Allen,
Start on the Zacks home page and use the pull down menu for "the whole enchalada".
FWIW, I don't think the "bankruptcy risk" section of Zacks represents any immediate danger of bankruptcy in the majority of companies. What it does do is give some kind of an indication of what the assets would be worth were the company to be liquidated. A LOT of these companies will go for many years borrowing money and reporting profits. I doubt you'll find any company with a debt to equity ratio much over .5 that shows a liquidation value above zero. I'm not trying to start a panic, but I do think debt ratios need to be considered as part of the picture when evaluating book value. I also believe those companies with high debt levels are the most vulnerable to accounting changes to plug up the holes in GAAP. I sincerely doubt there will be any firm proposals on accounting changes before the end of this year. I also suspect there will be plenty of lobbying against the changes for quite awhile after they are proposed. There's a lot of big money that stands to loose if they can't cook the books. As bearish as I am, I find it hard to imagine much of anything affecting the quarterly reports sooner than 2 years out.
What I think that will mean to value investors is a shift in focus away from PE and book value, toward a focus on debt levels and cash flow. I also think there's some benefit to be had from looking at places to raise cash in the mean time to: 1) reduce exposure, and, 2) be prepared for bargain hunting.
I think I've seen just about every investing mistake ever made mentioned on the message boards at one time or another except for one. The mistake I've made that has always caused me the most harm is to let cash in my trading account burn a hole in my pocket. When I finally got it through my thick head to concentrate on protecting cash rather constantly looking for something to buy, my fortunes seemed to change quite a bit. For example, on September 11th, my trading account was 80% cash. I don't know what everyone else was doing for the 4 days the market was closed, but I was running a lot of screens and reading a lot of filings. A week after the market reopened, I was buying stocks that already looked dirt cheap at a 30-50% discount to their pre September 11 closing prices. It let me take profits and return to mostly cash at a time where I normally would have been sweating to get back to even. I think the end result is I've kind of fallen in love with the idea of cash as an investment. At least I have a lot better idea what my account is worth if I wake up and find the excrement has hit the whirly blade. |
