Etana, thanks, I can't recall ever being referenced as sane before!
>you are using 8.5 yr long data ...
>your time frame for evaluating stock is way different than mine.
>If you are looking for a five or eight... (that was supposed to say "year track record")
This is where we get into how you and I are looking at stocks differently. I am not particularly looking for stock to buy and expect to hold indefinitely. I think more of mutual funds for that. For small stocks especially, I don't much care what they did five years or even one year ago; I care what they are doing now. Their history can be reassuring, but if the industry or the company is changing, that's most pertinent to me. I saw that you posted growth percentages, to some extent, you get into an apple/orange situation when one company starts at $1.00 way back when and another starts at $16 more recently. I think that aftercare, home care, assisted living care, etc is a rapidly expanding field - current history of a company is significant.
>exceptional P/Sales of 0.42
I was impressed by an article about a fund manager who only looked at companies with price/sales numbers under 1.0. Although I haven't solely relied on that guideline, I do look for it. I've rarely seen a number below 0.5.
>Also EPS estimates
I get my company profiles from Baseline, via E*Trade. They include First Call consensus estimates.
And finally, I've only been investing for a short time. Made/make plenty of monumental mistakes. IHS has been one of the successes which has raised me out of the red, so I'm fond of it - but I almost sold at 34. |
