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Strategies & Market Trends : Free Cash Flow as Value Criterion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jbe who wrote (7)	10/26/1997 12:51:00 PM
From: Andrew	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 253

Joan, you said: " (Point three is, I think, hopeless for the amateur investor: where would one get the data for it?)" I think I can help you here! Have you heard of "The Value Line Investment Survey"? It's an absolute goldmine of data. Many public libraries carry it. Unfortunately, it's not online, so you have to search through it the old fashioned way - flipping pages. For about 2000 companies, each updated every three months on a rolling basis (each week, a particular group of stocks is updated), you get 15-20 years of financial data and some qualitative commentary on news and prospects. Very good stuff. You can calculate Intel's ROE, FCF, net margin, debt/equity, etc from 1983 if you want to! I track down promising companies online, then go copy their Value Line page at the library. They do have a website - and they sell a Windows CD-ROM with all the data on it. Pricey though, so I do it the hard way.<g> I'm going to go check out some of those links you suggested. Andrew

To: jbe who wrote (7)	10/26/1997 11:04:00 PM
From: Paul Senior	Respond to of 253

JBE: Thanks for info. re web sites. Looks to be very helpful. Paul Senior

To: jbe who wrote (7)	11/3/1997 10:58:00 PM
From: joeBlanc	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 253

Word of encouragement on "Free Cash Flow". There is at least one observer, myself, getting an education by reading your postings. It is helping to fill-in for my lack of knowledge in this area. Having been trained as an accountant, but not as a financial analyst, I do believe there is a great deal of merit to this concept which is not appreciated by most of the investing public. Accounting has taught me to have a long look at the balance sheet, but with off-balance sheet items now the norm, this critical financial statement is not as reliable. I would consider free-cash flow as an acid test for value investing. Keep up the great postings.