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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rik Forgo who wrote (1347)	2/11/1998 11:55:00 PM
From: ahhaha	Respond to of 29970

Depends on the company and the purpose of reading such financials. You may want to go short because you're bearish, so maybe you'll be looking at companies with highly leveraged balance sheets. In that case costs , both operating and debt, are of interest. You might be bullish and looking for a growth company, so you want a clean balance sheet, good margin or margin growth, and revenue growth at least 30% per annum. There are many other alternatives. If your question is motivated by what will appeal to the widest audience, then the four items you listed will do. But to differentiate your product from that of others, concentrate on revenue growth and change of revenue growth and costs and change of costs. Income statements and balance sheets are actually not of much value. The markets are very efficient and all of the document data is reflected in the current price. That data can be of value if deviations start cropping up. Usually that's in the price too. To succeed in investing, you have to be lucky and guess where the statement values will be going using your vision and insight. However, guessing or predicting earnings is as hard as predicting price. No one is consistently good at it. But everyone is good at understanding a good idea. Then all you have to do is buy and hold even though the gods tell you you're wrong.