategies that give you more control over your investments and give stock brokers a run for their money.
Key Takeaways
- Researching potential investments might improve your chances of getting a better return.
- You can use stock screeners to find possible investments before doing fundamental and technical analyses on them.
- Learning what a company or stock is worth and its potential value can help you make informed investment decisions.
- Remember that all investment carries some risk. However, using online research platforms and learning about a company’s performance can help you become a smart investor.
1. Stock Screeners
A stock screener is a valuable set of tools that are available for free on brokerage sites or with a subscription on independent sites. With a stock screener, you set the investing parameters—the more you include, the narrower your list of stock options becomes.
Many investors use stock screeners to identify potential stocks and weed out ones they’re not interested in. Then, they do additional analysis to learn more about an individual stock’s performance.
2. Fundamental Analysis
When investors try to determine how much a stock is worth, they might look at the face value of the stock (technical analysis) or try to learn how much a stock is actually worth. To conduct a fundamental analysis, you might read a company’s annual report and research a stock’s:
- Revenues
- Expenses
- Balance sheet
- Cash flow
- Competition
Using fundamental analysis can help you see past trends in the market and even find stocks that are poised for growth, making them ideal investment options. It can also help you spot stocks that are overvalued, making them a liability.
3. Technical Analysis
Some investors prefer to use a company’s historical performance to estimate price trends instead of its fundamentals. Specifically, investors look at the historical price and trading volume. This information can help you make short-term decisions about what a stock may do in the near future. For instance, if you’re hoping to make large gains with swing trades, you’d want to look at the technical analysis of stocks.
Important
Fundamental analysis focuses on the long-term performance of stocks, while technical analysis pays more attention to short-term performance. Both are useful when researching the overall performance of your stocks.
4. Relative Performance
Simply put, relative performance (RP) is how well stocks perform relative to other stocks or a specific market benchmark (like the S&P 500). It’s usually shown as a percentage and can give you an idea of whether the stock is strong compared to similar options.
To find relative performance, you need to choose a benchmark and a timeframe. A relative performance of over 1% means the stock is overperforming compared to its peers, so you may want to consider it as an investment option.
5. Run Your Own Channel Checks
To get an idea of how well a company is doing (and might perform over the next few weeks or months), you could run a channel check. A channel check is a way of assessing a company by learning about its distribution channels. An analyst might contact a company’s suppliers to ask about upcoming supply and distribution.
As an individual, you’re a bit limited in running channel checks, but you could pay attention to larger issues affecting a company. For example, find out if any supply chain issues might disrupt the company, watch for product space on the shelves, and listen to public opinion about the company’s business practices. These can all give you a read on whether the company is thriving (and whether its stock will do well in the future).
6. Online Broker Research Tools
Don’t underestimate the usefulness of online research platforms. Popular investing websites often have useful (and free) tools that can teach you the ins and outs of investing. Many offer performance reports for specific stocks, access to a company’s financial history, expert opinions, easy-to-use stock screeners, and more.
The Bottom Line
It is possible to trade stocks without any information about them, but we wouldn’t advise this since making informed decisions can optimize your portfolio’s performance. From using stock screeners and playing around with online research platforms to using fundamental or technical analysis, you’ve got a handful of valuable research tools at your disposal. While you can rely on one strategy, combining several can give you a better understanding of your stock options. As always, you should do your due diligence and consider risk before making any financial moves.
