Hi,

On most of the websites if you look at the balance sheets of the companies they only go back 5 or 7 years at the most. I'm interested in the whole history of some companies and their balance sheets/income statements, since the companies have started trading. IS there any resource that has all that historical data?

On the corporate web-site of the company. If all the data won't be on there you can contact the IR-Department of the company.

Why do you want all the data since inception?

Hi,

Thanks Triton. Mostly out of curiosity how the company was doing in the past.
May I ask you a question? SO if you'd do an analyze of the company you want to invest in, how many years back are you looking at for the data?

I would say it depends on the type of the company your looking at. But i would say at least 3-5 yrs of growth. If its a mining company then take in to consideration the fact that lots of resources goes to exploration .

Well, I am a technical analyst and therefore put more weight on technical analysis.

The only financial data I look at is quarter-quarter comparisons. It really makes little sense to analyze several years back. That data, in my opinion, is irrelevant. It doesn't indicate anything for the future price movements of the company.

It all depends on personal preference and what aspects you look at.

It'll be hard for you to find data that goes back that far. There are databases for that such as COMPUSTAT and CRISP. But these are paid databases. It will be costly.

You probably know you can get all financial information at edgars online that goes back to several years.

As a sidenote, they say that any years earlier should be less of a predictor of a company's future performance because the company changes. For example, their operating leverage might change, their financial leverage might change, they might have gone into different businesses that change the business model, etc.

However, personally, (although i have very limited experience) earlier data should shed light on how management conducts itself.

Most likely there have been management changes during that time period so even that is irrelevant. Financial analysis from several years ago has no influence at all on future price movements and is a pure waste of time, in my opinion.

triton, i would probably agree with you that the market doesn't look at that earlier data. but i'm not sure if it's best if you are trying to determine the intrinsic value (in constrast to market value).

what do you think? (i'm not a trader but a student in Finance)

btw, is there any other finance websites that you can recommend, preferably US oriented?

Thanks.

Well, I am a technical analyst and don't really focus that much on fundamentals as to me they are mostly a waste of time. I do conduct what I call a simple fundamental analysis but that has no impact on trading decsisions.

Consider this:

Most if not all mutual funds focus on fundamental analysis and most mutual funds have very poor returns, at least in my opinion (I would never qualify a 15% annual ROI a decent investment, even 30% are bad in my opinion).

Hedge-Funds or I should say the hedge-fund approach in general focuses more on technical analysis and other investment tools which is one of the reason they will deliver good returns to their clients (of curse there are exceptions).

It really depends on your investment preference, investment goals and which approach you favor. Fundamental analysts call techncial analysis a waste of time and vice versa.

What type of information are you looking for as far as fiancial websites are concerned?

1. I'm actually looking for financial websites that have a finance forum that discusses in-depth analysis. If you could suggest any, that would be awesome.

2. Given my limited experience, I agree that fundamental analysis seems to have shortcomings. Fundamental analysis may point to some intrinsic value but fundamental analysis is very subjective and by slightly altering basic assumptions, one can get huge swinging intrinsic valuations.

But does technical analysts have drawbacks too.

can you comment on my impressions.

For example, isn't the large swings in stock price usually pushed by fundamental reasons? For example, if a stock is at $10. But something happened at the company. Now, the stock should be at $20. So it'll take the market quite some time to get there. so some technical analysts capitalize on this. They sense the buying via stock patterns and buy. and they can make a lot of money by sensing this.

Other technical analysts sense stocks that are oversold and overbought. However, technical analysts that capitalize on this have a maximum position that can take on due to liquidity issues. These price movements are smaller so tell me if i'm wrong but it would be extremely hard to take on positions that are greater than 10,000 shares, depending upon how liquid the stock is.

Well, any strategy has its pros and cons. I agree with that.

It really all depends on your investment strategy. Price movements can be caused by deep fundamental changes, expectations, or pure momentum.

Regradless of which analysis you favor, if there will be a drastic change you will not sense that with any analysis, i.e. if there is a profit warning, buy-out offer, guidance change, etc.

If you trade with technical analysis you don't really choose stocks that are not liquid but alway very liquid stocks.

One thing to keep in mind that technical analysis is not a sciene but more of an art. There are so many indicators and patterns and you need to know what to look for and how to apply the analysis.

As you mentioned a company that is at $10 and due to assumptions of fundamental analysis 'should' be at $20 may take a decent amount of time to get there. If you are the type of invstors who is willing to wait then you will buy into that company until it reaches that point. SInce it will take time you risk that there will be plenty of changes during that time and that you may constantly make adjustments.

Other investors choose to capture a move from $10 to $12 and move on to the next opportunity.

One of the major drawbacks is that it takes quite some time for trend confirmation but the company which I represent has solved that problem as well as the problem of the analyst bias.Regardless if you use fundamental or technical analysis if the anaylsts is more bullish then the recommendation will bo more bullish and vice versa which can be a problem.

You will notice that there are plenty of arguments for and against both methods of analysis. In the end it comes down to preference and your investment startegy.

It's all about strategy and how well the portfolio/fund manager is able to execute that strategy. The success is usually measured in ROI and consitency of that ROI.

I am sorry but I am not aware of any forums that discuss in-depth analysis.

hey triton, can you suggest any good books on technical analysis. one for basic info. thanks.

I don't have a book to suggest but a web-site which offers some really good basic info on technical analysis:

StockCharts.com - Simply the Web's Best Stock Charts

They have plenty of info on technical analysis.